Gotta

Broad-shouldered and tall, Gotta had fair skin and cropped, spiky grey hair, along with a small two-part moustache. His clothing was plain and worn: a shabby grey vest, dark grey trousers, and sandals.

Gotta's devotion to Orochimaru ran deep, gratitude for the man who had stabilised his dying clan, and he would shelter the fugitive and strike down any pursuer without a second thought. What he wanted most was for his people to outlast their curse and one day live openly beyond their cave. He regarded his own generation as expendable, meant to shoulder hardship so the children could someday walk safely outside without being killed by their own powers. That resolve carried him into the open air to confront his enemies even knowing the danger, and in the end his spirit lingered just long enough to save Yukimi before passing on.

Gotta lived in concealment with the Iburi clan until Orochimaru found them and used the cursed seal to steady their unstable bodies, in exchange manipulating them into handing over their children as test subjects. With both Orochimaru and Danzō absent, Gotta seemingly led what remained of the clan. When word reached them, through Danzō's follower Kinoe, that Orochimaru had been forced to flee Konohagakure, the clan resolved to help him escape. The clan's youngest, Yukimi, believed Kinoe to be her lost brother Tenzō, who had gone to Orochimaru as an experiment.

When the Anbu Kakashi Hatake discovered their cave, Gotta swiftly subdued him, and Kinoe talked him into keeping Kakashi alive for questioning. Distrustful, Gotta spied on Kinoe and learned that he too was hunting Orochimaru. As the clan moved to kill the infiltrator, Yukimi shielded both Kinoe and Kakashi. Gotta then pursued Kakashi out into the open world, but the rising wind proved fatal: exposed while in smoke form, he was mortally wounded. With his final words he warned Kakashi that only Yukimi's blood could pass the clan's power to another, making her invaluable to Orochimaru. Later, as Yukimi's body began to come apart, the spirits of Gotta and his kin joined Kinoe's Wood Release to stabilise and save her.

In a fight Gotta could become living smoke that still handled solid objects such as scrolls, slip inside a person's body to control or agonise them, and even kill that way. He blended taijutsu, kenjutsu, and his smoke arts well enough to hold his own against Kakashi and the Sharingan, and was strong enough to lift a grown man with one arm.