It took a split second to realise that something was very wrong -- there were times when Kushina was angry, to be sure, and times when she was really angry, but she never radiated the kind of unbridled fury that was coming from her now. There was nothing he could sense about her that was different otherwise, her chakra familiar and the details of her too good to be even the best of henges, so when Gaara spoke, the conciliatory smile on Minato's face vanished.

"Not in her body," he repeated, carefully keeping his voice even. He'd been in the middle of moving to put an arm around his wife -- and he completed the movement now, but the grip on her shoulder was steely rather than welcoming, clearly telegraphing that no sudden movements should be made.

"I see I've walked in on a situation I wasn't aware of," he said, glancing between Gaara -- or whoever was in Gaara's body, perhaps -- and Kushina's body expectantly. "Let's introduce ourselves, first, and then get to proving we are who we say we are."