Sound Four

The Sound Four serve as the personal guard detail of Orochimaru, drawn from the ranks of Otogakure as his most trusted and dangerous subordinates. The name undersells the head count, since Sakon and Ukon function as a single position while inhabiting two bodies, pushing the true tally to five. When Kimimaro stood at their head, the unit went by the title Sound Five instead. A yin-yang crest marks their tunics, but the black half is deliberately left blank, a symbol of the imbalance the group carries.

The anime traces their origins to Orochimaru's holding cells, where captives were pitted against one another in lethal free-for-alls. Those who outlasted every rival earned their place as his guards. They were later made to bow to Kimimaro after he crushed them single-handedly, and his rare bone-manipulating bloodline marked him as Orochimaru's intended next vessel. Under the Sound Five banner they helped assassinate the Fourth Kazekage and cut down a rival team during the Chūnin Exams. Once Kimimaro fell terminally ill and stepped away, the quartet reverted to four and masqueraded as the Kazekage's guards while Orochimaru wore that same disguise. During the assault on the Leaf, they raised a barrier so no one could break into his duel with the Third Hokage, then hauled their crippled master back to Oto once his arms were sealed.

Their next charge was escorting Sasuke Uchiha to Orochimaru as a replacement body. They won him over by flaunting the strength their cursed seals granted, fed him a Mind Awakening Pill to force his own seal to mature, and carried him onward, brushing aside a Leaf platoon on the way. The Sasuke Recovery Team then hunted them down, and the group thinned out one death at a time: Jirōbō to Chōji, Kidōmaru to Neji, and finally Tayuya and Sakon and Ukon to the arriving Sand Siblings. Years afterward, Kabuto Yakushi reanimated them to serve Akatsuki in the Fourth Shinobi World War, promising a shot at revenge, though Naruto put them down again and returned their souls to rest.

Each fighter is tied to a compass point they occupy during group techniques: Jirōbō to the south, Kidōmaru to the east, Sakon to the west, and Tayuya to the north. Kimimaro once commanded them as the fifth and strongest, before illness pulled him from the ranks. Their egos as elite guards often cost them momentum: Jirōbō lingers to eat, Kidōmaru toys with foes who interest him, Sakon flares up and flaunts showy jutsu, and Tayuya refuses to accept defeat. Despite these clashing temperaments they mesh into a well-rounded unit, versed in barrier ninjutsu and fūinjutsu, and each empowered by a cursed seal from Orochimaru that lifts them to jōnin-caliber threats.