Sazanami

Scars mark Sazanami's face, a pair raking his left cheek and a single long line running down the right, above a chin roughened with stubble. He stands tall and heavily muscled, his dark grey hair falling to the shoulders in a tangle, with a bird-shaped birthmark set on his chest. His usual dress is a light blue kimono beneath a shirt whose sleeves have been torn off, finished with a straw hat.

His years at the forge left him able to hammer out fine weapons, among them a sword fitted with a custom grip that he came to handle with real skill. Turning that craft toward manhunting, he built a formidable command of kenjutsu, enough to put down three seasoned Konohagakure genin with little effort. His Iaido draws sliced clean through Michizo Manaka's blade and came quick enough to stop a ninja before a single hand seal could be woven.

Tokichi grew up poor in a tiny village wedged inside a small country between two larger nations, scraping by as a maker of blades. One festival night, out delivering a commissioned sword, he ran into the killer Gosunkugi, who had just cut down the very customer awaiting the weapon along with that man's family of three. The villagers pinned the murders on Tokichi and dragged him off, but he broke loose and fled with a one-million-ryo bounty hanging over him. While in hiding he discovered that Gosunkugi carried a three-million-ryo price of his own, and he swore to clear his name by hauling in the man who had framed him. To bury his wanted past, he took up freelance bounty hunting under the name Sazanami.

The hunt led him to Naruto Uzumaki, Kiba Inuzuka, and Hinata Hyuga, who were chasing the same quarry. When Naruto baited a patron at a bar, Sazanami dropped the man with blinding speed and told the barkeep to keep the bounty as payment for the damage. The young ninja trailed him outside and laid out their mission and their Konoha origins, at which point he tried to lull the three to sleep so he could meet Gosunkugi alone. Heading off by himself, he found Gosunkugi fighting as a shinobi and was gravely wounded, spared only when Naruto's group arrived to scatter the criminal. As they tended him in a cabin, a rival hunter named Gatsu forced his way in after Sazanami, and though he failed to seize him, he dropped a wanted poster on his way out that carried the name Tokichi and the same bird-shaped mark. Once his history and Gosunkugi's hand in the frame-up came to light, the still-injured Sazanami joined the genin to bring Gosunkugi down, only for the pair to be captured by Gatsu and Sazanami dragged back to answer for the crime. There, Gatsu and a local official presented Gosunkugi's confession, clearing Tokichi at last. The villagers apologized for their rush to judgment, and he was allowed to go home.