From: Ferail Slade
Subject: ch 3
To: "shaddow assasin"
Date: Monday, September 21, 2009, 3:29 PM

i think its okay

Hybrid Ch. 3: training day.

By: Ferail

Author's notes: I only played the beginning of the game so I don't really know much about it if you see any flaws point them out.

Disclaimer: If you had the same idea at some point in time, or even part of the idea, just assume it's yours and that I'm not claiming credit for it. Now we can all move on with our lives.

"Hello, Bing Bing delivery service" talking

"Duck, flapjack, firehouse, swimming pool, dill pickle, I like tacos, mackerel" thinking

"hallo Billy Rae innut here right nuw may I be taking a massage for him" writing

"I'D LIKE THREE LARGE PEPERONNI PIZZAS PLEASE" demon speaking

"I ATE YOUR SHORTS" DEMON THINKING

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Everybody thank my BETA shadowassasin for the prompt return of this chapter, say hi shadow… God dammit shadow say something….

SHADOWASSASIN: hi

Looks like he's feeling a little shy. Anyway I saw something recently and I thought it was a good idea, I'm going to promote stories I read a liked right up here. Starting off I'm going to recommend pretty much anything princess Alexandria wrote, be warned though it's almost exclusively femslash (Yuri). Good stuff though.

There is nothing to winning, really. That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever. – Alfred Hitchcock _________________________________________________________________

He had finally managed to talk the one eyed pervert into teleporting him back to his apartment, and it had only taken another six minutes of whining about how it was all his fault. The newly instated gennin grinned to himself, that had gone perfectly; no one suspected a thing about his newest capabilities. He giggled slightly as he congratulated himself on his marvelous acting skills, before he settled into his room to wait. He remembered another facet of his reconstructed body from Mercer's life time, he no longer needed to sleep or eat, he'd in essence just gained about nine hours in his day, maybe a little more if you took into account all the little inanities like showering and brushing his teeth.

The problem really lied in finding something to do with his new free time without anyone becoming suspicious. He could practice some of his body's new abilities and try and think up new ones, at least the ones that he could mess with inside, but that could only occupy so much time and it was more of a work in progress he would continue until the day he died, or whatever happened to beings like him when they ceased to exist. Elemental manipulation wasn't something he wanted to fiddle with in his apartment, and he'd have to stay there for at least seven hours in case anyone was watching his home.

He decided to spend his first night of insomnia into a sort of planning night for the next few weeks; after all there really wasn't much else he could do at the moment. Turning to the barren bookcase the boy grabbed an unused notebook and began scribbling things down, most would have to wait till morning like buying more books or a video game system, but some he could do right then and there like planning out a schedule for training in his 'bloodline' and anything else he could think of. He also wrote down a few experiments to try at his soonest convenience, Mercer had never really had time to experiment with his abilities, the orange wearing gennin's curiosity drove him to know more about the limitations of his power.

He glanced at a clock as he filled the thirtieth page of the note book with theories, ideas, questions, and possible ways to alleviate his soon to be nightly boredom; it was barely two in the morning, meaning he had at least three hours to kill before he could even pretend like he was an early riser…Fucking great. Closing the book for now, he climbed to his feet, his slightly lengthened hair spilling over his false headband he was suddenly struck by inspiration. The tendrils that engulfed him whenever he changed rapidly from one form to another, maybe he could do something more with those, he could change his arms into weapons and had recently managed to throw a piece of his shifted body around like a demented shuriken, why shouldn't he be able to control the tentacles.

He moved the large bathroom mirror that had once been over the sink into the living room, the large piece of glass had come off the wall one day after it rained, apparently his part of the building had busted roofing and the rain had rotted away at the drywall holding the heavy piece of reflective glass in place. He'd been seven at the time and nearly crushed when the cheap mirror had fallen while he was washing his hands. Dismissing the bizarre (possibly intentional) accident (2) from his mind the young shape shifter sat down once more, this time facing the mirror. He concentrated on the tendrils, that slight warm rubbery feel as they slid along his skin warping and twisting whatever they touched, he could feel his cells shifting at his thoughts pushing through the skin in long black and red tendrils waggling through the air as they extended themselves. It was odd, this feeling, the extra limbs forming out of his body, the original virus had never tried anything like this and Naruto could understand why as he felt another quartet of tentacles emerging just along where his spine should have been, it was disconcerting growing extra limbs.

