[OPEN / bodyswap event] so she said what's the problem baby

[ghostpepper]

Who: Gaara in Kushina's body, OPEN
Where: Konoha for the majority of the event.
When: March 6th
Notes: Tophie and Elle have switched journals for the event for ease of icons/ID! Missive thread included inside.

[ The actual switch goes far too smoothly - aching from a night spent out in the deep desert under the full moon, Gaara isn't anywhere near alert when he all but trips over a... he doesn't know, doesn't have time to know, because then there's a seal burning through his foot and he's suddenly... somewhere else.

And he feels fine. Better than fine, he's never felt so healthy in his life, even as he's staggering from someone running into him. That's the first red flag. Not the health, not the seething silence in the back of his mind where cursing and grit should be. The proximity. No one ever gets that close. What happened? He spins, trying to catch sight of the runner, promptly falls over in a whirl of red hair and hopelessly altered balance...

And the sand doesn't catch him.

Gaara hasn't screamed in real fear or real anger since he was thirteen years old, but he barely suppresses it now. Instead, he can't help the hiss-whimper of terror as he looks down at a body not his own, in a country not his own, and in the chambers of his - not his - mind, a creature stirs with too many tails and fur like fire. What happened, he repeats, and Shukaku doesn't hear him.

It takes him too long to reach the travel seal with this light body with reflexes and a ground-eating stride alien to him, and the passports this body is holding - and it's a real person, she's a real person, an Uzumaki - won't take him to Suna. "You're scheduled for Konoha," he's told, and goes through the seals with a dazed obedience.

And then, as he emerges into familiar streets to a chorus of 'Kushina-sama's from the attendant shinobi, he realises. If he's a real person, if he's been switched, rather than transformed and kidnapped, then his body is still back in the ranges north of Sunagakure with a semi-berserk bijuu draining it of chakra.

He has to find the Hokage. ]

[ OOC NOTE: As far as anyone can see, Kushina has returned a little early from a courier mission to north Tea country, and is making her way towards the Hokage tower. She looks unsteady and a little panicked, and flinches if people move too close to her. Have fun. ]

Comments

[sunshinenpcs]

[ Naruto had been listening out for the indignant shout of surprise and mirth in response to his attack, or even a skillful dodge and rebuttal to punish him for thinking he could have ever gotten away with tickling in his mom, so the noise he hears definitely isn't what he expects. He has no reason to doubt the woman before him, however, and even if he did he's much too excited to let suspicion slow him down. He's expecting the physical contact for sure (though it's a little softer than he'd presumed it would be) and he steels himself against it. He swerves, leaning backwards and springing forward again as though he were made of elastic and the force hadn't even touched him. He's so invested in assumption, in fact, that when his 'mother' stumbles over his name, he barely even notices. ] Eh? Is that all ya got? You're not that tired out from your mission, are you? C'mon, I can take it, y'know! [ His hands are outstretched again, and he leans in to make another attempt at tickling her sides. He'll never learn. ]