Chapter 5: Making A Choice, Meeting Danzo

"Ugg.."

Slowly waking up, Izuryu opened his eyes to a familiar ceiling. He was at his home. It seemed that Hiruzen had sent him back to Izuryu's house.

'At least I don't have to wake up on hard ground…' thought Izuryu to himself as he stretched his stiff body to exaggerated positions, yet the stretching brought him a certain feeling of satisfaction. Perhaps something only those who have done it would feel.

Izuryu got off his bed, trying to make it with drowsiness all over his head.

With a messy room and a barely made-up bed, Izuryu walked down to the living area of him and his father's home where Teuchi was reading the newspaper and drinking tea.

"Good morning, father…"

Izuryu waved to Teuchi as he walked to the bathroom to fresh up.

15 minutes later, he walked out of the bathroom, fully refreshed.

He sat in front of his father, yet Teuchi was silent, completely unresponsive, still reading his newspaper.

The silence continued on for a few minutes until Izuryu broke it by asking a question.

"Did something happen, father?" asked Izuryu with slight nervousness.

While he was mentally over 20, his brain at the moment was that of a 6-year-old child. Even if he was slightly more mature than others, his child brain had almost made it as though he was a child.

After a moment, Teuchi responded, while still reading the newspaper.

"It seems that a certain someone has decided to graduate early without telling his father."

Sweat beads started appearing on Izuryu's back and forehead as his heartbeat quickened. His head was lowered as he struggled to come up with an answer.

Eventually Teuchi sighed.

He put down his newspaper and flicked Izuryu's forehead.

"Look here kid, just because I am not your biological father doesn't mean I don't care about you. In fact, I treat you as my blood son. And I too want you to see me as your biological father. You are my son and I am your father. While you can, like everybody have a few secrets to yourself, I want you to know that you can share anything you want with me."

Teuchi had a warm smile on his face as he reprimanded Izuryu.

'My own father huh…'

Izuryu felt a warmth in his chest as an indescribable feeling came to him.

Fathers wouldn't love you directly like mothers. Yet they would be the wall that you could lean on for support. They'd go through hell and back for a simple smile of their child, yet they'd want to seem strict towards their children.

"Haha!"

Izuryu chuckled in happiness as he nodded towards Teuchi.

Laughs were always infectious. As Izuryu cackled like the child he was, Teuchi started laughing too. The father and son spent a good half an hour in laughs as Teuchi smacked Izuryu in the head to make him stop laughing.

"Alright, stop laughing. Now then, onto serious business."

Teuchi once again regained his serious expression as he spoke to Izuryu.

"Why did you apply for an early graduation?"

Izuryu hesitated for a moment before he finally spoke.

"Well… I kind of learned practically everything the academy had to teach me. There were hardly any jutsu taught and most of it was only basic information. After that it was mostly very boring history and theory subjects…"

"Hey! History is important too!"

"I know, but still…"

Teuchi sighed and spoke after smacking Izuryu once again.

"So you decided to graduate early 'cause you thought school was boring?"

"Not like that-"

"What?"

"Basically yeah…"

Teuchi rubbed his forehead while sighing.

"At least you passed. If you didn't then you would have gotten more than just a scolding you brat. Got it?"

"Yeah!"

Izuryu nodded in acceptance as he slumped onto the chair.

"Go away, you're making my head hurt. And don't come back unconscious this time."

Teuchi nodded and waved his hand as he picked his newspaper and started reading again.

Izuryu got off the chair and ran to the door, saying goodbye as he moved towards the forest.

He got to the entrance of his secret base as he moved the rock, walking inside.

He sat on the rock chair as he brought out a notebook and started mulling over his plans.

"I've successfully graduated so there are 2 paths in front of my right now.

"One would be to join a genin team and do standard missions until I can gain enough merits to redeem for more powerful jutsu. The other path would be to join the Anbu. A genius like me would be recruited with a pretty high chance. This would allow me to get access to a lot more jutsu, yet the danger would be equally high…

"There comes the matter about increasing my chakra reserves too…

"The easiest way would be to let my body naturally grow up but that'd take way too much time... Besides, the second shinobi war will probably start in 4 years or so time, so that way is not feasible

"The unorthodox ways would be to either be a Jinchūriki, get the chakra of the Ryumyaku which is in Rōran right now. Right, there's that 'star' in The Land Of The Bears too, but I'm pretty sure that thing is radioactive or something, so until I have sufficient strength I won't be able to go there."

