Whirlpool Queen, Maelstrom King by cheshire_carroll

Summary:

Certain lives and certain deaths, they are significant enough that when souls pass over before their time, they are reborn into new worlds. Sansa remembering is an anomaly, but The North Remembers and Sansa is of the North; She Remembers.

Sansa thinks very little of this new world, or this new village she is meant to call 'home', but she does love her new brother, who shines so brightly the gods must surely have breathed star-fire into his bones when they created him. The first time Naruto tells her he will be Hokage, she does not doubt him– he was born to rule, just as she was. But Konoha does not deserve him, and she will not let them take and take until there is nothing left of her bright brother. She is Sansa Stark, she knows how to rebuild a home from ruins, and the ruins of Uzushiogakure call.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: OneChapter Text

ONE

In an enraged Kushina's opinion, if the masked bastard nin just absolutely had to infiltrate Konoha in order to release the demon-fox from its seal while she was giving birth, then the absolute very least he could have done was fucking wait until both fucking babies were out of her fucking womb before fucking attacking!

Another scream tore through her gritted teeth as a fresh wave of pain had her convulsing on the ground. The Kyuubi's chakra was flaring violently somewhere in the distance and she could hear the screams from the village all the way from this shitty cave where she was alone, surrounded by the bodies of dead ANBU and poor Biwako while trying to push a baby into the world. She barely knew any healing chakra, had never really needed to, not with the Kyuubi sealed inside her, but now the Kyuubi was gone and there was too much blood coming out of her, far too much blood, but no baby.

The next contraction had her screaming as it felt like she was being torn in half, the pain worse than any of the earlier ones. Worse than the pain of pushing the first baby out into the world. Worse than the pain when the bastard had ripped the Kyuubi out of her. Worse even then the absolute agony of seeing that masked nin hold a kunai to her newborn son's neck.

And now she could feel her second baby's chakra flickering unsteadily, the warm little hum that had grown inside her barely a candle flame compared to the bonfire it had been before. Her baby was dying inside her and Kushina was alone in the cave, lying in a pool of blood and listening to her ex-prisoner destroy the village her loved ones called home, knowing her husband would be fighting on the frontlines, not even knowing if her newborn son, her poor Naruto, was still alive.

It took her a few more useless contractions and just as useless attempts at pushing to realise that the pain was... ebbing. She couldn't feel her fingertips anymore– and she knew better than to think it was her Uzumaki healing factor finally coming into play. No, she was dying, dying here alone except for the tiny remnants of a chakra presence in her belly— and Kushina's heart stuttered when she noticed for the first time, in her confused daze, that the chakra presence of her second baby was gone.

She didn't hesitate. Not even for a second. She just grabbed the closest kunai and used it to slice open her stomach, barely even noticing the pain as she butchered herself to free her baby from the womb that was now killing it.

The baby was small and pale and silent as death, unlike Naruto who'd been born flushed strawberry-pink and squalling. As Kushina stared heartbroken at the still, silent baby, at her precious, beloved daughter, she realised that the red of the baby's hair wasn't blood. Her little girl had inherited the red hair of an Uzumaki, of the family that she'd loved and lost... and now here was another Uzumaki that she'd loved and lost.

No. No. She didn't accept it. She just couldn't. She wasn't losing another of her kin, she refused. "Live!" Kushina hissed, her voice cracking as she pressed her hand against her daughter's heart, gathering her strength to push all the chakra she could manage into her baby girl. "You are an Uzumaki! You are my daughter! Damnit, you are a survivor and you will live!"

And her daughter gasped, brilliant blue eyes bursting open, and Kushina couldn't help the fresh wave of tears. Relief turned her near-boneless as she collapsed back, holding her newborn daughter close to her heart as she lay dying in a mess of her own blood. But she could feel her baby's chakra again, could feel the bonfire of an Uzumaki, though it was chillier then she remembered, like ice so cold that it burned, and she knew her baby would live.

"My little princess," she whispered hoarsely to her daughter, her beautiful Uzumaki daughter, "my brave, strong girl." Her baby was gasping as if in shock, terrified little breaths torn from delicate little lungs, big blue eyes blinking up at her in frightened bewilderment. Kushina smiled brokenly back down at her through her tears, through the blood she could taste at the back of her throat, through the icy-cold touch of death creeping through her limbs.

"I'm so sorry I'm not going to be here for you," she said, forcing the words out despite her exhaustion. "I'm so sorry you're going to have to survive this cruel world without me. But you will survive it, because you are an Uzumaki... you and your brother, you will be the last Uzumaki. You are my children, you are the heirs of the Whirlpool.. and when I'm gone, you will be the last Princess of the Whirlpools.

"I wish I could be here to teach you what that means, to teach you what being an Uzumaki of Uzushiogakure means... I wish I could teach you our history, our customs... Konoha won't teach you, I know they won't," Kushina couldn't help her bitter laugh, or the bitter tears that came with it. "All they'll care about is your loyalty to their village, not a dead one that they failed and now do their best to forget in their shame. You and your brother, you will be the last of our clan, the last of the Uzumaki... the last to hold the ruling heart of Uzushio inside you. Don't lose that heart... no matter what happens, please don't lose that heart... you'll need to protect each other... love each other... because you'll be the last..."

Kushina finally fell silent in her grief, using the last of her rapidly fading strength to hold her daughter close. Her daughter... she and Minato had created a whole list of names when they realised she was pregnant, a list that had only grown when they realised she was expecting twins. Eventually, they'd settled on four names– two boy names and two girl names, so all their bases were covered. 

If there was only one boy, then they'd name him Naruto, after Jiraiya's novel (and a little bit after her favourite ramen topping, if she was being honest). If there were two boys, they'd name the second after her father, Arashi. If there was only one girl, then they'd planned to name her Kairi, after the last Uzukage, Kushina's beloved aunt. If there were two girls, then they'd name the second Miki, written as 'beautiful tree', in honor of Konoha, the village Minato loved (though she would have always imagined the kanji in her head as 'beautiful princess', because for all that she loved some of the people in Konoha, she could never quite forgive them for failing Uzushio).

Neither of those names were what Kushina said, however, as she changed the angle of her head slightly so she could brush her lips against her daughter's forehead, ignoring how her mouth left a wet, red smudge against the baby's wintry-pale skin. Instead, she found herself murmuring, "Fuyuko... your name is Uzumaki Fuyuko."

'Winter child'... she wasn't sure where it came from, maybe it was the icy touch of her daughter's chakra, or the snowy paleness to her skin, or even her deep blue eyes, like the freezing depths of the ocean in winter... whatever it was, wherever it had come from, it just sounded right.

"Fuyuko, my winter child," she murmured, and let her eyes close.

Despite her expectations, she didn't die then, but Kushina was correct in her grim certainty that she wouldn't survive to raise her children. But she did survive to hold the Kyuubi down, she did survive to tell her husband his daughter's name, she did survive to witness Minato seal the Yin and Yang halves of the demon-fox into her infant twins for the sake of a village she couldn't help but spend her last moments hating with every gods-be-damned fibre of her being, and she did survive to witness the strange look the Shinigami gave her newborn daughter before she finally succumbed to her wounds— it was almost as if, impossibly, the Death God had recognised her.