Shizuma Hoshigaki

Though still only a teenager, Shizuma looks deceptively older. He stands tall with pointed teeth, light blue eyes, and wavy black hair that reaches his shoulders and usually spills across the right side of his face. His usual outfit is a red sleeveless pinstriped turtleneck with matching arm-warmers, black pants, and a sword slung at his waist. When emotion runs high, gill-like slits and dark markings surface around his eyes, and a long thin scar crosses his chest, a mark Kagura once gave him. On declaring war he throws a sleeveless black jinbaori coat over his shoulders. Once he fuses badly with Samehada and the blade turns him feral, his muscles swell, his right arm becomes grey and finned with clawed fingers, his face lengthens into a fanged snout, and his eyes go fish-like.

Shizuma is a born combat maniac, notorious for savagery in battle and misconduct on missions. His love of fighting borders on masochism, relishing the pain of a strong opponent's blows and savoring the memory afterward. Loyal to Kirigakure in his own twisted way, he holds that the village lost its pride the moment it embraced peace, and he hungers to resurrect the feared Bloody Mist. A schemer, he gathers followers, exploits their insecurities and dreams for his own ends, and executes subordinates without hesitation when they fail, all while affecting a polite, honorific-laden charm.

Beneath the ambition sits a man with no true loyalties. He is willing to sacrifice those he claims to care for, bargain with enemy nations, and murder innocents, and Boruto pegs him as someone forever chasing an excuse for violence, eager to start a war simply because he thinks it would be fun. His impatience and stubbornness leave him shortsighted, blind to dangers like Samehada's appetite or the Seventh Hokage's wrath. Even jailed and beaten he stays unrepentant, using his teammates to stage a riot and killing the warden to slip away as a missing-nin. His romance with Buntan Kurosuki was likewise a tool for his own gain, and his cold betrayal of her earned her lasting thirst for revenge.

Shizuma once taught at the Kirigakure Academy, where he took a blow to shield a student from a frenzied Kagura Karatachi. While the others recoiled from the boy as a monster, Shizuma privately admired his bloodlust and quietly watched over him for years, and during this time he began a relationship with Buntan. His skill was real enough that a teenager was trusted to oversee Academy training. In combat he showed blinding speed, heavy endurance, and command of kenjutsu, and he could wield Samehada without rejection thanks to his vast chakra. His Water Release let him raise twin water prisons from a distance, hurl water spikes, and blanket an area in a Crimson Mist Barrier that seals off both sight and sound, while Samehada let him drain enemy chakra through their open wounds.

During the School Trip Arc, Shizuma courted Kagura for his revolution, claiming the Fifth and Sixth Mizukage had murdered those who opposed their pursuit of peace, and recruited him to lead a reborn Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. After gathering Samehada and the other blades, he moved to destroy Kirigakure's Memorial Stone, only to be met by Boruto, Sarada Uchiha, and Chōjūrō. Mitsuki then arrived with proof that Shizuma was conspiring with the Land of Waves and that he, not the Mizukage, had killed the people he blamed on them. Cornered, he unleashed his chakra-draining mist, but his diversionary attacks were overwhelmed and Samehada began devouring him, sending him on a feral rampage. Kagura took up Hiramekarei against his former ally, and he and Boruto each wielded half of the blade to bring Shizuma down and expel Samehada, leaving him unconscious.

Sent to prison for rehabilitation, Shizuma later escaped during the Great Sea Battle of Kirigakure Arc with help from Hassaku and Ichirōta. He betrayed Buntan's trust once more, poisoning her food to use her as a decoy, killed the prison warden, and got away while his comrades were recaptured, choosing to remain an unrepentant missing-nin.