The Child of Prophecy

Chapter 4

"Naruto-chan! How ya been, my boy?" the frog named Pa asked.

"I've been great Pa-sama!" Naruto responded as he entered Mount Myoboku to begin his fifth month of Rinnegan training. Naruto was extremely busy perfecting his paths, which thankfully didn't take away from his missions with his Chunnin squad.

The squad didn't have any more close calls like the mission where Naruto first awakened his Deva Path, something that they were all thankful for. Since Naruto started his training, he has unlocked two more paths that he has almost mastered. The Preta Path, and the Animal Path. There were no difficulties with the Preta path, but the Animal Path came with some problems. Because the Animal Path allowed the user to Summon any type of animal and control it entirely, the toads had Naruto swear to never Summon them with the Rinnegan and bind them to his will. With the regular Toad Summoning Contract, Naruto could Summon every toad from Mount Myoboku, but if he used the Animal Path the toads would be artificial and slave-like, something the Toads forbid.

While Naruto was training at Mount Myoboku, Itachi used his time to research extensively on the Mangekyo Sharingan. What he found out allured him, and repulsed him. The powers that he could gain would be amazing, the Mangekyo Sharingan gave it's users either Amaterasu(Black Flames from the Sun God), Tsukuyomi(Ultimate Genjutsu from the Goddess of the Moon), Susano'o(Shield), Kamui(Teleportation to the Other Realm), Izanagi (Escape Destiny), and Izanami (Lock Destiny). But the drawbacks were equally as terrible. The first drawback was that, in order to awaken the Mangekyo, one must kill their closest friend. The second drawback was that the moment the Mangekyo is awakened, the user begins to go blind and becomes extremely sick. Itachi was sure that by replacing the user's blind eyes with another's would reverse the effects, however, only one person in the Uchiha clan had the Mangekyo awakened at this time, Shisui. Itachi resolved to asking Shisui more about this advanced eye technique.

Back to Mount Myoboku, Naruto was busy dodging left and right, trying to stay alive while Ma and Pa threw ninjutsu after ninjutsu at his. Because they were both elder toad sages, they had plenty of Chakra to spare for atacks against Naruto. Naruto was actually flying ontop of a Summoned Bird, while simultaneously dodging ninjutsu and defending from Jiraiya's taijutsu. From an objective standpoint, he was doing something akin to Jonin level training, but because he was the fortold Child of Prophecy who contained the legendary Rinnegan, he had to get strong quickly in order to protect the world from whatever was coming. A savior didn't awake unless an equally powerful enemy was on the horizon.

Naruto was brought out of his thoughts by a sudden need to duck extremely fast, and he was not a second too soon. Jiraiya's leg flashed right over his head, with enough force to send him flying for a couple kilometers. Instead, he ducked under it and retaliated with a punch to Jiraiya's chest, which was deftly blocked. Unfortunately for Jiaraiya, Naruto grabbed ahold of his arm and began sucking away his Chakra, courtesy of the Preta Path. Soon enough, Jiraiya was forced to jump away or risk losing the fight against an eight year old. Even though this eight-year old was powerful, he still was only a kid and losing to him would be humiliating.

Just as they regained their bearings, an alarm clock rung, signaling the end of the fight, and the training for the day. With a curt goodbye, Jiraiya and Naruto went back to Konoha for Naruto to go to bed and for Jiraiya to head out on another long term mission. Naruto had become a master in three paths, and was learning a fourth, so they could take a break since the last few were border-line inhuman. Naruto had no interest in Summoning the King of Hell, or ripping out people's souls, so he was content with learning just combat paths. With that final thought, Naruto joined his family for dinner before heading off to see Itachi for their evening training.

When Naruto got to the training ground, he knew something was wrong. Itachi was running late, and he never was late. Naruto used his Preta Path to feel all the Chakra around him and located Itachi's, with a sudden Quick Step he was gone.

Naruto was flying through the tree's far faster than usual because he sensed something wrong with Itachi's Chakra flow, like he was having an internal turmoil. Not soon enough, Naruto was standing behind Itachi, the latter looking off the side of a waterfall sadly. Burning black flames danced all around, and the smell of burning bodies assaulted Naruto's olfactory sense.

"Itachi, what's wrong?" Naruto asked.

"Shisui, my closest cousin in the Uchiha Clan, killed himself. He said that a man named Danzo had poisoned him and tried to take his Mangekyo Sharingan, he fled to here but was followed by Danzo's men; he died soon after I arrived. When I saw him die like that, I don't know, everything got all hazy and my eyes started burning. Before I knew it, Danzo's men were all burning and my eye started bleeding. I awakened the Magekyo." When Itachi said that, he turned around to face Naruto, his eyes morphing into a pin wheel shape.