None of the beings they had absorbed had any experience with how the slimy looking appendage moved or how to direct more than four limbs. Turning to his reflection the only Uzumaki in Konoha noted the multitude of six foot protrusions extending themselves from his skin at odd intervals waving about without direction. Deciding to start of smaller, and hopefully more controllable, the blonde virus pulled on the cells making up the vast majority of the tendrils back within himself, noting the disorientation that came with creating an extra limb and then dismissing them. The two remaining tentacles were based on his upper back between his shoulder blades but slightly to the side of his spine, directly in the forehead of the demonic image he had created on his jacket giving them the strange appearance of horns/antenna, he had shortened them to barely three foot in length, trying to get a feel for his new appendages.

They were odd to control, slightly different from an arm, but not so much that it was impossible for him to understand. Within an hour he had gained a degree of control over them similar to his original arms, he even managed to use one to write out a quick message at one point to check their dexterity. He'd found the new appendages had a great deal of flexibility as he had managed to somehow tie the left one into a knot, shifting the incapacitated tendril into its old shape with a thought the former jinchuruki considered his inhuman additions. They just didn't seem to fit in with the established transformations, while they were inhuman and frightening it they just felt as if they needed something.

He shifted a tentacle forward slightly noticing how it stretched slightly and snapped it down like a whip cracking the air. Looking at it he finally saw what was missing, this weapon wasn't cruel looking enough, even made of his grayish skin they lacked the demonic edge of his other weapons. The multi eyed blonde decided to add that hint of cruelty to the whip like limbs, trying to maintain that same level of dexterity and usefulness.

An hour and a half later he had finally managed to give his weapons the same monstrous feel as his others, though he was slightly more proud of this one since he had created it on his own, more so than even the flail, which was just a combination of preexisting mutations. They were still around three feet long, but the overall shape and appearance had changed drastically. Where there had once been smooth gray flesh there was now an overlapping set of chitinous armor segmented to allow for maximum flexibility. The ends had blunted and expanded from their previously pointed appearance allowing for the addition of the slavering mouth at the end, it was about three inches deep and contained a single black worm like tongue as well as three sets of overlapping razor sharp teeth, as well as a set of three spine like protrusions from the 'chin'. On either side of the mouth there were a set of pupil-less red eyes that faintly glowed in the pitiful lighting that managed to make its way into his apartment from the street lights outside. Along the edge of his newest appendages, from the crown of their heads until they disappeared into his shirt there were a multitude of two and a half inch gray spines that seemed to shiver in satisfaction as he forced the creature like extension of himself forward examining its reflection through the functional eyes he had thought to add near the end.

Satisfied with his work for the moment he dismissed the dark snake like limbs and examined the clock once more, four thirty….'eh close enough' he thought to himself as he headed for the door, snagging the notebook off the table as he went, 'maybe I can get a training ground to myself this early'. That would actually be pretty nice and he desperately needed privacy for a few of the ideas he had written down earlier that morning, playing around with your physiology on a regular basis to form grotesque parodies of limbs and weaponry wasn't exactly something everyone could stomach. Leaving his hood back to enjoy the sunrise better the shape shifting shinobi exited into the glorious predawn.

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'Okay so there are people in this village more disturbing than me'

The blue eyed virus had the distinct 'pleasure' of greeting the "YOUTHFUL GREEN BEAST AND HIS MOST GLORIOUS STUDENT IN THE YOUTHFUL WAYS" as he headed towards what he had thought was a normally unused training ground. At first he had only paid the barest amount of attention to the two blurs of forest green that were approaching him at a breakneck pace, thinking it was just a pair of jonin coming in from a black ops mission or something. That is until he had begun to hear them, they were shouting to the heavens about the glories of youth and he was guessing hair care products as he got a better look at them.

The two green blurs were actually two near identical ninja, one being about a foot and a half shorter than the other giving the blond former prankster the unpleasant image that these two might be father and son ('who in their right mind allowed that to BREED'). The identical ninja's wore skin tight forest green body suits that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, ('OH DEAR GOD MY EYES, ALL EIGHT OF THEM'), their lower legs were incased in bright orange leg warmers similar in coloration to his old jumpsuit, their headbands tied around their waists simulating a belt, ('WHY THE HELL DO THEY NEED A BELT WITH CLOTHES THAT TIGHT, SOMEONE TAKE OUT MY EYES). Even their distinctive facial features greatly resembled one another, the massive caterpillar like eyebrows, (mercer examined them from within his host's mind and wondered if it was possible for someone's eyebrows to consume their face.) their identically shined bowl cuts seemed to sparkle in the early morning light. The only real differences he could spot from across the quickly diminishing distance were that the smaller one wore bandages on his hand and the older one had a jonin's flak jacket.

