sunshineverse | [open] I fell into a burning ring of fire

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[open] I fell into a burning ring of fire

Who: Kushina (in Gaara's body) and you
When: March... 6th, I think. Also open to March 7th
Where: Sunagakure, will also have option for Konohagakure
Notes: Tophie and Elle swapped accounts for the body swap thingy, some options for meeting Kushina-as-Gaara below.

Suna

Kushina was not a happy camper. One minute, she was on her mission and someone bumped into her. The next... She was surrounded by desert, feeling like utter rubbish, and immediately hit with a feeling that something was very wrong. Not only was she not supposed to be anywhere near Wind Country, but there was a very different presence within her. She knew her seal inside and out and whatever was on her now wasn't right. This wasn't hers and neither was the tailed beast that she had a very, very long and heated conversation with before heading for the village.

It was taking some adjustment to walk with this new body, but the looks she was getting from the villagers when they didn't scurry off in another direction were downright unnerving and pissed her off. Which led her to yell at anyone who stared too long. And hearing a young man's voice instead of her own come out when she opened 'her' mouth was really weird. At least the yelling made them stop staring in a hurry.

She needed to find this guy's passport and get to Konoha as fast as possible and find out what was going on. And she wasn't about to let anyone or anything stop her. Not a desert full of sand, not a fucking raccoon demon with one tail, and certainly not the odd dense weight that she could feel covering the body she inhabited.

...But who the hell was she?

Konoha

Things were going marginally better, given the circumstances. But she was still pretty grumpy. With a little help, she managed to make her bid for freedom to the nearest travel seal. On her trip back home, she mostly debated what to do first. Finding her body and demanding answers with whoever stole it from her seemed like a solid course of action. Though making a beeline for Obito's office to explain as best she could and make him believe her story should be her first priority.

Even if she wasn't getting the same looks here as she had in Suna, it was taking some restraint not to stop and say hi to anyone she recognized. She could catch up with friends and make excuses for any odd behavior when she figured out how to get back in her own body and thoroughly punish whoever did this to her. But first, her mind was finally made up. She had to find Obito.

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Minato had heard that Kushina was on her way back later than he'd expected. Even if it had been years since he'd been Hokage, there were still some small things that were jarring on occasion, such as not being the first report when it came to his wife's whereabouts and status. Not that he was worried Kushina couldn't handle herself -- in this current climate, he was somewhat more concerned about anyone who thought she couldn't -- but because it was nice to fill a kettle with water and set out a few sachets of her favourite tea.

That, and to warn Naruto to clean his room before his mother could see it. Those tasks done, Minato had headed to the Hokage's office to meet his wife in an unhurried fashion, hoping to arrive just as she was finished giving her report.

What he walked into in the Tower was not what he expected. From all appearances, it looked as if his wife was menacing the youngest son of the sitting Kazekage, the line of her back definitely set at an angry angle and the boy's body language matching. With Obito nowhere in sight to defuse the situation, Minato hurried forward from the door, stepping up next to Kushina and leaning in to plant what was hopefully a calming welcome-home kiss on her lips.

"It's good to see you back," he said, and turning to the boy: "And it's good to see you're visiting us again, Gaara-kun."

"Nothing," he growled back. So Kankuro and Temari had smuggled his body out of the village. That was in the lowest stages of his imagined worst case scenarios, so he felt more justified in diverting his attention entirely to raising his hackles at her tone. He hadn't done anything-- apart from counter an assault from her son, put her through a medical examination, and trigger several village failsafes on the way. Hardly worth mentioning.

The attention diversion was a mistake, in retrospect, because when the Fourth Hokage swept into the room, he didn't remember whose body he was inhabiting in time to do much more than blink once before-- well. The strangled noise he made in answer to the greeting - both parts of it - could almost be a word, if that word was equal parts shock and pure rage.

Just as he didn't think she needed to know about his escapades, she wasn't sharing hers. But he'd been in her body for... Who knew how long. And she was calling bullshit on his answer. Before she could start in on him though, Minato appeared. Her expression softened and she nearly forgot she wasn't in her own body when a hand started to reach up for him. But he kept going to her body, clearly intending to do what he did best before actually saying hello: buffer her temper.

