Kakuzu

Kakuzu is a male anime and manga character who features in Naruto.

Biography

Kakuzu (Japanese: 角都, Hepburn: Kakuzu) was a male human who came to be an elite ninja of the village of Takigakure in the Ninja World. During his life, he came to be trained as a shinobi and rose to the position of elite ninja where he was dispatched on assassination missions. Long ago, he was sent on a mission to assassinate Hashirama Senju who was the first Hokage of Konohagakure. It was noted that he had lost the fight but managed to escape where he always came to remember the headbands of the leaf-shinobi. The failure though resulted in punishment by his village for being unable to complete the assignment despite the strength of his opponent. The response made against him led to him developing a violent of his village for their treatment of him which led to him going rogue. During his flight from the hidden waterfall, he killed the village elders and took their hearts whilst absconding with their most prized forbidden techniques which he used for himself. Kakuzu then began life as a bounty hunter on the black market where he used the stolen techniques to extend his own lifespan and expand his arsenal of abilities by stealing the still-beating hearts of powerful shinobi. At some point, he was noted to had encountered the Gold and Silver Brothers where he witnessed their ability to attain Tailed-Beast transformation after stealing some of the chakra of the Nine-Tails. After his defection, he came to be convinced to join the ranks of the Akatsuki where in the early years of the criminal organisation he was noted to had killed four of his partners and used their hearts for his special jutsu. Later on, the Akatsuki encountered another immortal named Hidan who they managed to recruit and paired him off with Kakuzu where their respective natures allowed them to work with one another without killing the other.

He attended an astral projection meeting of the Akatsuki where they gathered to discuss the activities of Orochimaru who had taken Sasuke Uchiha under his care. They also spoke about their plans in further their agenda and moving forward with capturing the Nine-Tails where they agreed that they would take the next two years to prepare themselves. Kakuzu was later present alongside the other Akatsuki members during the sealing Tailed-Beast Shukaku. Sometime afterwards, he reattached Deidara's arms after they had been severed following a battle.

Kakuzu and Hidan later went in pursuit of the Two-Tails' jinchūriki who was Yugito Nii. She ended up revealing herself and allowed herself to be cornered, in order to spring a trap on them with the goal eliminate her pursuers. Yugito then transformed into her Tailed Beast which was that of a large flaming cat, but the Akatsuki duo still managed to defeat her. They proceeded to give their captured quarry to Zetsu, before they continued to the Land of Fire. On their way, Kakuzu decided to attack the Fire Temple in order to collect the bounty on the head monk Chiriku who was listed in the bingo book with a thirty million ryō bounty. Whilst there, they slaughtered most of the other monks during the event but one survivor managed to escape to warn Konoha of the incoming threat. Upon receiving the notice, the Hokage Tsunade assigned the Nijū Shōtai to track down and eliminate Kakuzu and Hidan. Meanwhile, Kakuzu took Chiriku's body to a bounty station hidden in a bathroom, whilst Hidan chose to wait outside. When Kakuzu finally left the bathroom after counting the money, he found a Nijū Shōtai team led by Asuma Sarutobi attacking Hidan. Confronted by the leaf shinobi, Hidan told Kakuzu that he could handle their foes himself and to not to interfere. As a result, Kakuzu simply observed their battle where he came to be impressed at the strategic skill of the young Shikamaru Nara. In the ensuing battle, Hidan managed to ingest Asuma's blood to start his curse technique ceremony on him, but Shikamaru was able to stop him with his Shadow Imitation Technique. When Asuma managed to decapitate Hidan, Kakuzu decided to finally intervene and reattached Hidan's head back to his neck using the threads in his body. Kakuzu then fought with Kotetsu and Izumo where he easily held off the two shinobi whilst Hidan dealt a fatal blow to Asuma. Their battle was interrupted by the appearance of another Nijū Shōtai team who they easily fought them off until they were summoned by the Akatsuki leader to seal the Two-Tails. Hidan and Kakuzu then retreated to a secluded area and continued to their assignment where they spent three days sealing the Two-Tails.

