Chiriku

Chiriku is bald, with dark eyes set beneath notably thick brows. He wears the standard robes of a ninja monk, adds the sash that marks a member of the Twelve Guardian Ninja, and goes about without footwear.

By temperament he is calm and hard to rattle, a composed figure whom little seems to disturb. That steadiness has limits, for when his anger is finally roused it shows plainly, and those around him regard him as an upright and sincere man.

Chiriku once stands among the Twelve Guardian Ninja who shield the Fire Daimyo, and during that service he forms a lasting friendship with Asuma Sarutobi. Some shadowy organisation sets a bounty of thirty million ryo on him. When six of the Guardians attempt a coup, he and the remaining loyal members fight them, and only he and Asuma walk away, with the anime adding that Kazuma secretly survives as well. Afterward Chiriku becomes head monk of the Fire Temple, an elite monastery of gifted monks, and the anime reveals that he trained under and eventually surpassed his master Chukaku. Steeped in the temple's secret arts, he wields its guarded taijutsu style, raises powerful barriers such as the Sealed Iron Wall to seal the grounds against intruders, and has mastered its ultimate technique, the Welcoming Approach: Thousand-Armed Murder, alongside the sealing methods used to suppress Sora's demonic chakra.

In the anime's Twelve Guardian Ninja storyline, the robbing of his fallen comrades' graves drives him to call on Konohagakure for aid. Since the failed coup he has quietly raised Sora, the child of the traitor Kazuma, choosing never to reveal the boy's parentage while doing what he can to steady him. As Sora's demonic side grows harder to contain, Chiriku arranges for him to travel to Konoha with Team Yamato under the pretext of covering for the injured Sai, the true aim being closer watch over the boy. His end comes when Hidan and Kakuzu of Akatsuki descend on the Fire Temple, expecting a sacred site to hide the country's jinchuriki. He holds off their combined assault for a time before the pair annihilate the monks and their home, and Kakuzu carries his body to a black-market station to claim the bounty. In the anime, Kabuto Yakushi later covets Chiriku's power enough to attempt his reincarnation, though the effort fails.