Starring:
Date: July 20, 2013
Summary:
Chitose winds up taking Sousa's place, literally. She doesn't enjoy it very much. :P
Poster's note: foul language filtered in obvious places.
"What If? Body Swap - Kazekage for a Day"
Sunagakure
Don't you just hate those days when you're assigned a D-rank mission, where you're supposed to deliver some thing to some dude in some place, and you take the thing, and you go to the place, and you show it to the dude, and he tells you to put it in some machine, and the second you do the machine grabs you, and it turns out the thing was a decoy, and the place is a secret laboratory, and the dude is the leader of your village in disguise set on poking around in your head? Yeah, Chitose's got a day like that in store for her.
"I realize you are probably experiencing panic due to the sudden and restrictive nature of your interfacing with the apparatus, but do try to relax," Sousa remarks as he lowers some sort of bowl-shaped metal thingamabob over Chitose's head. "That was merely necessary because of your psychological profile suggesting that you would be extremely unlikely to knowingly cooperate with the experiment. I can assure you that the chance of any harm befalling you during the procedure is below commonly accepted thresholds of scientific procedure, and we may even learn things that will ease your continued symbiosis with the chakra entity." Sousa pulls a similar thingamabob over his own head. "Are you ready to begin?"
Struggling for a little while, Chitose growls when she sees Sousa and then shakes her head, "What the flip, Sousa?" No, she isn't using appropriate terms when referring to her -Kage when her -Kage drags her into an experiment against her control. She stares at him for a long moment and then grinds her teeth, "I am not ready you old jerk!" She grinds her teeth a little before looking at her self as best she can and then up at the metal bowl, "And what do you think you're doing?"
Sousa jots something on a clipboard beside him. "'Subject is mentally unprepared for the procedure.' Noted. That could be very valuable data for comparison, once I find a few subjects who are willing participants." Sousa flips a switch, and the machine hums to life. "What I am doing, in theory, is creating an artificial neural link between our brains. This will allow me to study your mental processes, which I surmise may be different from a typical human's in subtle ways due to your symbiotic relationship. If we are lucky I may be able to — "
Just then there is a shower of sparks from inside the machine as a stray lizard wanders across two hot wires and shorts them out. *.* Everything seems to go dark for a moment, and when Sousa's senses return, he finds himself staring down at a pair of much slimmer arms which are currently locked into the machine. "Oh dear," 'he' remarks, looking around to see his body off to the side. "This is extremely inconvenient…though at the same time, quite fascinating."
A look at Sousa that is withering is the last look she gives him before she is him. She is disoriented to say the least. She staggers a step and stares down at herself before looking at her own body and then blinking a few times before pointing at him in her body and then looks around for a mirror before saying, "No, no no." She growls and in Sousa's voice and then walks around for a second, "You are staying chained up!" She points at him, "You will tell me how to fix this!" She declares and then looks down again, "Gah! This is so weird…and what…" She looks down a second and is about to reach between her legs before she stops and shakes her head, "No! Not even going to touch or look…just feels weird and that can just stay there."
Chi!Sousa raises an eyebrow. "A curiosity regarding anatomical features is quite normal, especially in children of your age group," she remarks. "Nevertheless, I suppose it would be more proprietous to avoid examination. Although, depending on how long this takes to fix, biological imperatives may make it a moot point." e.e Chi!Sousa taps a panel of the machine near the ground with her toe. It swings open, and she presses a button inside. The cuffs inside the machine release, and she withdraws her arm. "A useful principle of engineering is to install failsafes wherever feasible and desirable," she remarks, crouching down and pulling open another panel. "Failsafes which can defeat security measures are generally considered undesirable, of course, but considering the cuffs only need to hold the subject in place once and for a fairly short time period, I thought it worthwhile to include an escape mechanism."
"Oh, and should that thing inside of you want out with you only having my body to hold it back…are you prepared for that?" Sou!Chitose stares at the man in a girl's body. She then crosses her arms over her chest, "And I don't want to nor do I have a desire to see old man parts." She nods her head before looking around, "You screwed this up completely. You got into my head, that's for sure." She then turns and walks over to look at some of the stuff on the table before pointing at him, "And you had better fix this before biological needs arise." She nods her head, "And I mean soon."
Chi!Sousa peers into the inner workings of the machine. "Hmmm…aha, yes, this is likely the problem," she remarks. "This unfortunate reptile formed a temporary short in the circuit. It's possible we'll be able to reproduce the effect, but I'll need a component to cross the wires…something with a fuse would be best, I should think." Chi!Sousa stands up. "We shall have to collect the necessary part and tools from my workshop. The process will likely go smoothest if you can convince the guards that you are me, I mean really me." Chi!Sousa heads out the door of the laboratory. "Regarding your bijuu, that is a legitimate concern. Should you have any advice for containing him, that would be much appreciated. Although actually, I would also regard this as a fantastic opportunity to open a dialog with him, if such is possible." Chi!Sousa focuses inward as she strolls down the street, trying to sense the bijuu.
Staring at the not her person, she growls, "Don't." She waves a hand, "He will know it isn't me and it is you. He will hate you." She nods her head, "He is very angry at being trapped so and is a very serious individual. Haughty and narcissistic." She nods her head and then looks over at the area ahead, "And I'll just move past the guard without even talking to him or her." She nods her head, "They wish to question me and they will get glared at." She nods her head, "They will know better than to not allow me to past." She then grimaces, "And this voice…this whole thing feels wrong." She nods her head, "Your whole body feels wrong and empty."