After the sealing was complete, Kakuzu and Hidan set out on their search for the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's jinchūriki Naruto Uzumaki, only to be cut off by Team Asuma who were headed by Kakashi Hatake. Shikamaru used Asuma's chakra knives to capture both the Akatsuki members in place with a trick, but Kakuzu had discovered the trick beforehand, and, using a separated arm, broke free. Because of his ability to harden his skin, Kakuzu proved to be largely invulnerable to subsequent attacks. Kakashi, however, was able to analyse Kakuzu's hand seals, and pierced Kakuzu's heart with his Lightning Cutter, exploiting the weakness Kakuzu's earth-based technique had against lightning-based ones. While this would normally be fatal, Kakuzu had five hearts in his possession, and thus recovered fairly quickly, sending a counter-attack to Kakashi. Removing his cloak, he revealed four masks on his back, one of which was now broken by Kakashi. Each mask contained a heart, the broken one having given its heart up to keep Kakuzu alive. The four masks broke free from his back into separate entities, with the broken one dissolving after doing so. Each mask was able to attack with a specific and powerful elemental attack, making Kakuzu almost too much for Team 10 to handle. While Kakuzu set his sights on replacing his lost heart with Kakashi's, Shikamaru dragged Hidan away from the battlefield into some woods, with his Shadow Imitation Technique, for a one-on-one fight. Ignoring the other two for the most part, Kakuzu focused on taking Kakashi's heart. Though Kakashi was unable to handle Kakuzu and his mask creatures, being forced to protect Ino and Chōji too, he was saved when Shikamaru tricked Hidan into using some of Kakuzu's blood in his curse ritual, which Kakashi had collected in a capsule earlier when he pierced Kakuzu's chest, and had handed it over to Shikamaru. This resulted in Hidan unintentionally destroying Kakuzu's main body's heart. Seeing this, the Lightning mask allowed its heart to be absorbed by Kakuzu's body, bringing him back to life. In addition to that, Kakuzu also had the two other Fire and Wind masks to combine with him, making him even more powerful. He then caught the rest of Team 10 with his threads, hoping to replenish his stock.

Team 10 was saved by the timely arrival of Team 7 which included Naruto who decided to fight Kakuzu himself. At first, Kakuzu did not view the young Naruto as a threat but this changed when Uzumaki unveiled his newly developed technique, Wind Release: Rasenshuriken. Kakuzu quickly recognised this attack to be dangerous if it ever connected with him. However, Naruto's inability to maintain the technique for more than a few seconds put Kakuzu at ease, especially since its failure almost allowed him to kill Naruto, but decided to fight in his long-range mode just to be safe. As Naruto tried the Rasenshuriken once again with his shadow clones, Kakuzu attempted to crush Naruto with his threads from a distance, but was surprised to discover that it was a shadow clone that he had destroyed, and, subsequently, the real Naruto shot up behind him, using the technique effectively this time. Left with no usable hearts after being battered by Naruto's technique, Kakuzu lamented being defeated by those he considered 'kids'. Kakashi assured him that the previous generation being surpassed by the next was perfectly natural, and one of the 'never-ending cycles of life'. Kakashi then finished him off with a Lightning Cutter thus killing the Akatsuki shinobi. In the aftermath, Kakuzu's corpse was later taken back to Konoha to be autopsied by Tsunade in regards of the Rasenshuriken's capabilities. During the study of it, it was revealed that the attack from Naruto had damaged Kakuzu at a cellular level.

His remains were later take by Kabuto Yakushi who came to revive Kakuzu through his perfection of the reanimation jutsu. Thus, he joined other revived shinobi that were to serve as elite warriors for the Akatsuki in the Fourth Shinobi World War. He was deployed as part of the forces sent against the Allied Shinobi Forces where he joined a large army of White Zetsu that engaged the enemy's First Division at the coast of the Land of Lightning. Entering onto the battlefield, he was shown to had strangled several shinobi with his threads and observed as Kinkaku took his Tailed-Beast form. Later on, he was confronted by the Ino-Shika-Chō shinobi and commented that Shikamaru's presence meant that he had defeated Hidan. Kakuzu then claimed his fifth and final heart from an enemy ninja allowing him to release his masks on the battlefield. He also revealed that amongst his 'allies' included the revived Dan Katō and even the young shinobi's own mentor Asuma Sarutobi with those two being forced to fight their friends. As his masks were on the battlefield, the one containing the lightning heart was destroyed by Tenten using Bashōsen. Kakuzu then battled Darui, Izumo and Kotetsu where they were surprised to see Chōji becoming giant-sized and manifesting butterfly wings that overshadowed the battlefield. With his masks defeated, Kakuzu himself was retrained by Chōji's giant fist allowing him to be sealed away by the Allied Shinobi Forces. Later on, Kabuto came to be defeated and forced to release the reanimation jutsu leading to Kakuzu's body disintegrating and him dying once again.