As the distance continued closing he began to make out their facial features, the small one who was currently extolling the virtues of "YOUTHFUL TRAINING AND MISSIONS IN THE EARLY MORNING, YOSH, " had slightly less masculine features as well as the oddest pair of bug eyes the unhooded nin had ever seen. They both carried half filled trash bags and pick pokers (1) impaling pieces of detritus as they raced along the empty streets. When they were nearly five feet away they seemed to skid to a halt turning to face him, eyes alight with some strange fire.

"LOOK LEE, ANOTHER WHO WISHES TO STOKE HIS ROARING FLAMES OF YOUTH BY TRAINING ON THIS GLORIOUS MORN!!!!!!" said the larger of the two green psychopaths as he gazed at the currently stunned young gennin. He was sure that if he had ear drums they would have ruptured, and he was currently wondering if he should have worn his hood up to hide his headband, maybe these two fruitcakes wouldn't have noticed him if they thought he was a civilian. His attention was so transfixed on the two green monstrosities before him he almost didn't notice as the pair of what he assumed to be young women approached, though on closer inspection the long haired gennin appeared to be a BOY, wow shocker.

The one on the left dressed himself in an off-white blouse…I mean button up shirt and deep blue, bordering on black, shorts. His shinobi sandals were standard, as was the headband adorning his forehead, the only real deviation lay in the long hair that reached down to his mid back where it was gathered into what looked like a hair band and the bandages covering his forelimbs on the rights side of his body. Naruto briefly wondered if the boy was blind as he looked through the eyes on his shoulder at the pupil-less orbs before 'remembering' from Zabuza's memories that those distinctive eyes belonged to a member of the Hyuuga clan and were the hallmark of the families doujutsu, now that he thought about it he remembered someone from his class had eyes like that as well, maybe they were related. The tomboyish girl following on the left had her hair pinned up into two mouse ear like buns on the top of her head with a pair of hair bands, her chocolate brown eyes inspecting the leather wearing ninja being talked at by her sensei. Her pink Chinese style blouse accentuated her developing curves while maintaining modesty, her baggy black cargo pants jingling slightly as she jogged along stabbing at stray pieces of trash that her exuberant teammates missed. 'Hey she's kinda cute' he thought to himself, Mercer felt himself grinning devilishly as that thought ran through the former Jinchuruki's head, there was so much potential to fuck with the kid's head right there.

"YOSH, GAI SENSEI, I SEE THE WONDERFUL POWERS OF YOUTH BURN BRIGHT WITHIN HIM, I WILL STRIVE TO MATCH OUR WONDERFUL COMRADES YOUTHFUL FIRES, AND IF I CANNOT DO THAT I SHALL-" unable to take any more the thuggish gennin had enhanced his musculature underneath his clothing and slammed his muscle mass enhanced fist into the screaming boys face, cutting him off quite rudely.

Seeing the stunned look on the older man's face he knew he had made a mistake, but he thought he might be able to play into the odd jonin's delusions here to get himself out of trouble, "I'M DEEPLY SORRY GAI SENSEI, BUT YOUR MAGNIFICENT DISPLAY OF YOUTHFULNESS HAS BROUGHT MY OWN FLAMES OF YOUTH UP INTO A ROARING BLAZE OF YOUTHFUL FIRE THAT I HAD HOPED TO EXPRESS IN A YOUTHFUL SPARING MATCH, IN MY EXUBERANCE I FORGOT TO ISSUE THE FORMAL CHALLENGE!!!!!" he screamed, forcing down the mass of bile from his nonexistent digestive tract, hoping against hope that the bushy browed jonin would accept the flimsy excuse, he really didn't want to test himself against an unknown jonin without at least some form of back up or something. He might be able to take him, but he would have to expose abilities that he was hoping to keep secret for at least a little longer. The two normal seeming gennin were staring at the blonde as if he had grown a second head that immediately started singing show tunes.

