Jiji

Records give Jiji roughly the build and years of Sasuke Uchiha, a resemblance that let him blend in without notice among the prison's inmates.

Outwardly Jiji seemed warm and gregarious, welcoming Sasuke to the prison, presenting his cellmates, and nudging the newcomer away from the harsh rules. He appeared truly taken aback that Sasuke and Sakura were wed given the long stretches they lived apart, and he pushed Sasuke to be more affectionate. All that geniality was a disguise, though, a means of watching the other inmates and passing what he learned to Zansūru.

Believing his beloved Margo dead, Jiji had turned every part of himself toward bringing her back, serving Zansūru's designs in exchange for a promise to restore her. Such single-minded resolve left almost no space for conscience: he sent a dinosaur to kill his friend Ganno without hesitation and poisoned Sakura while mourning the deed, muttering that he wished she had kept out of his path. Only upon learning Margo lived and that Zansūru had lied did remorse seize him, moving him to guard Sakura at his own cost. Rescued and reunited with her, he pledged the rest of his days to atonement, helping Nanara turn Redaku into a calm and thriving land.

Jiji had once served Sunagakure when Redaku's Prime Minister, touring a nation with no martial tradition, engaged him to raise an army of ninja. Housed in the royal palace, he was waited on by a maid called Margo, and love grew between them, enough that he chose to give up the shinobi path for her sake. Once the minister learned of the affair, he laid down a term: a year aiding the researcher Zansūru, and then the two could remain together. Inside the Astronomy Research Institute, Zansūru had discovered how to raise the dead, but being no ninja himself he had Jiji carry out the Redaku Reincarnation Ninjutsu, calling up a dragon named Menō to watch over the Institute's prisoners.

As his year drew to a close, he was told Margo had perished in an epidemic, a death certificate arriving from the minister to prove it. The news shattered him, and he faulted himself for having left her side. Zansūru held out the same revival art as bait, promising to reclaim Margo's remains if Jiji kept helping to gather a dragon army. He accepted, slipping in among the inmates as prisoner 544 while secretly searching for hidden polar particles.

After Sasuke turned up and was placed in his cell, Jiji passed their days on idle chatter and games while fishing for anything useful. On the night Zansūru was at last prepared, Jiji raised dozens of dragons and set them loose to butcher the prisoners, then drove a poisoned blade into Sakura, one that froze her chakra pathways, and seized the polar particles she had just found. The scheme fell apart when Sasuke, exposed as an Uchiha by his Sharingan, pried Menō loose from Jiji's grip and pinned Jiji with a seal Sakura had quietly set during their first meeting. Trapped, he asked for just one thing, a final chance to look upon Margo, but a letter from Kakashi showed that Margo was alive and had aided in toppling the minister. Grasping how completely Zansūru had used him, he broke down and released the reincarnation art, sending the dragons' souls away; the final one tore his throat in revenge as it vanished. Over his own protests Sakura mended the wound, and Jiji was in the end spared, reunited with Margo, and a year on led King Nanara through the Institute.