AN: Hello, well there were a couple of ways for me to go with this chapter, seeing as it is really important to the rest of the story. As it stands, at first I thought I should go over all of Naruto's training under each sensei, or at least get his first meetings with them and go a little further into the training that he received from each person. However, seeing as how LONG that could take, I am taking a different approach to introducing what Naruto's training was like. I am going to take a short moment here to say thank you, to the 508 viewers, 48 followers and 27 people who favorited. A big thanks to those few 6 people who reviewed, nothing makes me happier than getting genuine feedback on my work from the diverse community out her on fan fiction.

Here I am going to quote and answer to a pm'd question, as I think he had a very good point, but he/she should see why I am playing out Naruto's placement into Anbu the way I am, without his consent.

Message: "…there was no indication that Naruto had a choice in the matter and while I believe he would accept it the Third seems to take that decision away from Naruto."

Reply: Sarutobi was more being forced into the matter, rather than choosing it for Naruto. The council has enough sway over Sarutobi at this point that they can push for Naruto's placement into Anbu, mostly against Sarutobi's wish. Naruto really does have no say in the matter either way, as it is decided way above him that he will join Anbu, regardless of what he wants. The council sees that they need to have someone to match Kirabi, and they are forcing Naruto to be that person.

There was a point in everyone's life that they look back at and say, this was a defining moment in my life. For some people, they have only one moment that set the course of the rest of their life, and yet for a miniscule amount of people, they have multiple instances where they faced huge decisions that were life changing, or defining. Naruto's first moment, is now.

Staring at the door that waited before him, Naruto stopped to think back to the last half of his life so far, and the largely unexpected things that had come upon him, 'To think it has been four years, half of my life spent training between the village elite, hard work after hard work, and now I finally have a way out of it.'

The last four years had been fun, challenging and in some cases, life threatening. Turning away from the door for a second, Naruto looked again at the note that lay on the table so that it would be the first thing someone would see upon entering his apartment. "I remember very little of what my life was like before all of this training, could I really run away from what they all ask of me? Hokage-sama says I am being trained the way I am, for the protection of the village, and Danzo-sama says that the village must come before everything else."

Stepping forward more, Naruto closed his hand around the handle for door, "And yet, if Itachi-sempai could simply leave the village, what is there that can hold me here if I wish to leave? Surely my sensei have been friends to me, but beyond that I have nothing here, at least not now. I just wish for something more other than training, so for now I will leave. Do not worry, I will return someday, but for a while I want to go live life."

Setting the note beside an expertly decorated Anbu mask depicting a wolf, Naruto finally pulled open the door, taking one solitary glance back before stepping over the threshold, and closing the door behind him. Naruto would not be seen by anyone in Konoha for four years, after continuous training and Anbu missions, Naruto was done. He was leaving the village to go see the world as someone more than a spy, or an assassin, before he had to come back to the village to complete his training. Besides everything else, Konoha had to come first. Kakashi and Itachi too, before he had left, had hinted to him to leave the village, to get a taste of real life before he committed himself into Anbu.

"Uhhhhhg, why do you like doing this Kotetsu? It is so beyond boring to simply sit here and watch the freaking gate for Kami's sake, and yet you had to volunteer us to be the ones picked to do this five days a week, for the next YEAR Kotetsu! We could be out doing missions and getting stronger, instead we are here, doing the lamest job in the world."

It had been nearly a week ago that Kotetsu Hagane had volunteered both himself and his best friend Izumo Kamizuki for gate guard duty, and it had been a daily accordance since then that Izumo would rant and whine about their, as the contract said, "mutually agreed upon assignment."

"Just stop whining Izumo, it's a really easy assignment, and it really is an important job, someone has to do it." Protecting the gate was an honorable enough position, and his decision to be a gate watchman definitely had nothing to do with the fact that nothing challenging ever happened to anyone on guard duty watching the gate.

That is, until the day that a mysterious figure was seen walking up the path out of the woods to the village, and from the look of him, he was definitely a high level ninja, and it was no one that Izumo or Kotetsu recognized.

Sharing a look at each other, they both dashed forward to meet the stranger, stopping him about thirty feet from the village walls. Izumo was the one to speak first, "Halt! State your name and business in Konoha."

They both took a second to analyze everything they could about the man before them, from the way he carried himself, he seemed to be a very competent fighter. This was also cemented by the fact that the man had a katana strapped onto his back, and most people who carried a sword know how to use it.

Then they both took in his attire, clad in a skin tight black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, he wore a peculiar black vest similar to the one chuunin wear in Konoha, but with a dark red hood pulled up to conceal his hair, and cover part of his face in shadow. For pants, he wore completely black standard shinobi pants, which led down to black shinobi sandals. Also worthy of note, were dark black metal arm and leg guards that he wore, each with a crimson red swirl painted on the front of each arm and leg guard respectively.

The unknown shinobi stopped, head bent slightly so that in the grey light of early morning, his face was completely shadowed by the drawn up hood. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki, and I am here to request a meeting with the Sandaime Hokage, and if you send word to him, I am sure he will gladly honor my request."

Izumo and Kotetsu shared a glance between the two of them, as if attempting to decide who had to stay with the strange Nin while the other went to inform the Hokage. Their hands flashed simultaneously, before Izumo groaned before he sped off into the village.