Izuryu pulled on his hair as he stressed over his current situation. What he didn't notice was that, the stress, frustration and anger he was feeling right then had made a certain change in his eyes.

His sharingan, which had been inactive ever since it awakened had re-appeared.

Izuryu slumped on his chair as he faced towards the ceiling.

But as he dazedly look upwards, he noticed details he had never noticed.

'That mark looks like that one shop near our ramen place… Hm- Since when did ants get in here? They're the red ones too, ugh. Hate them, especially their stings…'

But as he kept looking, he found more and more details in things he regularly used.

At that moment, he knew. Something was wrong.

'My eyes are especially powerful today… It's like they're on steroids or something…'

Yet as he thought about it, his body froze.

'Enhanced vision in the middle of nowhere that occurs to an Uchiha can only mean one thing.'

"My sharingan has awoken!"

While Izuryu's full name was Izuryu Tsukisumi. He, with the blood of Madara Uchiha flowing within him made him a full-blood Uchiha, not unlike the daughter of a one-handed man and a pink-haired girl.

Excitement and happiness took over Izuryu as he started jumping around, shadow boxing.

'This means I can start evolving my sharingan! Izanagi, Izanami, custom Mangekyō jutsu, Susanoo, Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, oh baby girl I'm coming for you!'

Izuryu's sharingan slowly faded away, revealing his pupils that looked like an unending abyss.

He jumped back up and walked out of his base, running towards the location Duy usually trained and where he unlocked his first 2 gates.

When he was a few meters away, he heard Duy's iconic YOUTHful and energetic voice as he did handstand pushups. He was wearing his iconic green tights and yellow scarfs as he shouted the number of handstands he did.

"384, 385, 386, 397…400! Now for reverse pull ups!"

But just as he was about to start his pull-ups, he heard Izuryu's voice.

"Duy-san! Wanna train together?"

Izuryu's words were one that brought him delight.

"Naturally! In a time of YOUTH, one should utilize it to it's best. After all, YOUTH doesn't last long."

"You dare say that old man? You're a few years older than my father and you speak about youth?"

Duy roared with energetic laughter. He wasn't bothered that Izuryu called him old, in-fact he too found it amusing.

"Now, now, I may be old but YOUTH still exists in my heart and that's all that matters. Come on boy! Let's train."

"Alright!"

***

Izuryu spent two weeks training with Duy, practicing and familiarizing himself with the sharingan and helping Teuchi with Ichiraku.

There was no message from Hiruzen yet. Izuryu guessed that with war coming soon, even if it was 4 years away, villages would still be on guard with each other. Along with the fact that the current year of Academy students hadn't passed yet, there wouldn't be many genin teams for him to be in.

***

Another 2 weeks passed for a total of 1 month until a masked Anbu member flashed into Izuryu's room and left a scroll with the words "Hokage's Order" written on it.

Izuryu was awake when it happened but made it look as though he was asleep. He didn't know if the Anbu member noticed it or not but considering the fact he wasn't called out to, he thought he wasn't discovered.

While he was pretending to be asleep, he was also training himself.

The idea came to him during the graduation exam when he tried using beings from his own memory to break the genjutsu. He wondered if he could use the chakra from the sharingan to put himself in a sort of self-hypnosis where he was in his mental world or mindscape. A world where he could freely use any jutsu or technique and experiment with them. And if possible, try to make it that time inside was faster than time outside the mindscape. By using self-hypnosis, he tried making it seem that he was in a separate world, yet his own body's chakra wouldn't work as it would simply pass through the Tenketsu located in his brain without doing anything important.

But when all hope seemed lost, 'it' appeared.

That's right, it was the Hokage scroll.

If he could gain access to the shadow clone jutsu then he could try to use the shadow clone jutsu to hypnotize himself. And while, it would it still have his own chakra signature, the fact that it was coming from a different body could allow it to have a sliver of hope success.

That, alongside the buttload of jutsu in the Anbu and Village archives would help him to do this.

Yet there was also another factor that could help him doing this. That was, The Uchiha. Specifically speaking, Uchiha Shisui's family.

