Both the Hokage and the Anbu Commander would say Naruto Uzumaki has become quite the shinobi now, his chakra control was much better than it was then, he was stealthy and skilled, and he even knew more jutsu but neither would have expected the young boy to have become an Anbu Black Ops, Sarutobi was shocked but had ultimately left the choice to the boy, who had chosen to become one.
The Third had given the boy a picture of his mother and promised to tell him about his father in the coming months, something about getting used to the responsibilities of the Anbu.
It had been 2 months since he had accepted the offer to join Anbu and become a Chunin, 4 months since he left the Academy, and in those 2 months since he had accepted the offer, he had learned more about being a shinobi and Anbu than ever before thanks to the Anbu Black Ops training.
Anbu taught him about infiltration, assassination, human anatomy, code, kenjutsu, Anbu behavior, Anbu missions, etc, etc...
As Anbu are some of the most loyal shinobi in the Leaf, they are often assigned to guard important people like Shinobi leaders such as the Hokage, it would be paramount that basic skills such as taijutsu, genjutsu detection, trap detection, and other such skills would also be ensured to be at Anbu level, as one might have to fight for their target.
What does Anbu level mean?
Anbu level often means to be above the level of most chunin but not as powerful as Jounin but since Anbu is more of an occupation than a rank or a skill level, you will find all types of shinobi in the force from Chunin Level to Jounin Level but they will mostly all run the same types of missions.
So where was Naruto now?
He was currently in the Anbu headquarters, a dark building filled with multiple corridors that were only known to those with clearance, having gotten the spiral tattoo of Anbu on his right shoulder, a white building with a red top and was heading towards the Male changing room as he rounded a corner to find the room in which he found multiple men changing who all turned to look at him shocked.
"Umm, Captain Tenzo?" asked Naruto as he remembered when he was told he would be joining Anbu Black Ops Team Ro, the elite unit that served directly under the Lord Hokage.
"Ah yes, Naruto, over here," said a man with black almond-shaped eyes and short brown hair with a happuri, at the end of the room Naruto walked up to them, seeing and sensing the stares though they weren't filled with disgust or hatred like many of the shinobi in the village but rather curiosity about Naruto, "You're locker is next to mine."
Naruto put his Anbu uniform and other accessories in the locker to the right of Tenzo who had put on the customary Anbu mask, a porcelain one with a tiger motif with green and red intricate markings.
Naruto then began to change into the uniform provided to him. Black clothing, a grey flak jacket, metal arm guards and gloves, ninja sandals with spikes for traveling mountainous regions, three ninja pouches on their back waist, and a sword on his back. He looked at the mask provided for him, a porcelain mask with a cat motif, with a thick red stripe on the forehead and 2 intricate red stripes, one on each cheek, which he hung at his belt.
He knew that he wasn't the only Cat that masked Anbu nor was Tenzo the only tiger-masked Anbu, so some Anbu will have code names based on their masks while other Anbu were given other code names, sometimes on features, sometimes on other things.
"So I hear that you're going by a code name?" asked Tenzo as Naruto nodded, putting on his mask.
"Yeah, umm, I go by Ko," said Naruto, as Tenzo seemed to stare at him.
"Huh, you're the second member of Team Ro to go by that," said the Anbu Captain.
"What happened to the first?" asked Naruto.
"He died on a mission," answered Tenzo as Naruto nodded, not knowing where to go from there.
"Now then, grab your cloak," ordered Tenzo as Naruto nodded, he grabbed the black cloak that was customary for Anbu who weren't on missions while Tenzo grabbed the white one.
"So that kid's an Anbu?" asked one of his friends while his friend nodded.
"Yeah," answered the other.
"Is he one of us or is he like Itachi?" asked another. It is well known that Itachi Uchiha didn't receive Anbu training, that he was just directly placed into Anbu, causing many to wonder if he was skilled enough to be an Anbu Black Ops and was one of the presumed reasons that Itachi Uchiha's mental state wasn't noticed as Anbu instructors are often trained to look for traitorous intention and eliminate it.
"He passed Anbu training just like us," answered others, as they continued to gossip about Naruto and what they had found out.
They walked along the corridor to meet 2 Anbu waiting for them where they found a Hyuga with short hair and a purple-haired girl both of which were staring at them, clearly in waiting dressed in their uniform.
"So this is the new guy, isn't he a bit young to be an Anbu?" asked the Hyuga while the girl seemed to be looking straight at Naruto.
"I don't believe it, he's the dead last of his class, is he truly capable of Anbu Black Ops?" asked the girl, to which Naruto looked insulted.
"He's young but he passed the training and is considered skilled enough for Team Ro," answered Tenzo as Naruto nodded. Yugao and Asashi seemed to be in deep thought about what they had just heard as one so young had passed.
"So, he's one of us?" asked the girl, as Tenzo nodded.
