Homura Mitokado

In his later years Homura wears glasses over a face set in a permanent frown, framed by grey hair and a beard, with the firm jaw he kept from youth. As one of the Konoha Council he dresses much as Hiruzen did in his Hokage robes. As a young shinobi he cycled through two looks: a black getup with grey plating over the chest, shoulders, and thighs, arm guards, a dull green scarf and a waist pouch during Tobirama's era, and a black jumpsuit with mesh mail and a right-arm gauntlet matching Hiruzen's during the Nine-Tails attack. A poncho-like top draped over most of his outfits, lengthening with the years, and he often bore several oversized scrolls. By the reign of the Seventh Hokage he had aged markedly, his head balding, his beard reaching his waist, and a cane needed to walk.

Everything Homura does aims at what he considers Konoha's benefit, though he reads that benefit through a harder, more militant lens than the Hokage he serves under, drifting toward Danzō's war-hawk thinking. That streak showed when he and Koharu backed the Uchiha Clan Downfall and later pushed to restrain Naruto Uzumaki's movements. His differing vision of governance leads him to meddle constantly in Tsunade's decisions, earning her dislike, and he even faults her for the damage Konoha suffered during Pain's assault despite her near-fatal effort to save it. Even so he keeps his composure in tense moments, never raising his voice, and speaks with an authority that frames his suggestions as orders already decided. He favors funneling the village's money into military strength, siding with Kido Tsumiki to divert funds away from Sakura Haruno's clinic. That prudence and efficiency won him the absolute trust of Konoha's jōnin, though Danzō's own writings dismiss both elders as neither notably skilled nor battle-tested, surviving mainly through luck and by attaching themselves to stronger allies.

Homura and Hiruzen Sarutobi were close from childhood, and under the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, they and Koharu trained together and ran countless missions. On one First Shinobi World War assignment guarding Tobirama, the brutal Kinkaku Force encircled them; Homura despaired at their odds and watched, stunned, as Tobirama offered himself as bait so the others could flee. When Hiruzen took up the office of Third Hokage, Homura and Koharu became his advisers, and their long experience earned them standing nearly equal to the Hokage. Years later, during the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's attack, Homura fought among the shinobi struggling to drive the beast from the village.

Through the series he surfaces at pivotal councils. He first appears debating Hayate's death and the threat of Orochimaru with the village's jōnin. After the Third dies, he and Koharu catch Jiraiya peeping, scold him, and try to install him as the next Hokage; Jiraiya declines and names Tsunade instead, setting off the search he insists on making with only Naruto at his side. In Part II Homura repeatedly presses Tsunade to keep Naruto, a jinchūriki, confined and supervised rather than out on risky missions, and she rebuffs him every time.

When Pain invades and Tsunade moves to summon Naruto home, Homura and Koharu object, arguing the boy is safer where he is, until Tsunade accosts them and charges the pair with lacking faith in the younger generation. He resurfaces afterward, briefing the Fire Daimyō on plans to stand with other nations against Akatsuki and helping choose a successor while Tsunade lies comatose. Later, as the Five Kage Summit and the coming war loom, he attends the war councils. Two years past the Fourth Shinobi World War he and the Fire Daimyō survive separate ambushes, and in the budget dispute that follows he backs Kido over funding Sakura's clinic, calling instead for more money to the Anbu.

In the New Era he and Koharu remain fixtures of the council. They oversee Ino Yamanaka's probe of an attacked gate guard during Mitsuki's disappearance and bristle at learning Mitsuki is Orochimaru's son. After Boruto is blamed for the Seventh Hokage's apparent death, the elders push the newly installed Eighth Hokage, Shikamaru, to make the title permanent and to have Boruto killed to appease the daimyō who controls the budget, growing ever more frustrated as Shikamaru lets the fugitive slip away.