Ōnoki

A diminutive elder, Ōnoki is marked at a glance by his bulbous red nose, heavy brows, and a triangular beard paired with a sharply angled moustache. His scalp is bare on top, though long white hair still falls from the lower portion of his skull, bound into a traditional topknot with a yellow ribbon. Over Iwa's mesh armour and a pale green flak jacket, he wears a four-panel green coat trimmed in yellow with a red collar, finishing the look with sandals. As a boy his hair was brown and his brows dark and heavy; far later in life his hairline retreats further, spots and creases deepen, his lids grow heavy, and his beard and moustache lengthen.

Through most of his lengthy life Ōnoki was arrogant, obstinate, and boastful, refusing to relinquish the Tsuchikage's seat despite his years while hypocritically pressing Tsunade to retire on account of her age. He had scant regard for the young, jabbing at Gaara over his supposed naivety, and blamed his own hardness on a formative clash with Madara in his youth. Yet Gaara's resolve and Naruto's example wore that away, reviving the gentler man beneath and forging a rousing leader who drove his fellow Kage to stand against Madara unflinching. He once despised every rival village and resorted to dirty tactics, among them a betrayal of Kirigakure, before he learned to fight alongside former foes and even sent apologies for old wrongs. His retirement curdled, though: after enemy ninja killed many of Iwa's youth, his grandson Kozuchi among them, a broken Ōnoki quietly chased artificial soldiers to spare living people, sliding into kidnapping and coercion under a grim lesser-evil logic. Seeing that road yield only corruption, he at last owned the mistake, atoned, and died urging the young never to lose heart when they stray.

Counted among the finest shinobi Iwagakure ever raised, Ōnoki remained a match for formidable enemies even past eighty, when a perpetually aching back and hips slowed him; among his opponents was his own resurrected teacher, Mū. Madara himself rated the old Kage the alliance's hardest man to crack. He wielded five natures in all, Yang and Lightning among them, and by fusing Earth with Fire and Wind he produced Dust Release, a coveted kekkei tōta that grinds its targets to powder. He was only the second person to hold the technique, and its might was staggering: one blast could reportedly obliterate a whole island or flatten a forest, and he could reshape it, split it, or lock onto a hurtling meteor to shield his village. His Earth arts spawned rock clones and giant golems, warped the terrain, and toyed with weight, letting him ground a foe, hoist Genbu, sheathe his fist in stone, or lighten himself enough to take to the air, even bearing down on chakra constructs such as a Susanoo. A patient, calculating tactician and a capable researcher who built the Akuta, he proved himself throughout the Fourth Shinobi World War, dueling Mū to a draw and joining Gaara to halt a plummeting meteorite though it wrecked his spine. His crowning feat came when a large-scale Dust Release tore through two dozen and one of Madara's Susanoo-cloaked clones at once. In extreme old age his body forced him into a wheelchair and long rests, yet his mind stayed sharp to the last.