Taizō

Black eyes and short, spiky black hair, broken by a brown patch above the brow, mark Taizō. As a boy he wore a grey apron-style cloak knotted at the stomach with a white sash over a khaki shirt, plain trousers, and brown sandals. In adulthood he switched to a light-grey cloak, a dark-grey apron belted in brown, light-grey pants, grey sandals, and white wrappings at the wrists and ankles, and for the road with Asura he added a straw hat, a white head-covering cape, a scarf, and a grey sash across his chest.

Free-spirited and full of drive, Taizō adored his mother so deeply that he once dragged his best friend into a crime on her behalf without telling him, a choice he came to regret. His loyalty to Asura held firm across long stretches and many hardships, even when Asura hesitated at the outset. Stung at first by the cold reception villagers gave him, he shook off the resentment quickly and threw himself into helping. He freely owned that deep thinking was not his strength, making up for it with steady support and full effort whatever came.

In childhood he, Asura, and their friends gathered to play near their village, and one such day Taizō launched a hunt for a huge boar, only for the group to scatter at the beast's size. Treed and cornered, he called on Asura to fend it off with ninshū, but Asura could not, and the dog Shiro gave its life before Indra Ōtsutsuki, Asura's elder brother, arrived to save them. Years on, Taizō talked Asura into felling trees for a supposed village shortcut when in truth he meant to sell the timber for medicine to treat his sick mother. The deception enraged Indra, who demanded punishment for the betrayal, yet Asura harbored no grudge and freed his friend from confinement, standing against his own brother to do it. Later, hiding in a shack, Taizō learned from Gasuka and Edashi that Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki was sending his sons on a long journey, and his now-healed mother pressed him to go with Asura. The pair travelled far to the village that hosted the God Tree, where a local named Kanna helped them see that many residents had fallen to a strange sickness. Taizō and Kanna aided Asura in overpowering the tree's guards, and they learned that the saplings enriched the land while poisoning those who ate of its bounty. The village elder refused Asura's plea to destroy the saplings, and though Taizō was ready to turn back, Asura resolved to give the people a fresh water source instead. He dug at a well for weeks over Taizō's objections, until Taizō joined in and, inspired by his selflessness, the villagers followed. Having once held back from the art at his mother's wishes, Taizō now studied Ninshū under Asura, learned to draw out chakra to steady himself, and passed the teaching to the villagers as they worked. A year later they struck water, filling a great lake beside the village, and the people burned the saplings and recovered before Taizō and Asura headed home with many eager to follow.