Shisui Uchiha

Shisui carried a strong likeness to his ancestor Kagami Uchiha. His dark eyes sat above a fairly broad nose, and a crop of black hair fell short and unkempt around his face, framed by heavy lashes that curled upward at each corner. Everyday dress for him was the clan's high-collared dark outfit, over which he strapped a harness that ran across his chest and held a tantō at the back of one shoulder. While serving among the village's regular forces, he traded this look for the ordinary Konoha shinobi uniform.

Grounded and modest, Shisui never boasted about his gifts, though he had no trouble correcting others when they slipped. He kept an open mind, refusing to cling to a single ideal and preferring to read each situation on its own terms. Compassion ran deep in him, extending even to enemies: he showed kindness to a dying Mukai Kohinata whom he had been sent to kill. From a young age he noticed small details and saw through the feelings of those around him, and he loved Itachi like a younger brother, teaching him that a true shinobi guards peace from the shadows through self-sacrifice.

His loyalty split evenly between his clan and his village, a devotion so complete that the Curse of Hatred never took hold of him. Yet he hid a private shame. Envy once led him to hold back aid from a friend and rival at a fatal moment, and the guilt of that death, which he counted as murder, awakened his Mangekyō Sharingan and became a lifelong reminder never to surrender to such feelings again. Like Itachi, he disliked killing and leaned on non-lethal methods, scaring off enemy squads with illusions rather than cutting them down.

Shisui graduated during the Third Shinobi World War and awakened his Mangekyō after watching his best friend die on a mission he blamed himself for. He later befriended a young Itachi, earned his famous nickname for mastery of the Body Flicker Technique, and rose to jōnin and then Anbu captain, becoming a breadwinner for his ailing family. So feared was his name that a Kirigakure squad fled rather than face him. His talents ran wide: crow summoning, large-scale Fire Release, kenjutsu, and a Sharingan whose genjutsu was praised as the finest the clan produced.

Ordered by the Military Police to watch Itachi, Shisui secretly shared the boy's wish to spare the Uchiha a war with Konoha. As the clan pushed toward a coup, he revealed the truth to Hiruzen Sarutobi and gained permission to spy on his own family. He resolved to use Kotoamatsukami, the peerless illusion granted by his Mangekyō, on Fugaku Uchiha to quietly end the plot. Danzō Shimura, doubting the plan and coveting the power, ambushed him and, breaking free with Izanagi, tore out his right eye.

Certain Danzō would come for the other eye, Shisui entrusted his remaining left eye to Itachi, urging him to protect both the village and the Uchiha name. He then erased his own body and staged a suicide in the Naka River, leaving a note his narrow-minded clan could not understand. In the anime, his death also awakened Itachi's own Mangekyō. His legacy endured: Itachi hid the eye inside a crow as a safeguard against Sasuke, Danzō destroyed his stolen eye in his final moments to keep it from Tobi, and Itachi later stated that above all Shisui wanted someone to inherit his ideals, naming Naruto Uzumaki as that heir. Because his corpse was gone, Kabuto Yakushi could never reincarnate him for the Fourth Shinobi World War.