Gozu

Gozu's arms are strikingly long, dropping almost to his knees, and rows of sharp teeth fill his mouth. His eyes are grey, he has no eyebrows, and his brown hair is combed flat against his head.

Reserved and quiet, Gozu keeps others from ever reading his thoughts, though nobody doubts how deft he is in a fight. He leans on brute force and taijutsu and prefers to battle by himself. For his teammates he shows little trust, yet toward Guren he feels a warm, singular loyalty, once declaring he would go with her wherever she went. The root of it was the water she gave him as he lay dying of thirst, a prisoner of Orochimaru.

Long ago Gozu lay wasting from hunger and thirst as a captive of Orochimaru, until Guren pressed a single ladle of water into his hands, not enough to quench him but enough to keep him breathing. After Kabuto and Guren staged a survival battle at the hideout, he became her subordinate. Once Guren was back, she directed the team to take on Kakashi Hatake together with Team 8, sending Gozu, the strongest of them, in first to lure Kakashi away. He pushed the copy-nin hard and unleashed a deeper body alteration for extra speed and power, yet barely escaped with a broken arm. Once mended, he rushed to Guren's aid against Team 8, later rowed the boat when Kabuto went for Yukimaru, and helped her briefly hold the Three-Tails before a tidal wave hurled him off. Washed ashore, his first instinct was to reach her. Sai's ink bound him in a later clash, and when he charged to shield Guren from Kakashi he was cut down by the Lightning Cutter and appeared to die, though in truth he endured, still alive in mud form beneath the lake. He, Guren, and Yukimaru then departed together, and after Naruto and Sasuke's final duel the trio appeared among the crowd at Konohagakure's entrance. In battle Gozu wields the Earth Release transformation: he spews heavy globs of mud to slow a foe, converts his own body into mud to build crude weapons and fling scattered mudshots while ignoring physical hits, and tunnels swiftly by turning soil into sand with chakra. His sheer power once let him stop the Three-Tails for a moment by grabbing a tail, while Orochimaru's alterations let him enlarge his limbs for heavier blows or compress his frame for greater speed.