Taiki

Weathered and middle-aged, Taiki carried a suntanned look and a head of grey hair. He dressed in the plain garb of a working fisherman.

Easygoing and devoted to life on the water, Taiki wore the perpetual flush of a heavy drinker. The habit did not make him careless, though. He took his duties seriously and gave up his cherished boat to see a mission through, all while making clear he expected to be paid for such a loss.

Born away from land, he passed most of his years afloat, slipping past or buying off the pirates he ran into along the way, which made him a genuine master at the helm. When the Funato clan struck the Shinonome ceremony, Konohamaru's Team 7 engaged him to carry them and Kagura Karatachi's swordsmen to Dotō Island, where Team 5 and Konoha's Scientific Ninja Tools researchers were stationed. A Funato vessel intercepted them the next day, and his attempt to bribe their way through unraveled when Kawaki's seasickness gave the group away. He ordered Kawaki to toss the Funato crew overboard and used his craft's burst of speed to break free. The pursuing boat rammed and damaged his own, and at Kagura's request he drove his vessel into the Funato mobile fortress as a diversion so the swordsman could aid Boruto, Buntan, and Kawaki inside it. Once the fortress Chakra Cannon fell, Taiki and the survivors floated on a lifeboat until allies aboard a captured Funato ship pulled them in, leaving him to pilot the craft toward Kirigakure. That night Kobanza of the Funato, concealed within one of the Dotō refugees through a water technique, murdered him. Because the killing blow came from the blade Kabutowari, suspicion first fell on Kyohō Fuefuki, and only after the real culprit surfaced did Kyohō feel able to share his past and build trust with the shinobi of Teams 5 and 7.