In the same moment she felt her heart pang at the utter weirdness of the situation, she caught the sound and it shouldn't have made her want to laugh. It really shouldn't. He was going to know something was up very soon, and he really should know that while he thought he was kissing his wife, he technically wasn't.

And if he tried kissing her body again, she might be forced to snap her body's neck.

"Actually... There's something you should know. I know this is going to be hard to believe, but I- uh... Your wife's not really in that body. Try asking something only I-uh-she would know."

Remembering she was in someone else's body was hard work...

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."

"Sabaku no Gaara," he said, as calmly as he could when all he wanted was to exsanguinate the arm holding him in place. Or maybe the entirety of the Fourth Hokage, just to be sure. Or the contents of the Hokage Tower, to remove witnesses. He finished, "Kushina-san is in mine," with a bland look at the kunoichi in question. He wasn't in the mood for pronoun games between a married couple.

"How do you want me to prove it?"

She had to pout and fold her arms when Gaara refused to play along. It was the only spark of fun she would've been able to have and he ruined it. What a party pooper.

"Okay, yeah fine. It's me, the one and only Kushina Uzumaki, in here. I don't know how he can get you to prove yourself, unless there's something about your body that you would know and I can confirm. But Minato, you could ask me anything only I would know. I mean, we've only known each other since we were like eight."

The owner of the body across from them and his wife, switched. It wasn't impossible, theoretically; the Yamanaka had been displacing consciousnesses for a long time, it was unreasonable to assume nobody else had tried. But to put people into other bodies ... that was a possibility with a great deal of danger attached to it.

Minato's arm stayed exactly where it was, a friendly hold on his wife to any passerby who might come through the area, threatening to the person feeling it.

He could prove his wife's identity, but Konoha had no tested way to prove the person in her body calling himself Sabaku no Gaara was indeed who he said he was. Appealing to Suna could only invite political disaster; this was exactly why Minato had been glad to retire and pass the job on to his student.

"Very well," he said, nodding at Gaara's body. "Then prove yourself, please. How would Kushina show me she was who she said she was?"

A slight smile appeared when he agreed to her plan.

"I'd say what we agreed on when I started taking missions again in case of any emergencies to root out an imposter. I could tell you that I kissed you first. Or that I remember you crying a little after I brought our son into the world. But one thing I'll never forget is what you said the night you saved me all those years ago. You came after me because it had been different from my other fights, it had been a conflict between two villages and you didn't want to lose me. And you found the trail I left behind because you thought my hair was beautiful and you noticed it right away. It's no wonder now that you couldn't keep your eyes off me, no matter how many times I yelled at you for staring or following me around, y'know. But after that, you were my best friend and I loved you. And I knew you loved me too and that I could be happy for the rest of my life, even as a jinchuuriki."

As she spoke, her smile had grown and softened as she kept her eyes on her husband. It had taken a lot of restraint not to reach out and touch him, even something gentle and reassuring to his shoulder or arm or face. Even if her hands had twitched a few times before resettling at her sides.

"Do you believe I am who I say I am, Minato?"

Almost more than the words spoken, the way Kushina chose to identify herself made it obvious that she was indeed who she claimed to be. Any piece of information she'd given, taken separately, might have been known or deduced by an exceedingly careful observer, but put together -- and with her phrasing -- it made Minato's face relax into a warm smile.

It was still extremely strange to see it coming out of Gaara's face, which made it easier to resist the urge to reach out and embrace her, but he saw the movement of the boy's arms and understood the sentiment.

"I do," he said, gentle, before his smile turned a little rueful. "But I won't greet you as I did Gaara-kun, if that's alright. Which --" He turned to the person claiming to be Gaara, contrite: "I apologise, Gaara-kun. I hope you weren't too alarmed."

He also hoped that wasn't the boy's first kiss.

There was only so well you could take an apology like that when you were still vaguely planning to debone the guy's arm like a fish. He shrugged as well as he could with aforementioned arm still pressing down on his shoulders, and murmured a short,

"It's fine."

It wasn't, but not for the reasons Minato was thinking of. One day someone would think to explain the concept of the 'first kiss' to Gaara and he'd look at them like they'd lost their minds. He might briefly remember this moment, but only with a faint, residual irritation and an echo of the sharp fear from having some invade his personal space with nothing he could do to prevent it. Besides, he was more preoccupied staring at his body's clothing.