"YOSH, OF COURSE WE UNDERSTAND, SUCH YOUTHFULLNESS MUST BE CELEBRATED, DON'T YOU AGREE GAI-SENSEI" yelled the gennin he had believed completely incapacitated, there was more to this green buffoon than he had thought. "I ACCEPT YOUR CHALLENGE, MIGHT I INQUIRE AS TO THE NAME OF MY MOST GRACIOUS SPARING PARTNER ON THIS MOST YOUTHFUL MORN!!" he screamed once more earning him a few shouts of "BE QUIET" and "SHUT THE FUCK UP" from various villagers throughout the hidden city.

"My name is Naruto Uzumaki," he said in a more normal voice, he didn't think he could maintain that level of stupidity the entire time he was around the two odd shinobi. He hadn't expected for the elder ninja to immediately recognize his name and respond with an even brighter smile than before. If he'd had veins he was sure they would have been pumping ice as the nearly six foot green jonin raced forward and struck a pose, his right arm out with his thumb extended. The man's inhumanely white teeth sparkling in the breaking dawn. As Naruto took in the extremely creepy pose he could only wonder one thing, "is this guy a member of the torture and interrogation division?"

The crazed jonin's voice dropped down to almost tolerable levels as he began his next impassioned speech, "AHA, yes. You are one of my hip rival's youthful pupils. Allow me to introduce my most youthful team, I am Maito Gai the GREEN BEAST OF KONHA" His teeth seemed to sparkle even brighter, if such a thing was possible, "You have already met my student in the ways of hard work and taijutsu ROCK LEE THE AZURE BEAST", ("YOSH GAI SENSEI"), "My teams most youthful kunoichi TEN TEN" Trying to act like he hadn't been expecting the green man to say he had two kunoichi on his team Naruto looked at the teams last member once again wondering if he had been born with a stick up his ass or if he had fallen on a rake as a child "and my last student the youthful NEJI HYUGA" the long haired boy seemed unfazed by his tutor's exuberance as he bellowed out his name. "Kakashi-san and I have a most youthful rivalry that has lasted throughout the years, currently the score stands at 50-50 (3) dead even between the two of us." The blue eyed metamorph was busy wondering what kind of rivalry his calm collected and overall lazy sensei could have with the overenthusiastic green jonin before him, he doubted his sensei would even show up to his opposite numbers challenge. "He has spoken of your most recent mission when I met him last evening, such an explosion of youthfulness from one so young. "

The moment the bushy browed sensei had mentioned that Naruto was one of his rival's students the younger of the green duo had seemed to gain the same fire in his eyes from before, "YOSH, Gai-sensei, it looks as though I too may have found a rival. Who better than one trained by my own sensei's rival? YOSH!!!" Now Naruto was wondering to himself just what he had gotten himself into. He had no time to wonder as the bug eyed gennin had grabbed him by the arm, and, not giving him a moment to protest, the boy had dashed away dragging him off to the nearest training ground.

The bushy browed boy's teammates gave a long suffering sigh as they grabbed his discarded tools and followed along behind their overenthusiastic sensei. They briefly wondered if the strange thuggish gennin would be okay, well the weapon obsessed teen was worried the long haired bloodline user was extremely apathetic towards the hood wearing teen's plight, merely wondering how much of his day would be taken up by his teammates nonsense. Coming upon the clearing where the loud gennin had dragged the newcomer they saw the two staring each other down from opposite ends of the training field, the darker boy's hood up shadowing his face from view.

The slightly crazed jonin took in his 'most precious pupil's' stance and couldn't help the slight grin that appeared on his features, the boy had fallen into a perfect Goken stance, one hand extended forward not quite in a fist yet but ready to fold in on itself in an instant to maximize the power of his strikes. His right foot extended slightly, both knees bent just so to allow for conservation of energy and maximum mobility, as his left hand curled into a fist behind his back, for additional balance and to prepare for a powerful combo he had just perfected the week before. Nodding at his most enthusiastic student's form he turned to take a better look at the stance of his rival's pupil, only to receive the shock of his life.