Kotoamatsukami, the Mangekyō ability of Shisui made it so that the target of the ability would do what the target told them to do, yet they would do it consciously and not like a mind slave. It would seem like they were in control of their actions but they were in reality, in the palm of the genjutsu caster.

Truly, only such a genjutsu could have the name of "The most powerful genjutsu."

Excluding Izanami and Izanagi, of course. They were on a whole another scale. Yet, they would completely take away the eyesight of the user, while Kotoamatsukami would not, while like all other Mangekyō abilities, hurt the eyesight.

As long as he could find Shisui's father or mother, there'd be a high chance that they'd have an Mangekyō ability similar to Shisui's, some way for him to use their ability on himself.

***

Izuryu woke up in the morning and quickly freshened himself up, readying himself to go to the Hokage's office.

He took the scroll with him as he walked towards Hiruzen's office and he knocked on his office.

"Come in." spoke Hiruzen in his deep yet mature voice that seemed like it had gone through the vicissitudes of life.

Izuryu opened the door to Hiruzen signing a pile of paperwork while he had his pipe in his mouth.

"Ah, Izuryu. So, it's you…"

Izuryu nodded towards Hiruzen as the paperwork got lifted off the table to the side of the room, making the table clean.

Hiruzen then put two items on the table.

One was a forehead protector with the Konohagakure symbol.

The second, was a mask.

It was the Anbu mask.

"Make a choice, would you like to be in a genin team, or join the Anbu?"

Silence prevailed for a few minutes until Izuryu extended his hand and lifted off the mask.

He put it on his face as the mask stayed there without falling.

"Will you ever regret this decision? The darkness that is Anbu is something that can't be handled by many."

"I won't."

Hiruzen nodded to Izuryu. No more words were needed as a certain aquiescence formed between the two. Hiruzen stood up from his seat as he declared:

"I, Hiruzen Sarutobi, The 3rd Hokage of The Village Hidden In The Leaves, appoint you, Izuryu Tsukisumi as a member of the Special Assassination and Tactical Squad (Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai), Anbu."

Hiruzen put his finger on Izuryu's mask and a special chakra seeped into Izuryu's body as a red mark formed in Izuryu's right upper arm.

It was blood-red, like the material it was made of.

"The mark of Anbu. It shall be with you for your whole life, made with your blood, to remind you of the actions you shall perform, within the dark muddle of shadow and death that is the Anbu. Do you accept the mark?"

"I accept the mark."

Izuryu kneeled as he faced Hiruzen.

"Stand up and go back, your uniform and the map will be brought to you."

Izuryu nodded to Hiruzen and took off his mask. Bowing towards Hiruzen he walked towards the door.

He opened the door and walked away, bowing once more.

Once he walked out, he sighed in relief.

Yet that relief didn't last long as he heard a voice he absolutely hated.

"Izuryu Tsukisumi, join Root. It is the only place you will be able to properly grow. While Hiruzen is a good Hokage, he is not a good leader for a organization like the Anbu. Sensei was, yet Hiruzen, his disciple is not."

Izuryu stared at Danzo, yet he wasn't afraid.

He disliked Danzo, despised him even, yet he wasn't afraid.

"I am sorry, Danzo-sama, I have already joined the Anbu. And I don't think I am able to join Root."

Danzo made a livid expression as he shouted. The loos of his eyes and hand had made him an impulsive man. One that would have emotion come over him with a mere few words.

"You bastard! A mere civilian child like you dares to refuse me! You don't know what I can do if I want to!"

Silence took over the scene as the hallway transformed into a red hellscape. Danzo looked around in wariness yet he heard a voice.

"Danzo."

Not only one but many.

"Danzo."

Seven Izuryus appeared around Danzo as all of them, with an expression of arrogance and contempt spoke at the same time.

"I respect you, a former hero of the village, yet do not forget."

Their voices echoed around the hellscape as they drilled into the brain of the senile, old fool.

"I respect you, a former hero of the village, yet do not forget."

"I respect you, but I do not fear you. Touch my family and I shall make you regret your mere ant-like existence."

Danzo fell on his back as he felt cold sweat on his body. Footsteps echoed in the hallway as Izuryu walked away from Danzo.

"Hmph."

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