Kakeru Tsuki

Age shows plainly on the old king. His white hair hangs long and untended, spilling down into a beard, while the crown of his scalp has thinned into baldness.

Kakeru rules as a gentle sovereign whose first thought is the comfort of his subjects, and he means to pour the realm's resources into their welfare. Perceptive enough to sense Shabadaba's hunger for power early on, he still clings to the hope that the minister will one day mend his ways. That faith has its limits, though; in the end he heeds his soldiers and steels himself to move against the man's mounting greed.

Reigning over the Land of the Moon, Kakeru watched his minister and friend Shabadaba covet the throne, yet kept trusting that the man might come around to his own creed of selflessness and generosity. When no change came, he took his soldiers' counsel and prepared to confront the corruption, first sending both his son and his grandson abroad to spare them the coming turmoil. His plan to fund the poor and cut taxes only sharpened Shabadaba's resentment, and the minister answered by setting the Wandering Ninja Clan on him to carry out the killing. During the coup, Ishidate's Petrification Gauntlet turned the lower half of the king's body to stone as he fled with his handful of loyal troops, most of the army and the full ministerial cabinet having sided with the traitor.

Later, when Korega delivered Michiru and Hikaru before the failing monarch, Sakura Haruno managed to keep him breathing a while longer, yet she could not reverse the petrification, which had set too deep. With his final words he named his son and grandson the new king and prince.