The boy had taken up a stance he could not define, Konohagakure's premier taijutsu expert could not even begin to guess what had influenced the strange boy's style from the opening stance alone, but what was contained within that stance was enough to amaze the relatively young jonin. He could detect bits and pieces of twenty different styles of martial arts he knew as well as at least a dozen he couldn't place, though most were only beginner level with a few intermediate and advanced level influences as well. Where had his rival's student picked up such an array of close combat styles, it seemed impossible for even a prodigy of Itachi Uchiha's stature or even his own glorious companion in the wondrous joys of hard work could learn as many style's as this boy seemed to know and incorporate them into a single cohesive stance.

As the young man settled into his odd mishmash of seemingly incompatible styles his most devout student shot off his end of the field leaving small craters in the ground as he covered the distance in an instant smashing his bandaged fist into the metamorph's cheek, sending him careening into a tree on the outer edges of the clearing. The boy looked slightly shocked and apologetic as his sensei's eyes widended slightly, had he misjudged the boy's fighting skills? The young girl looked slightly horrified while the raven tressed Hyuga simply looked on as apathetic as before.

"#cough#, Good one Lee." Came the slightly winded voice from within the cloud of dust the boy's impact had generated, surprising almost everyone in the clearing while reaffirming the green jonin's interest in the young man, not many could withstand that kind of force and still be conscious afterwards, maybe this boy had been trying out a new stance at the beginning and had thought to see how the hybrid style faired in actual combat. Now that he had seen that he couldn't take his student lightly maybe the enigmatic blonde would use one of the many styles that had been incorporated into the strange stance or switch over to a different style of fighting he had more skill in. "Didn't quite expect to meet someone who could move at those speeds among my peers, interesting."

He stepped through the clouds of billowing sawdust revealing himself to be completely unharmed, not even his clothing was scuffed or torn in the slightest, "This will be most…educational" he mused to himself before he seemed to explode into action. As Lee had done before him he rushed forward with a speed that matched, or possibly even exceeded, the young taijutsu user's own as he closed the distance in an instant, his arms bursting into streamers of red and black as he went swelling and maiming his flesh until the boys arms were hardly recognizable. If Lee had been stunned before at the young infected's speed he was paralyzed in shock at this point. The bulging gray flesh seemed to ripple with restrained violence within the body builder sized muscles he had gained in a manner of seconds, the inhuman limbs were further weaponized by the strange extended elbows designed for smashing and cutting. None of those present had ever seen any technique even close to the odd transformation that seemed to fade into the boy's jacket, and were caught completely flat footed as the gobsmacked Lee was smashed head first into one of the old pine trees surrounding the clearing.

"Come on Lee, the party has just gotten started," the transformed blonde shouted as he raced towards the other teen's location, ignoring the startled looks on team 9's face's. His inhuman dash landed him in front of the dazed gennin just in time to receive a powerful kick on his enhanced arms. Using the younger boy's arms as a pivot the older gennin flipped over his arms bringing his other heel down on the blonde's skull with bone jarring force. Rolling with the elder boys attack the shape shifting teen swung his own heel up into the bug eyed boy's face stunning him momentarily. He recovered in an instant bringing his hands together in an overhand smash that sent the younger gennin crashing into the hard packed dirt. He leapt away to the upper branches of one of the surrounding trees, trying to put some distance between himself and the seemingly inhuman boy.

Pushing himself back onto his feet the sentient virus flipped into the air, his right arm erupting into those horrifying tendrils from before, twisting and mutating flesh leaving the boys right arm into the jagged spines and entangled roots that were the hallmark of the whip fist. Swinging the strange limb forward the whole of team gai was once again rendered speechless as the strange limb stretched the thirty feet between them easily gripping hold of Gai jr's arm before using it as leverage to yank himself up into the miniature green beast. The jutting bone that had extended from his left elbow slicing slightly above the older boys eye before he brought his other hand around as it swelled back into the body builder esque muscle mass and grabbing his bushy browed opponent by the face he dropped back down to the forest floor slamming the bandaged gennin into a limb about six feet off the ground.

Slightly winded the mini-gai clone swung off the branch slamming his feet into the blonde's face, sending him carrening into another tree. Ducking under the follow up Naruto jabbed the odd boy in the chin stunning him momentarily, he followed up with a debilitating elbow to the solar plexus that left the other boy winded and staggering his boney extensions nearly cracking several. Closing the distance Naruto didn't expect the older boy to slam his head into his own momentarily disorientating them both once more, however the infected teen recovered first.

