Hebiichigo

Small and slight, Hebiichigo wore her long grey hair pushed back with a forehead protector. Her everyday outfit was a red pinstriped jumper long enough to reach her ankles and cut too wide for her arms, paired with matching leggings and flat-heeled shoes. Once Shizuma called for war, she pulled on a sleeveless black jinbaori, its tan lining and grey edging worn open at the front like a vest.

Shaped by a brutal childhood, Hebiichigo was quick to quarrel and looked out for herself first. She had taken up the ninja path to feel she was worth something, convinced that killing was the one thing she was good at, and like her comrades she despised the peace the Sixth Mizukage had brought, itching to bring back the savage Bloody Mist. A streak of sadism ran through her, and she revelled in her victims' fear, yet she guarded her own life just as fiercely.

Prison changed her. She came to regret what she had done and grew fiercely protective of her teammates, defending them even while pretending not to care. Kagura's kindness reached her most of all; his death left her ashamed and set on honouring him, and her buried empathy surfaced as a wish to help others through their hardship. Through everything, she loved sewing as deeply as she loved the fight.

Orphaned with no memory of her family, Hebiichigo scraped by on a rubbish heap outside Kirigakure, salvaging scraps and teaching herself to sew. When a rogue ninja attacked her, she killed him with a pole to survive, and praise from a passing Kiri-nin set her on the road to becoming a shinobi. As an adult she joined Shizuma Hoshigaki's uprising, claiming the thread-blade Nuibari, a weapon suited to the long-range binding she favoured though it left her exposed up close.

The rebels seized the legendary swords and set out to destroy the Kirigakure Memorial Stone, only to be met by Boruto, Sarada and Chōjūrō. Hebiichigo snared the Sixth Mizukage in her wires, but he exploited her fear of injury, taking the blade through his own shoulder to disarm and knock her out. Sent to prison, she was later recruited alongside Kyohō Fuefuki and Buntan Kurosuki when the Funato Clan went to war, fighting under cursed seals in an uneasy alliance with Konoha's genin.

Over that campaign her loyalties shifted. Furious that hard service earned only a token cut to her sentence, she once tried to kill Kagura and flee, but he set a decoy and, later still, chose to trust her anyway. She warmed to Metal Lee, who repeatedly shielded her and reminded her that her talent for sewing mattered as much as her talent for killing. In the final clash with Funamushi she used Nuibari to pin him for Boruto's finishing blow, and though he broke loose long enough to land a mortal strike on her, she died thanking Metal for his kindness. She was buried beside Kagura, and the pardon she had thought herself unworthy of was granted after her death.