Ao

For most of his career Ao concealed a stolen Byakugan behind a patch over his right eye, its safety guarded by talisman earrings inscribed with a humble word for hearing. His remaining eye was blue, his blue hair worn in a swept-up style, and he favoured a grey striped suit under a green haori trimmed in white, topped by a forehead protector; the war saw him add a Kiri flak jacket over the alliance uniform. Sixteen years later he was a far more battered figure. Wrinkles and heavy scarring marked the right side of his face, a craniofacial prosthetic covered that eye and cheek, and the Ten-Tails' assault had claimed both his Byakugan and his left arm and leg, which were swapped for experimental machinery. He dressed then in a dark jacket over a pinstriped turtleneck and matching trousers, the earrings and headband long gone.

Stern, proud, and pointedly old-fashioned about manhood, Ao held that a shinobi should be tough and decisive, a conviction rooted in the era when Kiri was called the Village of the Bloody Mist. He nagged the timid Chojuro constantly, though a real fondness underlay the scolding. Survival of the Fourth Shinobi World War hollowed him out; outwardly grateful and mellow, he had privately grown bitter, convinced that his disability and the new age of peace had stripped his life of purpose, and he never went back to Kirigakure. He came to prize Scientific Ninja Tools as power for those who could not earn it naturally, yet flashes of his old creed lingered, such as his disdain for sloppy Water Release. His defeat by Boruto Uzumaki, and the boy's insistence that he still had worth, rekindled the pride he had buried, moving him to shield Boruto with ninjutsu even as it killed him.

Ao spent his life on battlefields from boyhood. During the Third Shinobi World War he killed a member of the Hyuga clan and set that Byakugan into his own right socket, later using it to expose a genjutsu binding the Fourth Mizukage. A skilled tracker and sensor with deep anatomical knowledge, he rose to become a hunter-nin and the Fifth Mizukage's right hand. Escorting Mei Terumi to the Five Kage Summit, he spotted with his dojutsu that Danzo carried Shisui Uchiha's stolen Sharingan, then was ensnared by Fu Yamanaka's mind technique before Mei and Chojuro freed him. In the Fourth Shinobi World War he led the Sensor Division, raising an enormous sensing barrier with Inoichi Yamanaka and picking reincarnated fighters out of the White Zetsu horde.

When the Ten-Tails leveled the Allied Forces' headquarters, Ao alone survived, buried and gravely hurt. Years in a coma followed until Katasuke Tono rebuilt him with prosthetic limbs, though he refused to return home; feeling emptied of purpose, he was drawn by Victor into Kara as an Outer and further outfitted with built-in weaponry. Serving the group, he seized Scientific Ninja Tools, hijacked Katasuke through genjutsu, and later hunted Team Konohamaru for a lost vessel, killing Mugino in the process. Boruto eventually outwitted and beat him, then spared him and urged him to do good. When Koji Kashin moved to crush the genin, Ao used Water Release to hurl Boruto clear, sacrificing himself, and Konohamaru gave the fallen hero a proper burial.