Spotting his opening the blonde kage to be pushed forward sending his unenhanced sparring partner skidding away as one of his gorillaish arm slammed into his guts. He was understandably caught flat footed by his opponent's inhuman recovery time as the older teen dashed back at him smacking into his unguarded midsection with several punishing blows that brought the newly created virus to his knees. The green gennin didn't let up though smashing his knee into the blonde boy's chin sending him careening towards another tree, at least it would have if the boys back had not erupted into the inhumanely quick tentdrils from before, except this time instead of reshaping existing limbs the slithering tentacles seemed to be forming a new set of limbs all together. The tendrils spun themselves together into two massive six foot tentacles (4) that grabbed the other youth's arms to arrest the blonde student's momentum.

With a great heave the blonde boy used his frightening new limbs to yank the older boy off the ground and slam him into another of the trees surrounding the clearing, sending up a shower of splinters throughout the cratered glade as the older boy impacted with bone shattering force. Feeling someone grab onto the tentacles before he could retract them the blonde virus prepared to fling the fashion impaired boy through another tree to end the match, only to see the elder of the two imbeciles holding the groaning boy by his shoulder, smiling that same sparkling smile from earlier that morning. His battered student standing next to him, several scratches and tears in his spandex body suit but he could tell that it was only superficial damage, the worst injury the boy was sporting seemed to be the cut above his right eye where he had been grazed by Naruto's muscle mass enhanced elbows, which surprised the young metamorph more than he cared to admit. With all the powerful blows and unexpected flights across the clearing he had expected the boy to at least have a few budding bruises, but he seemed nearly unscathed and was still smiling that disturbing grin he had sported when he had first met the odd duo around half an hour ago. Slightly perturbed the tentacle gennin slithered his new appendage out of the green jonin's grasp, but Gai didn't seem to even notice.

"YOSH, Gai-sensei his flames of youth burn most brightly indeed." Said the catipillar browed student as he faced his sparring partner once more, "YOSH, his style and techniques are like nothing I have ever seen before, truly he must be another student of hard work as well." He said, shining rivers of tears flowing down his face as he raced towards his unwilling opponent. "YOSH… IT SEEMS I HAVE FINALLY FOUND SOMEONE WORTHY OF BECOMING MY ETERNAL RIVAL." The Uzumaki youth hadn't really understood much of that, but he did get the general idea that he would be seeing the two fruitcakes and their team members a lot more often than he necessarily wanted, though in the kunoichi's case he might make an exception if she had a personality, he really didn't know yet as he had only spoken with the two green nuts in front of him.

"YES. I BELIEVE YOU ARE CORRECT MY STUDENT, THIS MOST YOUTHFUL SPARRING MATCH. NARUTO-KUN WHAT WERE THOSE STRANGE TRANSFORMATION TECHNIQUES YOU USED AGAINST MY MOST YOUTHFUL LEE-KUN. THEY WERE A YOUTHFUL EXPLOSION THE LIKE OF WHICH I HAVE ONLY SEEN IN MY OWN STUDENTS." Screamed the taller of the two green suited nightmares, directing his sparkly eyed stare onto the decidedly uncomfortable gennin. Pulling his hood back down Naruto rehearsed his cover story to himself once more before smiling his best grin, consciously changing his teeth to resemble Zabuza's shark like teeth as he exposed them and chomping them once before reverting them back to their only slightly pointed state.

"It's not really a technique," he said causing even the apathetic Hyuuga to lean forward slightly while worrying the jolly green giant of a jonin, "it's been classified as a newly discovered bloodline, I unlocked it in our last mission when we met an A-Class missing nin, actually I was out this morning to get some practice in with it to find out some of the limits and how I could use it in an actual fight. Thanks for that by the way Lee-san, I still have a lot of work to do figuring it out and that battle was most informative." The formerly exuberant boy had seemed to sag slightly when his sparring partner was revealed to be another bloodline user, but he had perked up quite a bit when the thuggish boy complimented him.

"So what exactly is your bloodline, I've never heard of anything like what we saw earlier," said the formerly silent Neji as he gazed at the odd gennin with an unwavering stare.

"Not really sure yet, so far I only know a few basics about it," lied the amalgamation of flesh and knowledge, "I have extremely rapid healing, I was sliced in half on our last mission and I don't even have a scar," he said watching the team's only female member pale slightly before looking at him oddly, "I can pretty much control my body to the extent of forcing mutations," here his arm shifted again, bursting into the familiar tentacles before dispercing to reveal the two feet of blade and corrupted flesh that had once been his arm "and even create new limbs." The tentacles from before waving around slightly as if to emphasize his point, he thought the males might have gotten that last bit, but the teams bun haired female still seemed amazed at the transformed flesh, bone and steel that had been an arm. And were those sparkles in her eyes?