Chi!Sousa sighs through her nose. "If you insist. I suspect your perception of the bijuu may be biased by your antagonistic relationship, but I suppose it is not worth the potential risk to attempt communication." Chi!Sousa waggles a finger at Sou!Chitose. "That plan has a rather low likelihood of success. I am known to be an aloof individual, but rarely hostile. Furthermore, the guards are trained to be suspicious of any unusual behavior. It's quite common for an enemy ninja to employ all manner of disguise techniques, after all." Chi!Sousa taps her chin thoughtfully. "I wonder…perhaps we should simply transform to our usual appearances? They may be able to discern the technique being used, but the acting would be far easier because it would hardly be an act. Alternatively…I wonder if you would be capable of performing genjutsu at anything near my level of expertise whilst in my body?" e.ea
"I don't want to do anything with or in yoru body!" He declares. Sou!Chitose stares at her own body and points a finger, "You have caused this and you will fix it." She ndos her head and then squints and leans forward to stare at her, "Or I will find a way to transform this body till I finally do have my body back no matter what modifications it takes." She makes snipping motions with her fingers and then looks forward, "I'm sure in your laboratory I will eventually find any number of ways to make necessary alterations." She nods and then taps her chin, "And why do I have a sudden need to experiment on this body." She slaps her hands to her male face and shakes her head, "NO! I am getting your impulses!"
Chi!Sousa raises an eyebrow. "Certainly I shall, presuming it is feasible. The modifications you are proposing as an alternative are far more unlikely. At best, you might manage (with immense instruction) to artificially alter your physiology to have certain female features, but we are quite a ways from being able to completely change a person's gender, let alone their age." e.e Chi!Sousa stops walking. "We are about to come within sight of the workshop. As you are the one upon whom our charade will depend most heavily, I shall leave the method to what you feel most capable of. Please make your decision now, and we shall proceed."
A smirk and she turns to face Sousa with her arms crossed, "For one, I think both methods are stupid."S he nods her head and then points, "Both those guards know you. I know you." She nods her head, "This whole damned village knows you." She nods her head, "And we all know one thing all too clearly." She then turns and starts walking toward the workshop, "Now, simply follow my lead and I will deal with this."
Chi!Sousa smirks in return. "Your confidence is most reassuring." As they approach the workshop, the guards on duty come to attention. "Kazekage-sama, we weren't expecting you today," one of them remarks. "Could we confirm your identity by prints, please?" The other guard pulls out an inkpad and a scroll and holds them out to Sou!Chitose.
Walking up, Sou!Chitose merely nods and then states, "You can but there's a problem." She then frowns deeply and points at Chitose, "That's Sousa." She nods her head and then points at herself, "I'm Chitose." She then looks over at Chi!Sousa directly, glaring, "Our oh so intelligent Kazekage thought that by capturing me and putting me through one of his experiments he could understand how my brain works." She then looks at the workshop and thumbs back, "Instead, he got into my head completely and kicked me into his." He nods before frowning, "Now we need parts from his workshop in order to fix what the oh so smart Kazekage here thought would be such a brilliant plan."
The guards stare quizzically at Sou!Chitose, then Chi!Sousa. Chi!Sousa rolls her eyes. "Alternatively," she remarks, "this could be one of Sousa-sama's psychological experiments, to observe your reaction to a bizarre situation. Perhaps combined with a test of your performance." e.e The first guard furrows his brow, then shakes his head convulsively. "Just…get the prints," he mutters. "I'll make sure nothing shady happens inside." The second guard gets Sou!Chitose's prints, and sure enough, they check out. Since fingerprints are pretty hard to reproduce accurately even by advanced ninja techniques, they're given access to the workshop. "I'll have to reassign them later," Chi!Sousa remarks as they walk in. "They'd be second-guessing themselves every time I came by now."
Once inside, Chi!Sousa easily locates the tools and parts needed, which doesn't cause any alarm bells for the guard since they aren't anything really rare and haven't been assembled into one of the Kazekage's brainchildren. Chi!Sousa and Sou!Chitose depart and head back toward the secret lab. "Are you certain you wouldn't prefer to remain this way for a while?" Chi!Sousa asks. "The transferal process might be made safer if I could study it and experiment on animals for a while, and there are fascinating possibilities to look into in the meantime."
"Oh sure, I want to be a crazy old man for a few days and let you run around experimenting on my body while I deal with whatever weird old factors come up with this body." She nods and then shakes her head and shudders, "I don't want to deal with any of this." She then glares at Sousa in her body, "And I surely don't want you to have any sort of access to my body any longer than I have to let you have it." She nods her head. S he then looks forward and frowns, "Lord knows what additions you'd make or what yo might take away while you have it…"
Chi!Sousa chuckles. "As you wish. We shall simply have to hope that reproducing the approximate conditions will reproduce the effect." Once in the laboratory, Chi!Sousa rigs a switch and a fuse between the two wires which were shorted earlier. Once the preparations are complete, she directs Sou!Chitose to put the brain-helmet on again and pulls her own into place. She flips the switch to turn on the machine, holding in her other hand another switch which trails a wire down into the machine. Focusing, she tries to reproduce as closely as possible the timing of the incident…the switch is flipped, the sparks fly, and everything goes dark!
A moment later, the real Sousa pushes the brain-helmet back up. "Hmmm. Everything seems to have returned to its natural state." He crouches down and starts pulling the extra rigging out of his machine. "Trial successful. Now, I don't suppose you'd be willing to participate in the original experiment?" ;)
"No." Chitose states with a frown and then turns her attention to the door before back at Sousa, "I will have you know I will never want to be in any of your experiments again." She then twitches and checks herself for all her parts and pieces and then sighs with relief, "I'm just happy that I don't have to deal with your weird body again." She shakes visibly, "Crazy old kage."