"Oh yeah, Naruto, this is the other members of Team Ro, Asashi Hyuga, code-named Baku, and Yugao Uzuki, code-named Cat," said Tenzo, as the two nodded towards Naruto who waved, they then put on their maks, Asashi having a porcelain mask resembling a Baku with red markings around the eye holes as well as above and below, while Yugao like Naruto had a cat mask with three red stripes - one vertical stripe on the forehead while two horizontal strikes, one on each cheek.
"I'm Naruto Uzumaki, code-named Ko," said Naruto as the other 2 nodded as Naruto put on his porcelain cat mask.
"So what is our mission?" asked Naruto, as the two looked towards their Squad Leader.
"Simple, we are to guard the Hokage," answered Tenzo, as Naruto nodded, as all of the Anbu were gone in a body flicker, smokeless for stealth purposes, and arrived in the Office to find the Hokage doing paperwork and the Anbu Team Li were guarding the Hokage currently.
Naruto as with the other members was dressed in a black cloak with the hood up while Tenzo was dressed in a white cloak. Tenzo then used sign language to tell the Team who was under a cat-masked Anbu Captain known as 'Zo', who nodded before his team disappeared.
Naruto was curious about how many Anbu Black Ops had a cat mask as both he and Yugao as well as that Anbu Captain had a cat mask.
'Ko, take the area above the Hokage,' signed the Anbu Captain, as Naruto nodded, using the transparency jutsu, and climbed, so that he was crouched over the Hokage while Asashi and Yugao both took places outside the entrance, and Tenzo crouched over the entrance.
"So this is Ko's first mission, is it?" asked the Hokage, receiving a nod from the Anbu Captain as Sarutobi knew for a fact that Naruto would get very bored from this mission, while guarding the Hokage could be considered an honor, Naruto whose personality made him impatient would have to stay on the roof, for hours on end, watching the Hokage do paperwork and if Sarutobi decided to move then Naruto would be forced to follow him.
Many hours later, Sarutobi resisted the urge to smirk as he knew that up there, Naruto was drilling holes into him, though Sarutobi couldn't see the boy, he knew that he was staring into him.
Naruto, on the other hand, was glaring holes into the Hokage as he planned all the forms of torture he could inflict on the Old Hokage for making him stand up there for so long.
"Ko, Tenzo, I have a mission for you," proclaimed Sarutobi as both of the Anbu appeared in front of him, kneeling, "we have received reports from the border group, that a group of Mist shinobi have stolen a copy of the border formula, escaping to the west, eliminate them and retake the formula."
"Yes, sir," proclaimed the two as they disappeared in a body flicker, as Naruto and Tenzo rushed through the trees, having forgone the cloaks.
'The old man was doing that to torture me,' signed Naruto to Tenzo.
'That is unimportant, right now, focus on the mission,' signed back Tenzo, receiving a nod as Naruto and Tenzo came upon the group of 4 mist shinobi, a few hours later, running on the ground, wearing the mist flak jacket, with two in the front and two in the back.
'Four of them, most likely chunin level,' signed Naruto as Tenzo nodded.
'I'll take the two in the front, you take the two in the back,' signed Tenzo as Naruto nodded.
"Huh, the leaf's defenses really must have gotten worse if he could get away with stealing the scroll," said a spiky black-haired mist nin to his comrade a dark blue long-haired mist nin.
"Yeah," said the other.
"Ahh," said the black-haired one as he fell over with 3 kunai inside him.
'Damn,' thought the blue-haired shinobi as he saw a spiky-haired blond Anbu with a cat mask flying towards him holding a kunai in his left hand.
"Wait what? We've been found!" exclaimed the mist shinobi as he went through hand signs as Naruto was on top of him.
"Water style: water bomb jutsu!" shouted the shinobi as he released a powerful torrent of water that pushed the Anbu away and into a tree, creating a crater from the impact, making the mist nin smirk as he stopped the water to find the guy laying there before it dispelled into smoke.
"shadow clone?" asked the mist nin as he looked around.
As a sword appeared through the blue-haired mist shinobi's chest, making him fall to his knees Naruto removed the sword and kicked the mist shinobi into the ground, removing his sword, and cleaning off the blood.
'This is what it means to be an Anbu,' thought Naruto determined, this had shown him what he had to do to protect those he cared about, to protect the village that he had lived in.
He then began to search the corpse of the blue-haired one, first but didn't find the scroll and moved on to the black-haired one, and once again searched him.
He found a scroll but wasn't sure if it was the one they were looking for.
"Have you got it?" asked Tenzo as Naruto passed him the scroll.
"I think so, here," answered Naruto, as Tenzo opened it and looked down onto the scroll.
"Good job, Ko, it's the scroll, we're looking for," said the Anbu Captain as once again, they disappeared.
Hours later, having completed the mission, Naruto appeared in his apartment before jumping on his bed and lying down, He was tired and wanted a nap, not only did he have to run through the forest and back, he had to give a report and do a few more hours of guarding the Hokage before getting back to his apartment.
"Well that was different," said Naruto as he felt tired as he fell into the bed and took a nap, as was his first day of Anbu.