Benga

Benga was a cold, hard man who dismissed anything intellectual and held that force alone kept order. Though he answered to Mujō, he privately scorned his superior as too soft for believing prisoners could be reformed. He showed the inmates no mercy, treating them with blunt rudeness, yet underneath he was thoroughly corrupt, soliciting bribes, trading favors for payment, and quietly adjusting sentences for a price. Ambition without loyalty defined him; he abused his post to torment prisoners and line his pockets, and he would sacrifice even his own allies to get what he wanted. His hypocrisy ran to breaking the very bargains he struck, and his sloppiness showed in his drinking and his cluttered office. Ordinarily observant enough to catch small shifts in the prison's routine, he grew careless and easily fooled once a situation began slipping past his control.

His combat leaned on Fire Release. With the right hand seals he could spark a flame from nothing, as he did to burn away Kokuri's parole papers, and he could throw a strong fiery blast, wreathe his hand in fire to strike harder, or drive out a long lash of flame like a whip. His rank at Hōzuki Castle let him wield the Fire Release: Heavenly Prison, sealing or unsealing its marks on a target. Once he seized the warden's role, he also gained its inherited summon, a two-headed, fire-breathing hound handed down from one warden to the next and set loose on prisoners who tried to run.

Throughout the Mujina Bandits Arc, Benga runs Hōzuki Castle with an iron and crooked hand. He greets new arrivals with threats, beats Boruto for showing concern over a fellow inmate, and gives a tour to Sarada while she poses as a journalism student. When the prisoner Kokuri is attacked, Benga overrules Mujō's push to move him somewhere safer, secretly acting on a bribe from Tsukiyo who wants Kokuri left exposed. Mujō uncovers Benga's long record of taking bribes and uses it to wrest full control of the prison, relocating Kokuri to Boruto and Mitsuki's cell.

Benga keeps scheming as the pressure mounts. He extorts and brutalizes the inmate Kamata, then finds himself summoned by Mujō, who has learned of his abuses and fires him outright. Fortune swings back when Mujō's heart gives out mid-confrontation; Benga pockets the man's medicine and watches him collapse, and since the dismissal was never made official, he claims the warden's full authority for himself. He at once takes up Tsukiyo's earlier offer, destroys Kokuri's parole order, and arranges the transfer meant to get the prisoner killed.

A malfunctioning waterline tips Benga off that something is wrong. He confronts Sarada, who reveals she knows all about his corruption, and attacks her with Fire Release until a stray blast hurls her into a pit; believing her dead, he calls off the search and combs her notes, which lay bare the escape plan she has been running with Boruto, Mitsuki, and Kokuri. He drains the old water tank to wreck their scheme, discovers the Boruto in the cell is only a shadow clone, and unleashes the warden's hound on the fugitives. Beaten in the end, he is talked by Tsukiyo into lifting his Heavenly Prison so he might chase the runaways, only for Tsukiyo to kill him the moment it is done. Guards later find his body, which sets off a full search for the escapees.