Shifting his arm back into the less conspicuous human hands he dusted himself off before smiling brightly at the eccentric team he had met by accident. "I'm sure you guys have stuff of your own to do today, and I was hoping to get some solo practice in myself today before I have to meet my sensei." The blond hybrid said stretching his shoulders slightly, "so I guess I'll see you guys around, yeah? "

"OH MOST CERTAINLY, COME LEE, WE MUST NOT DISTURB A COMRADES YOUTHFUL TRAINING." Flashing his teeth once again the tights wearing jonin retrieved his pick poker and trash bag from his other team members, "YOSH, we will complete our glorious D-rank mission before six AM or I shall climb the Hokage monument 10,000 times without chakra or my arms and with one foot tied to my back." He dashed off with his protégé in hot pursuit along with the rest of his team moving at a more sedate pace, leaving one perplexed gennin with the distinct impression that he now understood why kids hadn't liked him in the academy, if he was anything like those two he was surprised none of the other students had actually stabbed him.

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Deciding that the demolished training ground he was in would do for the moment, the newly minted gennin settled himself down on the grass to practice some of the abilities he had absorbed from Haku and Zabuza. The hooded boy decided he had enough close range abilities to last him quite some time, but he was extremely lacking in the jutsu/long range department so he would endeavor to understand Haku's bloodline and see what he was capable of with it. Zabuza had a very basic understanding of how the young girls bloodline had worked before their death, it was basically nature manitpulation and combination of the two basic forces of wind and water on a near instinctual level with a great deal of control needed to form shapes like she had done with the mirrors and senbon, though he did remember seeing a few beginner techniques that did not have strict control requirements.

That's about the point when Naruto realized he really couldn't use the current clearing, it may have been too demolished for most people to even contemplate using, but there was no ready source of water available to practice the techniques. He could attempt to pull the water out of the air, and it would be good practice, but he felt he needed a base line for the techniques before he started experimenting with new ways to use them. After all before now he had always had Mercer's insights and understanding of his powers to lean on when he was using his 'bloodline' but this was mostly unmapped territory. With that in mind the young hybrid set off in search of a new training ground, hopefully with a river or some kind of water source readily available.

Perfect, after nearly an hour of searching he had found a semi-secluded clearing that met his criteria. Surrounded by foliage, off the beaten path, under maintained meaning few people ever came here, with a natural spring about twenty feet in diameter at its widest point that seemed to be fed by an underground aquifer. Standing at the edge of the shallow pool, it couldn't have been more than six feet deep, he began slowly trying to coax the water in the pool to move upward using water nature as he remembered seeing Haku do. However he had overestimated how much energy the beginner exercise required and wound up sending the water rocketing upward in a six foot tall column of liquid. 'this is going to be tougher than I thought'

Nearly an hour into the training and the former demon container had finally managed to gain a level of control over the water that would have put Zabuza to shame, though to be fair he was drawing upon the demon of the hidden mist's own abilities and observations as well as a bloodline users natural ability to manipulate the element. Deeming himself ready for the next step the boy began concentrating on adding the second element, and found himself surprised at how easily it melded together with the water nature, too easily. Before he even had time to realize what he had done the six inch sphere of water had frozen solid…and exploded. Shards of needle like ice flinging outward and freezing everything within a foot of their resting places, including Naruto's entire left arm.

Groaning to himself the hybrid realized exactly what had happened, when he had added too much wind chakra he had chilled it unevenly and too quickly, sure water could be frozen quickly like he had seen on the bridge, but it had to be done evenly and could not be made too cold or what happened here would happen everytime he tried to use it. The spheres outer shell had frozen first and had not been able to stand up to the expanding ice within it when the wind nature penetrated the sphere further causing it to explode, and it froze everything because he had overpowered it with the super dense wind nature that he hadn't had much practice with, though Zabuza had had a minor wind affinity he had preferred to use water techniques and hadn't really tried anything with wind in years.