"Kushina-san, is there still a piece of flower pot in your top-left pocket?" Knocking over one of his favourite desk plants had been the trigger for heading to North Suna, after all. If she hadn't changed, the fragment would still be there from his haphazard cleaning. An easier way of proving his identity than contacting his siblings again.

Her own smile went wistful before nodding, if with a touch of reluctance.

"I understand, but there's always later, Minato. After we figure out how to reverse this."

Without even thinking, she shot him a wink and grinned until Gaara's question registered.

"Flower pot? Uh..." She reached up to pat at the pockets until she found the right one and withdrew the fragment. "Huh, I didn't notice that before. What are you doing carrying this around?"

Ah, it didn't sound like 'Gaara-kun' meant his words any more deeply than skin-deep. Or, if Minato remembered correctly, sand-shell-deep, which sand shell was on Kushina rather than its rightful owner. It made sense, of course, that the boy would be tense.

Knowing that Kushina's ... soul? mind? was in Gaara's body made it easier to read the expressions on a face that had always been rather flat. There was a smile that was familiar, even with the pale dark-rimmed eyes. And there was genuine surprise in her tone when she retrieved the small piece of pottery, and though it was far from an ironclad evidence, they wouldn't get anywhere with continued suspicion out in the open like this. Minato dropped his arm from his wife's body and stepped away, smiling at Gaara-in-Kushina now.

"I understand, Gaara-kun," he said, in what he hoped was a placating tone. "You'll forgive me if I wanted some certainty. Now, shall we talk about how this happened?"

There was certainly later. Gaara looked between them with no small amount of suspicion - not the previous kind, but more as if they were about to start something bothersome involving his body. When they seemed to have settled down, he nodded.

"A clone ambushed me this morning. It came from below, struck my foot, and then I was outside a shrine in Tea Country, in this body. Another clone had just knocked into Kushina-san, but it was dispelled after the collision."

He likely had the least experience with this kind of attack, being neither an ambush expert nor a sealing one, so he glanced to Kushina for her to continue.

Kushina nodded as her story agreed and took up a bit even after the sudden change.

"I thought I just tripped over something as I was passing a shrine. But next thing I knew, a clone was dispelled and I felt sicker and more tired than I'd ever been, surrounded with sand and with a splitting headache too. Then I got into Suna where everyone started staring or walking away. And the ones that stared walked off in a hurry after I yelled at them. Except for your brother who put me in a puppet. Got to meet your sister too. Finally kinda met Kazue - you remember Kiyoko, Minato? that's her daughter - and... I saw a side of the Kazekage that really rubbed me the wrong way. He's lucky I was trapped in that puppet or I probably would've tried strangling him."

Mentioning Gaara's dad and remembering even the short moment got her temper up a little if her hands balling into fists were any indication. Or the way her eyes narrowed.

If there had been any doubt remaining about who was whom, the stories confirmed it; the version of events from Kushina was half as long and twice as succinct as anything she'd ever said, and Gaara's voice came out of his body sounding like it was reluctant to be used as much as it had been. But more concerning than the switch -- as concerning as it was, because among other things, Minato was sincerely hoping to not be married to the Kazekage's youngest child -- was the fact that someone had managed to get the jump on two dangerous shinobi.

The last piece of Kushina's story had him lifting a hand to cover one of those fists on instinct, a habitual calming gesture.

"The greater concern right now is whether there is any additional damage," he said. "I expect you've told Obito-kun what's going on, or will soon?"

"The sickness was due to the full moon yesterday," he thought to point out. "It wasn't an effect of the seal."

As far as he was concerned, Kushina should know that from dealing with the Nine-tails, but perhaps her seals suppressed that aspect. Or maybe Shukaku was just a temperamental creature, as always. He also wondered, more strongly than usual, why and how a leader of Uzushiogakure knew Kazue. "If the Kazekage didn't notice, then the damage to Suna is minimal."

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[open] I fell into a burning ring of fire

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i'm going to sink into the floor i'm so embarrassed for minato

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SORRY IM HERE