Tonbee

Tonbee is an old man with dark eyes, close-cropped grey hair, and a bristling moustache. His clothing is unfussy: a long-sleeved v-neck shirt beneath a sleeveless coat, paired with trousers and sandals.

Composed and measured, Tonbee carries a strong sense of obligation and respect. Both traits surface in his readiness to give his own life so Hotaru could reach safety, and in his refusal to abandon the fortress he was posted to defend.

Tonbee stood with Hotaru at the deathbed of En no Gyōja, who charged his granddaughter with restoring the clan's honour and handed Tonbee a scroll detailing how to unseal the Tsuchigumo kinjutsu. Later he and Hotaru carried the badly wounded Utakata back to the fort to recover, and afterward Tonbee asked the young man to stay on and train Hotaru, an offer Utakata flatly refused. His own strengths lay in elaborate trap-craft woven with seals, hinting at real skill with sealing techniques, and he could also summon bats.

When ninja bandits assaulted Mount Katsuragi, he sent a messenger bird to call Konohagakure and dispatched Hotaru with the kinjutsu, again asking Utakata to protect her. Confronting Akaboshi's group alone, he was quickly beaten and interrogated over the technique's location, then left behind, where Team 7 found him gravely hurt and Sakura tended his wounds. Recovering, he faced an incensed Naruto over the truth that the kinjutsu had been sealed onto Hotaru's back, and he recounted the clan's history and the rift between its village and the mountain fortress. Fearing the Tsuchigumo would never reclaim their standing, he offered a way to safely strip the technique from Hotaru's body. Once Team Yamato routed the bandits and rescued her, Tonbee returned to the Tsuchigumo village, thanked the shinobi, and saw them off.