Kurozumi Orochi

Orochi is a heavyset man with a large head and a thickset frame. Balding on top, he keeps what dark purple hair remains along the sides and back, tied into a long topknot, and sports a thin upturned mustache. His two upper canines run longer than the rest yet stay blunt, a detail that carries over into his serpent hybrid form. He dresses in a gold kimono patterned with fans, a flower-covered blue robe, and a crown. When transformed, his central head turns dark olive and bears red scales, while the other seven take lighter shades, each crowned with black horns and bearing red, blue-irised eyes.

One of the last of the disgraced Kurozumi line, Orochi nursed a boundless greed and craving for power rooted in bitterness over his family's downfall and his own childhood poverty. Outwardly he could feign timid servility, a mask he used to swindle the sympathetic, but beneath it ran deceit and treachery, twisting any law or promise to suit himself. As shogun he ruled as a gleeful tyrant, drawing near-ecstatic pleasure from his subjects' misery while Wano starved and rotted under industry and Beasts Pirates occupation. His arrogance, propped up by Kaidou's protection, blinded him to the truth that he was merely the Emperor's pawn, and his vanity drove him to spread propaganda casting himself as the hero who had defeated Oden.

Higurashi steered the young Orochi toward seizing the shogunate, urging him to hoard gold and manufacture arms while offering him a Mythical Zoan known as the Hebi Hebi no Mi, its model being the Yamata no Orochi, which turns him into an eight-headed serpent as well as a human-serpent hybrid. Through her schemes, Kanjuro's spying, and an alliance forged with Kaidou, he toppled the Kouzuki Family roughly three decades before the present and claimed the title of shogun. He held Wano through fear, propped up by the Orochi Oniwabanshu ninja, the Mimawarigumi samurai, and the Emperor's might, even though he was no real fighter himself, leaning on others while showing only sharp strategic instincts, decent marksmanship, and a falsely advertised swordsmanship.

Unlike his complacent officials, Orochi gave full weight to Toki's prophecy and correctly reasoned that Oden's heir and retainers had survived, scrambling to crush their uprising before it could begin. His reign ended when Kaidou turned on him during the New Onigashima plan and beheaded him to claim Wano outright. Orochi survived the blow and, out of spite, tried to burn everyone on the island, but after two encounters with the Nine Red Scabbards he was finally killed, decapitated by Denjiro as the flames of Kazenbo consumed him.