Hōki (Watari)

Fair-skinned with short, low-faded black hair, Hōki wore paint across his face. His outfit was a sleeveless purple kimono trimmed with thick white lining and thin purple stripes, mesh armor beneath, black gloves, and ninja sandals. In his Mōsō guise he stood 171 centimeters tall.

Morally bankrupt, Hōki thought nothing of stealing other villages' techniques, bending a nation's government to his will, or killing without a shred of remorse. He belittled his opponents constantly, though the arrogance may have been a front suited to his deceptive nature. Weary of drifting from village to village, he longed for a place to put down roots, so long as it answered to him.

Years on the run pushed Hōki to plant himself in the Land of Birds. Posing as the high priest Mōsō, he used genjutsu to appear to swallow a sword and fake holy power, winning a post as Chief Advisor, then quietly poisoned the daimyō Ōwashi to death. Sagi, secretly Toki in disguise, took up the mantle of the Cursed Warrior to avenge her father. Deception underpinned nearly all of Hōki's methods, letting him beat stronger foes: his supposed summoning merely switched on a projector, his shadow imitation was a snare of strings, and his apparent multiple shadow clones were the illusory Haze Clone Technique meant to lull enemies. Even so, he handled a blade with some skill and could copy fire and water techniques, from the Great Fireball to high-level Water Release that he used against Naruto.

When the Cursed Warrior surfaced, Mōsō sent Chishima to Konoha for aid, and Tsunade dispatched Naruto Uzumaki, Neji Hyūga, and Tenten. Chishima, having overheard the true scheme, fled and narrowly slipped past Nagare, Hokushin, and the other Watari Ninja. In the final confrontation Mōsō ensnared Toki, learning her dual identity, just as the Konoha team and Kakashi Hatake arrived; he escaped with her, leaving his subordinates to fight. Naruto goaded him into exposing himself after he hid behind water clones, and though Chishima was wounded in the exchange, Naruto brought him down with the Naruto Uzumaki Combo. Hōki was handed over to Toki, with Naruto urging that he be made to repent.