"Itachi, I'm so sorry about your loss." Naruto said with his head down low.

"Naruto, I'm going to need your help." Itachi said before removing Shisui's eyes.

"Itachi, what are you doing!?" Naruto yelled.

"Listen Naruto, even though this incident is horrendous, there is a shinning light behind it all. The one thing Shisui said to me before he died was that he knew Danzo would harvest his eyes, so he wanted me to protect them. Here comes the other part. When someone awakens the eye that I just did, they are able to become much more powerful at a high cost, blindness and sickness. I will be able to cancel this effect by replacing my failing eyes with Shisui's, and then we will keep my old eyes safe, in case Sasuke may need them one day. I need you to help me remove my current ones and help me transfuse the new ones in."

"Itachi, I'm not a medical shinobi, I know nothing about transplanting eyes!" Naruto said.

"With the Sharingan, all I'll need is the right amount of Chakra and the rest will heal itself. With your eyes, I'm sure you'll be able to control the right amount."

"Well, I still don't know about this, but you're my best friend and I do this one favor. Tell me what to do."

And with that statement, the two began the tedious process of transplanting Shisui's eyes into Itachi. Naruto was the one doing most of the work since Itachi was writhing in pain on the ground. Eventually, both eyes were implanted without any mistakes. Naruto wrapped a roll of bandages around Itachi's eyes to stop the bleeding and to help him keep them closed for 24 hours, which was how long they would take before they were safe to open. Even though, Itachi couldn't use any form of the Sharingan for an entire day after that.

Naruto knew that Itachi would have some trouble at his house, so he invited him back to his. Itachi sent a note to his house letting his family know where he was going to be sleeping, and the duo set off for the Namikaze estate.

There was a bit of a problem explaining to Naruto's parents about what happened with Shisui and Itachi's eyes, but eventually the two were allowed to go to bed, it had been a long day for both of them.

When Naruto awoke, he went over and helped Itachi out of bed and helped him walk to the kitchen. In the kitchen was a medical ninja who healed Itachi's eyes enough so he could open them, but he was still forbidden from using the Sharingan for awhile. The group of four sat down and had breakfast, with Minato and Kushina asking about Itachi. They wanted to know who was the person that Naruto had become best friends with. After a while, Minato asked a question that the two eight-year olds had been thinking about for the last couple months.

"By the way you two, a group of ANBU reported to me this morning that they were going to begin recruiting a few new members. If you two are interested, they had mentioned both of you by name. The ANBU registration is located in room 107 in the Hokage Tower, and they will expecting you in an hour. If you have no desire to become ANBU, then don't show up. But if you do, then this will be your only chance since ANBU don't send out personal invitations twice."

"Sweet! We can join already!?" Naruto excitedly jumped around while Itachi meerly smiled at the achievement of being requested personally to join.

"It appears that you two will be there then. Well I wish you good luck, the ANBU can be unforgiving to those who are unprepared." Minato said before he went off to the Hokage Tower to resume to resume his constant battle against the bane of all Kage's: paperwork. Kushina, on the other hand, got ready to go train her group of genin for the day. None of them were extremely special, but it gave Kushina something to do during the day since both of her boys were out.

Speaking of one of her boys, Naruto had left along with Itachi to get ready for the ANBU, and to also tell their Chuunin Squad of their change. Mesuri was of course fine with it, she had seen many groups of teammates soar to higher ranks without her and merely congratulated them before walking away to get a new team. Anko, on the other hand, was really sad about them leaving her and made them promise to contact her at least once a week, she then left to find Mesuri and her new squadmates.

The duo continued onward to the Hokage Tower at a slow pace, with Itachi's eyes getting better with every step. Eventually, they arrived outside of room 107, and proceeded to knock. Instead of someone answering, the door flashed open and two senbon were thrown at their heads. Itachi was able to angle his forehead protector downwards to deflect the senbon, while Naruto was quick enough to catch it out of thin air. Itachi would have been able to do that if he had the Sharingan, but of course he couldn't use it right now.

The two settled in a defense stance, expecting another attack;however, they received applause instead. Suddenly, lights flickered on and the room was illuminated to reveal a masked female sitting on top of a desk. They also were able to see a small pile of blood on the floor right where they were standing. Upon looking to their left, they could make out the form of a medical ninja.

"Well done new recruits, you passed the first test." The woman on the desk said with no hint of emotion, like the entirety of the ANBU.

