Wandering Ninja Clan

These three appear only in the Crescent Moon Kingdom movie, working as guns for hire with no village standing behind them. The blank metal plates on their headbands bear no emblem, marking them as ninja beholden to no nation, a detachment driven home when Ishidate felt nothing after killing his own employer in a fit of fury. Each of them kept his hair cropped short beneath what looked like a wig, and all favoured close-quarters fighting laced with a drug that dulls an opponent's performance.

The schemer Shabadaba engaged the three to murder Kakeru Tsuki, ruler of the Land of the Moon, and afterward to eliminate the king's son Michiru and grandson Hikaru so that Shabadaba could take the crown. They struck Kakeru during the coup, and though he escaped with loyal troops, Ishidate's partial petrification of the king proved fatal over time. Their move against the heirs went awry: after tangling with Team 7, the mercenaries seized only Michiru and pulled back, leaving Hikaru free. Ordered later to finish Michiru inside the castle, Ishidate grew so fixated on killing Naruto that he petrified Shabadaba by mistake. All three were ultimately cut down by Naruto Uzumaki, Rock Lee, and Sakura Haruno.

Ishidate leads the band and wields the petrifying power that claimed the king and, by accident, their own patron. His two companions share his short-cropped look, taijutsu focus, and reliance on the disorienting poison. A collectible card game once catalogued the trio under a different name, the Uemon Clan, and the three also turned up in a cameo on the cover page of chapter 318 of the manga.