Mare - Full Summary:

Shukaku's last ditch effort to escape the Gedo Mazo has unexpected consequences for his former container. Two years before the end of the Second Shinobi World War, the med-nin in charge of the Iwa Hospital's maternity ward makes a mistake. Instead of Han, a newly reincarnated Gaara becomes the Gobi's prison.

A quiet, sickly child, his physical limitations preclude a shinobi career. Nevertheless, Iwa is pushing for a weapon, so young Ono Eiko/Gaara is sent to train with the Priestess of the Uma-Gami (Horse God) shrine. Gaara learns to harness the Gobi's purified essence in order to heal injuries and harm those with hostile intent.

Ten years later, with the Third Shinobi War growing fiercer the Tsuchikage moves to recall his jinchuuriki but an unexpected attack on the shrine gives Gaara the perfect excuse to slip away and avoid taking part in a war between his former home and his new one. He leaves leaves Tsuchi-no-Kuni and travels to the only constantly neutral country, the Land of Iron.

After the war's end, while travelling to the Land of Rivers, he offers his services as a skilled miko to a group of peace-loving Ame shinobi who want to bring back hope to their impoverished, war-ravaged country. What happens when, years later, he realizes that his longtime companions are the founding members of the Akatsuki?


Story Type: series of FlashFics (300-1000 words)

Rating: M, for violence and adult themes

Table of Contents:

Chapters 1-10: Arc I, Tsuchi

Chapters 11-19: Arc II, Tetsu

Chapters 20-N: Arc III, Ame


Chapter 1: There's No Escape, Not in This Life, Not in the Next (word count: 492)

With Madara's foul chains wrapped around his and his elder brothers' necks, Shukaku became truly afraid - the same mind-numbing fear he had experienced upon feeling the unknown enemies forcefully rip him from an unconscious Gaara, tearing into his essence with burning claws of malicious will.

This desperation and not any conscious thought prompted him to try and return to the only physical form his chakra recognized as 'home' - aside from the chakra construct that allowed his current physical manifestation - the young Kazekage's body. His failing will battled the Uchiha's, as both tore at the Tailed-Beast's chakra. Supported by the Gedo Mazo and his own visual prowess, Madara was slowly winning the tug of war.

So, in terror, Shukaku made a dangerous gamble. He began destroying his current physical construct and gathering the freed chakra for a reversal spell. In essence, the panicking Ichibi was trying to undo the effect of time on the separation between Gaara's soul and his own. In actuality, with all of his enormous chakra bent to the task, Shukaku installed his soul in Gaara's human body and sent Gaara's soul careening through time to the nearest body bonding to a Tailed-Beast's chakra, three-day old Ono Eiko, the mistaken jinchuuriki of Kokuo, the Gobi.


Harumi had been pulling her third eight-hour shift at the hospital when two harried nurses came bearing four sleeping children.

'Maeda-sensei wanted them moved out of the third ward. Something about someone spilling a couple of vials of our Cre12 near the ward. They sealed the area but all of the babies need to be checked for any signs of contact with the compound. Left one's Onishi Han. Right one's Ono Eiko. This one's Ishii Ren and that's Yamashita Kagome. Get them settled here, an ANBU will come for Onishi later.'

Harumi gestured towards the cots at the back of the room.

'Set them down there, I have to get a pick-me-up before dealing with them.' Without waiting for a reply, the doctor left for the coffee machine.

Ten minutes and two coffee cups later, the weary doctor returned to her duties. She carefully examined each child but after finishing her task, in the process of re-attaching their name tags, allowed herself to zone out.


For Gaara, reality rewrote itself in an instant of darkness, shapelessness and pain. In one minute he was on the battlefield, tired and bloody, making and discarding assault scenarios against Uchiha Madara; a moment later his body had stopped responding to his commands, his eyesight had gone blurry and there was the sense of an alien presence at the back of his mind, a sense that Gaara had long ago come to associate with Shukaku's demented, blood-thirsty being.

He hadn't even begun to transition from confusion to alarm when he heard a door being slammed somewhere nearby and a hysterical voice scream

'You idiot, stop the sealing, Bear picked up the wrong brat!'


AN for those who read the last note from Tsubaki of the Pen: This is what became of 'Eiko Does the Elemental Nations'. This story was supposed to be smut... but plot happened. And plot kept happening until it overcame the smut, beat it bloody and sent it crying in a corner. I have about 20-30 chapters' worth of plot (in FlashFic terms) begging to be written so instead of explicit-romance with some plot, it will be an adventure story with some explicit romance. I hope you will still enjoy it.