Falling back onto the patch of unfrozen ground behind him he examined his frozen limb, he couldn't feel it at all. The cells inside the icy prison were probably already dead, the water inside them crystallized and puncturing their fragile insides, great now he had to collect more biomass, sure he could dip into his vast stores and create a new limb, but he preferred to save that for mid battle regeneration if he could. It was always safer to walk into a battle on a full tank. Sighing disgustedly to himself the blond metamorph smashed the fragile arm pop on a nearby rock shattering it into millions of pieces. Lying back on the grass he began formulating plans to gather more biomass without drawing attention to himself when he felt something odd from the stump where his arm would have met his shoulder. Looking over at the jagged break he was only slightly shocked to see several tendrils flailing about, seemingly at random. But his interest was quickly piqued as he felt his arm regrowing without depleting his internal stores.

Looking at the writhing tendrils more closely he couldn't help but laugh as he felt the rearranging cellular structure he normally got after absorbing something without the accompanying memories, his tentacles were absorbing the grass. "Seems my body instinctually knows more than I do." He giggled to himself, it seemed that as long as it was or had been living at one point he could absorb it, this opened up so many possibilities. Stretching his newly reformed arm, he couldn't help but notice something…it was green. That would make it extremely difficult to hide, immediately after he thought that the arm shifted its pigmentation slowly fading back to his normal hue. He could feel the foreign DNA flowing through his cells, being incorporated into every fiber of his being. Though as the odd pigmentation disappeared a constant flow of energy he hadn't even noticed before seemed to disappear with it. For some reason he had felt more alive with the sun beating down on his oddly hued flesh.

Deciding to experiment with the odd sensation the transformed teen shifted the hue of his arm once more to the deep forest green it had been mere moments before. Within seconds he felt a steady stream of energy flowing through him from his arm, odd, he seemed to have gained something from absorbing the plants…chlorophyll if his memories were correct. The blue eyed former demon container could not contain his grin, this opened up so many possibilities. He would have to look into taking walks through the forest to find potentially useful modifications, maybe he would find a book on flora and fauna around Konoha and see if they had anything that he might find useful.

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Within an hour of discovering the recent addition to his body the blonde hybrid had designed a rather basic use for it, enhancing his already impressive stamina. He'd even found a way to use the skill unobtrusively, the leather jacket that had once adorned his shoulders was gone and his hoodie had changed quite a bit. Whereas before it had been a simple dark grey sweatshirt, it was now a deep green, almost the same color as Gai and Lee's jumpsuits. Stitched into the back of his 'new' clothing was an enormous bloodshot eye running vertically up and down his spine, people might begin to take notice of the demonic face on his jacket if it was on every piece of his clothing and that would not do at all. Taking up residence on his shoulder blades was what appeared to be a pair of Kunai cases, they served no real purpose, but they would force potential foes to underestimate him and assume that those were where he would be forced to retrieve his weapons from. The front of the teens new hood had a large pocket at a little above the waist, (5) again it served no true purpose, but he might distract an enemy for an instant and he might just start keeping scrolls or a book in it for those long stretches of boredom after a D-rank or whenever the mood struck him.

Deciding he found his new look satisfactory the blond looked up at the sun as it rose above the horizon, 'little after seven then, I could go collect my pay from our 'C-rank' and head over to the book store or something, training grounds are about to get really crowded soon. Though I will have to remember this place for early morning training. I can probably finish up before Kakashi usually has us meet .' desperate to relieve the boredom he would feel later that evening the low ranked shonobi left the partially frozen clearing, unaware of crimson eyes watching him with no small amount of envy and disgust.

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Yeah I wanted to get the first encounter with Gaara in here, but it just got too long and I was already late so I thought I might as well give you what I have and get it and the first exam in next chappie.

Oh yeah, do you guys think I should add some omake's to the end of my stories. I was thinking about on I wanted to do recently about ninja's in physics class, tell me what you think.

1)I don't know what they're really called, but there those things you use to pick up trash so you don't have to bend down and pick it up. 2) just noticed that, purposeful accident hehehe 3) anybody else think the fight between sasuke and Lee at the chunnin exams was when Gai claimed his victory, I dunno I thought it was something like a win for my student against your student is a win for me. I dunno just a thought. 4) not the scary form he spent the night making but the original forms, seemed to work better there, and he probably wants to keep something that freakish in reserve. 5) the waist is where your belt is supposed to go on your pants to me, not sure if that's correct though