Once they relaxed, Naruto and Itachi realized what was going on. This was a test to see cautiousness and quick reflexes. The ones who failed were healed by the medic ninja and sent away. It appeared that they had passed well enough, Itachi slightly grumpy that he didn't have the Sharingan to be as fast as Naruto, who used his Rinnegan hidden under a genjutsu to slow the senbon with gravity before plucking it out of the air.

"Do not relax just yet. There are two more tests for you two to pass before you can become a member." The ANBU female said before signaling them to go into a connected room where three other people were. They took their seat near the middle but close enough to an exit should this be another test. Two people in the room with them looked like they were Jonin already, while the third looked only a few years older than them. His hair was a bright white color and was spiked up to the left a little. Naruto recognized him as Kakashi instantly and offered him a small wave. Kakashi was sitting at the front of the room on top of a desk, while the four of them were sitting in chairs facing him. It appeared he would be the leader for the next test.

An hour slowly rolled by as five more recruits entered the room, but they could tell from the sound of screams that many more were being declined entrance. The five recruits that entered were also much older than Naruto and Itachi. The majority of the people in the room with Naruto were in their early thirties, with Naruto and Itachi at 8 and Kakashi at 13. Soon enough, there was a single loud knock on the door, and Kakashi began explaining the second test.

"We will only be taking four recruits to the next test, so that means that five of you will not be passing this one. The first test measures reflexes and how cautious you are, and this test is a bit different. If the first test is a defensive one, then this one would be considered it's opposite. To put it simply, this is a race combined with intelligence gathering. You have two hours to make it into the hidden ANBU headquarters. We will only be accepting the first four participants, so you might wanna hurry. And by the way, the test started five minutes ago."

As soon as he said that, seven of the nine recruits leapt out the window in order to locate the ANBU base. Although, Naruto and Itachi stayed behind because Itachi had a hunch.

"I do wonder why you two stayed behind, perhaps you are going to tell me that you give up, but because I know both of you I doubt that would ever happen. So why are you still here?" Kakashi asked.

"Well, to put it simply, why go hunt down the information outside when all the information we need is right here. You are in ANBU, and therefore you know exactly where the base is." Itachi said

"While you are correct, I will not simply tell you as it would be considered cheating. If that is all-" Before he could move, Naruto had already grabbed him in a full nelson.

"Wow, excellent movement. Very good job restraining me, but a quick substitution will still get me ou-" Once again, he was stopped. But not by any kind of attack, rather, he was stopped because Naruto was using his Preta Path to control the Chakra within Kakashi and rstrain him internally from using a substitution jutsu, while at the same time sucking away most of his Chakra. Before long, Kakashi was on one knee panting from losing so much Chakra in such a short time. He had wasted so much trying to escape, but that only cost him in the end.

"Itachi." Naruto panted. His Preta Path took a lot out of him and Kakashi was extremely strong.

Kakashi looked up in Itachi's eyes expecting an attack; although, he was witniss to a spinning Sharingan before he fell into a trance. Itachi didn't have enough strength in his eyes to tame Kakashi, but thankfully Naruto was there to subdue Kakashi's attempts at breaking out of the genjutsu. Kakashi answered them after one question and they took him to the hospital before heading under the Hokage Monument. It was fitting that the symbol of the Hidden Leaf protected the base that protected it.

When they arrived, they were second after a man who looked like he barely did any work to get here. Upon asking him, they learned that he had a brother who was in ANBU and he followed him here. Kinda lame, because of the lack of effort, but Naruto kept his mouth shut.

The last man finally showed up and he looked a little worse for wear. He explained that he had fought an ANBU and lost, he was then taken here for questioning and upon explaining his predicament, they escorted him here. Pretty ingenious if Naruto had to say any thing about it, if not a tad too much.

"Welcome, you four, to the final test to see who is worthy to become ANBU. You four will be taken into separate rooms where your test will be given. None of your tests will be the same, as the final test is given personally to make you combat the thing which is the most ill-suited thing for you. Your nemisis will be your opponent and the odds will be stacked against you to see if you can overcome any odds. All four of you could pass, or only three, or two, or one, or none of you. Itachi Uchiha, you are in the room to the south, Naruto Namikaze, you are in the room to the North, Wasabi, you are in the room to the East, and finally Nadu, you are to the West. Go there and you will begin the final test.

