Chen

Age has left the older Chen deeply wrinkled, a short man with tanned skin and grey dreadlocks. He is missing a tooth on the upper right, wears a Manchu moustache above a neatly trimmed chin-beard, and shields his eyes behind red, square-framed sunglasses. His clothes run to a black-striped yellow jumpsuit, open-toed sandals, and a green sweatband. Back in his youth his hair had been brown and gathered into a tall ponytail.

Outwardly Chen plays the relaxed, cocky legend, clearly enjoying the reputation his name carries. Within, he is hollowed out by grief and regret over the last student he failed to save. Blaming himself for that death, he settles on a hard belief: that anyone unable to wield ninjutsu should never even try to live as a shinobi. His one comfort in life is onigiri, which he calls his only joy.

Once hailed as a hero of the Leaf, Chen trained a student who could use neither ninjutsu nor genjutsu and therefore devoted himself wholly to taijutsu. The two served side by side during the Third Shinobi World War, where the young man died precisely because he could not rely on jutsu. Devastated, Chen faked his own death, gave up the ninja life, and slipped from everyone's knowledge but that of his granddaughter Azami, who left rice balls at his grave, alone in knowing he still lived. The technique that made his name is the Leaf Dragon God: a spinning kick whose wind he twists into a whirling dragon that shreds flesh and can fell as many as three opponents at once.

His solitude ends when Rock Lee turns up with Naruto Uzumaki and Tenten to honour the hero everyone believes dead, and Azami reveals he still lives. Taking the old man for a swindler, the three genin attack and send his final rice ball flying, and his rage brings the Leaf Dragon God down on them. Awed, Lee begs for lessons, but Chen, seeing his lost student in the boy, drives him off and orders him to give up his dream. Lee simply waits, day upon day, until Chen relents and unleashes the move on him; the master is stunned that Lee can read its true nature, yet still departs unconvinced. Chen dies soon after, and Kabuto Yakushi later takes a DNA sample from him. For the war, Kabuto reincarnates the hero to strike the Allied Shinobi Forces, and after cutting down several ninja Chen meets Might Guy, whose stamina he grinds away with an undead body that never tires. When Lee joins the battle, Chen turns the Leaf Dragon God on master and student alike, only for Lee to lay bare its weakness and beat it. Humbled by how far the boy has come on taijutsu alone, Chen forgives his own failure, apologises, breaks the summoning, and returns to rest, noting that his grave will prove useful after all.