The Great Toad Sage tells Jiraiya about the "Child of the Prophecy".
Child of the Prophecy (予言の子, Yogen no Ko) is a title originally conceived by the Great Toad Sage. He foretold that the Child of the Prophecy would be a student of Jiraiya that would bring a great revolution to the world of the ninja. Jiraiya's actions would determine if this revolution would be for the world's salvation or the world's destruction. Jiraiya believed, at different times, that the following characters could be the Child of the Prophecy:
While in Amegakure during the Second Shinobi World War, Jiraiya met Nagato, a boy that possessed the Rinnegan. Because the fabled Sage of the Six Paths, a figure who was said to have saved the world in the distant past, also possessed the Rinnegan, Jiraiya believed that Nagato was the Child of the Prophecy. He trained Nagato and encouraged him to find peace for the world.
When he returned to Konoha, Jiraiya acquired his own genin team. Because of the natural genius of one of its members, Minato, Jiraiya suggested to Minato that he could be the Child of the Prophecy and took him as an apprentice. Minato still remembered this decades later and, during the Nine-Tails' Attack on Konoha, formed his own conclusion regarding the prophecy. He believed that Tobi would bring destruction to the world, and that his son, Naruto, would save the world from Tobi. Because of this, Minato chose to seal the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox into Naruto to help him face this great challenge.
Sixteen years later, Jiraiya returned to Amegakure to investigate Akatsuki, a criminal organisation seeking the world's destruction. When he discovered that Nagato was the leader of Akatsuki, Jiraiya, still believing Nagato to be the Child of the Prophecy, tried to kill him before he could bring about his prophesied revolution. He failed, but as he died he came to the same conclusion as Minato: that Naruto, a boy he had been training for the last two-and-a-half-years, was the Child of the Prophecy. The choice he had to make was whether or not he should give up. Choosing not to, Jiraiya revived himself through sheer will long enough to send clues about how to defeat Nagato, the supposed world's destruction, to Naruto.
At the conclusion of the invasion of Pain, wherein Nagato gave his life to help Naruto achieve peace, as the Great Toad Sage watched on, he realised that both he and Jiraiya had been wrong and that the "Child of the Prophecy" did not refer to a single individual, but to both Nagato and Naruto who were trying to save the world.
During the Fourth Shinobi World War when Naruto released the rest of the tailed beasts from Tobi's control, Kurama remembered the final words of the Sage of the Sixth Paths about an individual who would reunite the tailed beasts and put them on the right path. Kurama stated that this person was Naruto and the rest of the beasts agreed.
Trivia
- Each of the individuals whom at one time were thought to be the Child of Prophecy were also regarded as the "Saviour of this World".