Kobanza

Broad and heavily built, Kobanza has a distinctly fish-like look to him. His head is bald and bears the Funato clan's markings down its left side, and his mouth is set with sharp, pointed teeth. He goes shirtless beneath a piece of body armour, adding gloves and bandages wound up his arms.

Kobanza is a calculating operative content to wait for the right moment, though his patience has its limits. Rather than confront foes head-on, he prefers to work from the shadows and set them at each other's throats. His devotion to the Funato runs to the extreme: cornered and facing capture, he would sooner die than endure an interrogation that might spill the clan's secrets. His undoing lies in the small cracks of his own plan, the whispered rumour and the slips in his false story that give him away under scrutiny.

Physically Kobanza is formidable, strong enough to swing the heavy Kabutowari blade. His real edge, though, is Water Release, and specifically the power to dissolve his whole body into water. In that state he can seep through the narrowest gaps, slide unseen between locations, and, most dangerously, flow into a living person to puppet their movements. He put every part of this to use during the Great Sea Battle of Kirigakure, boarding a captured Funato ship by hiding within a Doto Island refugee and steering him. By night he took the stolen Kabutowari, killed Taiki, and returned the weapon to frame Kyoho, then fed rumours among the refugees to breed conflict. The trap closed when he came to claim Kyoho's body and found the man alive, a ruse Kawaki had staged to draw him out. He melted into water to escape Boruto and Mitsuki's Lightning Release kunai and reached the engine room, where Hebiichigo briefly pinned him with Nuibari. Refusing to be handed to Buntan for questioning, he tore free and killed himself in a bid to wreck the engine and keep the Funato's secrets safe.