There was nearly thirty seconds of quiet as Kotetsu stared at the completely unknown Nin before him, "You are dressed in customized Leaf Shinobi equipment, and yet I have never seen you around, who are you?"

The man looked up, as Kotetsu looked into the Nin's eyes, now realizing that who he was looking at was really a just a teenage boy, probably around 14 years old. "I spent the first eight years of my life here, and while I was never technically a registered ninja, I was trained as one. I left when I first had a chance, so that I could go live normally for a while before I commit completely to the life of a shinobi."

Kotetsu seemed surprised, "So you were only a kid when you were trained? That is really extreme, considering we must have already been out of the third shinobi war, the only two shinobi who were really trained early on as kids were Kakashi and Itachi, both who were in Anbu for quite a while. It is a good thing that you left kid, considering how they both turned out."

Naruto nodded his head, pulling his hood down from his head as he shook out long shaggy blonde hair, "Yeah I heard about the Uchiha Massacre, which explains the Itachi bit, but I thought that Kakashi was just a little on the tardy side, he never really had any other quirks."

'So he knew Kakashi? That is information that will have to be filed away.' Kotetsu cleared his throat before continuing, "Well that was the case until about four years ago, and then he just up and quit being a ninja, he said that he had failed everyone he was close to, he went through a lot of tough shit in the Third Shinobi War, and in his time in Anbu, before he just finally quit. I can't say I blame him."

It was at that moment that both Kotetsu and Naruto both felt several large power signatures moving towards them form inside the village, and they both looked to see several Anbu making their way quickly to them.

There were five Anbu present, as one stepped forward in front of the others, "Naruto Uzumaki, you are to come with us, we will escort you to the Hokage."

Naruto nodded his head, before the six of them disappeared in blurs. Looking over at two of the masked Anbu, Naruto considered speaking up to say something, before he thought better of it and kept his mouth shut. Within thirty seconds they were all standing in the Hokage's office, before the Anbu bowed to the Sandaime Hokage, and left the room, leaving the two alone.

Sarutobi turned to look at Naruto, a twinkle in his eye as he smiled up from his desk at him, "It is good to see you again Naruto, after you disappeared, I was not sure when you would be coming back. Let me just say, welcome back to the village."

Naruto bowed respectfully, "It is… Nostalgic to look at the village again after four years, sometimes I thought that I would never be able to come back to the village. But in the end, the teachings I learned from both you, and Danzo-sama led me to come back, because Konoha must come first."

"While I am glad to see you Naruto, business must come first here, and I will report to all of your other sensei that you are back in the village. With you back, we will have to test your abilities, so in two days' time I will have you spar against your old sensei, except for me and Danzo of course."

Naruto nodded his head, "I expected as much, though there are other sensei I have that should be arriving in the village sometime tomorrow, as they wanted to make sure they were behind me a ways so I could explain why they are both here. In the four years I was gone, within a year I realized there was only so much I could teach myself, so I began to search for suitable sensei while I was out of the village."

Sarutobi was surprised by this fact, "Well as long as I know who they are, it should be fine."

Naruto smiled brightly as Sarutobi, the first show of emotion that Naruto had actually allowed on his face, not including the slight affection in his voice as he spoke to Sarutobi, "Well the first one is a man who's help I greatly needed in the art of Fuuinjutsu, as it was one of two areas that my training had been lacking. The other man was the only person I saw that would be able to help me in training to control the Kyuubi's chakra. Although his help was much harder to get, I am far better with the help he has given than had I not gotten his help."

'Who on Earth could Naruto have gotten to help him with Fuuinjutsu and controlling the Kyuubi's chakra? Both subjects are not exactly common knowledge to most people.' Standing up from the desk, Sarutobi had to ask, "So who's help did you get in these two areas?"

"Well, after being trained by the best sensei that Konoha had to offer, I looked for the best possible sensei I could for Fuuinjutsu, and the world's best Fuuinjutsu master that wasn't holed up in a village was Jiraiya of the Sennin. He has been a great asset to my training in the last three years. And if you are wondering why he didn't tell you about this, it is because I asked him not to."

Sarutobi looked at Naruto in bewilderment, before nodding his head, "It was sooner than he was supposed to, but it had already been planned for Jiraiya to train Naruto, as he had trained his father before him.

"And my other sensei is also the best that the world had to offer as far as being able to control Biju chakra goes, and that is Kirabi of Kumogakure, Jinchuriki of the Hachibi. While it took nearly half of a year to get his help, the last two years of training to control Biju chakra have led to a complete equality between me and the Kyuubi, and I can currently control up to four tails worth of the Kyuubi's chakra."

To say that Sarutobi was stunned, was an absolute understatement. After receiving the tutelage of Konoha's resident taijutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu, and kenjutsu masters, he then went and got the help of Konoha's seal master, and received help from Kirabi of all people, the person who was unknowingly the biggest factor in Naruto's training anyway.

'Naruto was around mid-jounin level when he left with the four years' worth of training that he had before, even if he was only eight. Under Jiraiya and Kirabi, two of the world's most powerful ninja for another three years, how much has he progressed?'