Itachi entered his room and immediately he was forced to fight an opponent who attacked him head on. The enemy wore nothing that could be used for identification, so Itachi had no way of knowing what this attacker was capable of. With a sudden burst of speed, Itachi was hit hard in the chest; however, the Itachi that was hit turned into a murder of crows and flocked the assailant. But before Itachi could use this diversion to his advantage, a strong wave of water struck against him and sent him flying but otherwise unhurt. Itachi was confused with the attack, as he had never seen the handseals and was confused why the attack was water. It appeared that Itachi's nemesis was not having enough information about the attacker because he was unable to form strategies. Unlike Naruto, he was a long term thinker who weighed the odds and picked the best option, but in the heat of battle, he was just not able to take the time to form a strategy. The fight lasted a few more moments before each fighter stood at opposite ends of the arena, with a start both fighters rushed towards each other, knowing this was the final attack. Both fighters struck at the same instant, but the assailant was just a tad quicker, and his kunai made a squelching sound as it imbedded itself in Itachi's skull. But instead of Itachi falling to the ground dead, he was suddenly aware of the actual outcome of the fight, where he was tied up on the ground with Itachi standing over him. Itachi received a nod of recognition before several ANBU dropped from the ceiling. One immediately went to untying the attack while the others led Itachi back to the main arena.

Naruto's test was considerably different. The ANBU had known that his strength was caused by his will to protect the people of Konoha, so his test was merely a question. What would you do in the event of an invasion of Konoha, Naruto Namikaze?

Would you…?

Protect those important to you first, then assist in attacking the invaders.

Immediately find a commanding officer and receive orders.

Head to the nearest vital defence area such as the hospital, academy, or the Hokage Tower to defend.

Find your parents and stay with them as they defend the Leaf Village, assisting when you can.

Naruto took his time as he pondered over each answer carefully, but he always ended with the same conclusion: every answer had merit and could be true. If the test was truly wondering what he would actually do, he would choose A. But he knew that the correct answer would be B. C also was plausible, but he would be defending an area without orders, so if there was a retreat then he would be deserted and left to die. D would also be something he would actually do in the event of a crisis. In the end, it all boiled down into two choices, would he lie to get into ANBU by choosing B, or would he be honest and risk losing the chance to join ANBU by choosing A. In the ninja world, deceit is a powerful weapon and they could be looking for someone that could lie when needed, but lying to the people who hope to work for might get him thrown out. In the end, Naruto wrote a sentence down and circled it before standing up and handing in his question to the proctor. The proctor looked at his answer before handing it off to another ANBU member and escorting him back to the larger arena. The second Naruto left the room, the second ANBU member started chuckling at the balls the young recruit had shown. Instead of picking one of the four answers, he had written down his own answer and circled it, while explaining with a side note that ninja always had a way to get around strict rules to save the people they swore to protect.

After awhile, Itachi and Naruto were the only ones left standing in front of Kakashi and the ANBU Commander.

"Since it appears only these two passed the final test, I hereby conclude this biannual ANBU recruitment. Naruto Namikaze and Itachi Uchiha step forward. You two will become part of an ANBU squad consisting of four members. Dog(Kakashi) here will be your commanding officer, and Bird will be the leader of the squad. You two are to pass through the doors behind me and aquire the gear you will wear until you die or you decide to leave ANBU. There, you will also decide on a mask that will define you. Whichever mask you choose, you will become that thing, and will be referred to as such. Dismissed." With that being said, the ANBU Commander disappeared to resume his job as head of Konoha's elite fighters.

Itachi and Naruto followed Kakashi through the door and found themselves in a huge armoury. There, they picked out there ANBU gear, which was only slightly different than their usual gear. Naruto's being extremely similar, and Itachi only needing to grab a small sword, akin to the one Naruto always carried around him. Then, the two found themselves in front of a huge display case featuring all the available masks with the name beside them. Itachi knew at first glance that he would have the crow mask since he often used a murder of crows as his substitution. Naruto, on the other hand, was unsure which mask he should use. He liked the snake one, but he didn't know any "Snake Moves." Finally, one just called to him, almost begging for him to take it: a mask titled Deva. Deva was simply another word for supernatural beings, but he thought it extremely fitting because of Deva path that he preferred to use over all other techniques.

Once the two signed up completely with ANBU and gave their names and masked names, they were allowed to finally go home and rest, because the next few weeks they would be taught the skills that allow for ninja to survive in the extremely harsh world of the ANBU. The ANBU were the best of the best and had to take the deadliest missions, which is why they were being trained even more than they already had been. Training by themselves had be beneficial to their growth in their earlier years, but with an actually extremely strong teacher, they would skyrocket further than ever before.

Naruto and Itachi both went home to their respective houses and ate dinner before finally crawling in bed to sleep. It had been an entirely draining day for the young prodigies, and they slept all through the night, dreaming about one day being able to save the Leaf Village from any enemy.