Overview

Personality and attributes

In appearance, Kakuzu was a very tall tan-skinned man with long dark-brown hair with eyes that had unusual colouring as he had green irises and no pupils or red sclerae.

Kakuzu was shown to be a greedy individual who prioritized things in terms of how much they are worth. According to him, even places like Hell ran on money. He would arrange goals in terms of the highest profit he could gain from them, and was often unwilling to involve himself in something if there was nothing to gain from it, as well as claiming that he tended to forget opponents who were not worth any money after he was done with them. He even remarked that money is the only dependable thing in the world.

His favorite source of income was collecting bounties while carrying out other missions, even putting up with Hidan's religion since it allowed him to collect bounties faster. His history as a bounty hunter seemed to be extensive, as he was on friendly terms with a bounty collector and even seemed to have memorized the information and worth of some of the more dangerous bounties. This view of money had caused Kakuzu to refer to himself as the "Treasurer of Akatsuki", though it is unknown if this was an actual position. Kakuzu also had his own personal banker and accountant.

Whilst a member of Akatsuki, Kakuzu greatly disliked the fact that he needed a teammate. As he was easily angered, Kakuzu had the habit of killing anyone near him when enraged. Kakuzu had killed his previous partners as a result of this, leading to his partnership with Hidan. Neither Kakuzu nor Hidan were fond of their partnership, Kakuzu having little patience for Hidan's time-consuming battle style and rituals. Meanwhile, Hidan in turn detested how Kakuzu fought solely for money. Still, because Hidan was immortal, Kakuzu could attack him without worrying about finding a new partner. In addition, the abilities of both complimented each other, making the two an ideal team.

Kakuzu was more cautious than Hidan, often telling Hidan not to let his guard down during battle. Kakuzu was also much more willing to take orders, immediately obeying the Akatsuki leader and persuading Hidan to do the same even if disobeying would get him a large bounty.

It was shown that he held a violent hatred for his village that stemmed from his long history of service to Takigakure. Yet, despite his allegiance, he was repaid with an uncharacteristically harsh punishment leading to him brutally betraying his village and stealing their most valuable jutsu for himself after killing its elders.

Powers and abilities

Kakuzu was a male human who had the ability to manipulate chakra which allowed him to become a shinobi. He was fast with him being able to cross great distances almost instantly and disappear from unfocused eyes. His raw strength was enough for him to catch enlarged punches with a single hand and easily overpower his foe as well as lift two people up by their necks with relative ease. Such was his power that he came to become an S-rank nin. In fact, he was strong enough to be sent on a mission to kill Hashirama Senju even though he failed in the assignment.

One of his powers was an ability called Earth Grudge Fear (地怨虞­, Jiongu) that was a secret kinjutsu technique he stole from his village of Takigakure. This allowed him to transform his body into something akin to a rag-doll that was held by hundreds of thick black threads. His fighting style and unique abilities revolved around the special nature of his body structure, which was composed of hundreds of these thick, grey tendrils woven throughout his flesh. Seemingly through this, it had allowed Kakuzu to retain his youthful strength, health, and appearance despite his advanced age. This also let him separate his body parts at will, perform mid to long-range physical attacks, and sew up almost any injury he suffered. The threads could also be used to repair the bodies of others such as using it to reattach a lost limb of a comrade. Kakuzu's threads granted him a degree of immortality as they could pierce the flesh and bodies of others, allowing him to remove their organs and integrate them into his own body, thereby extending his own life.

In reality, Kakuzu possessed five hearts that sustained his life with these being split between his body and the four masks that resided on his back. Each mask contained its own heart allowing him to animate the mask with his threads and each possessed its own chakra nature. With them, Kakuzu was able to live so long as on of his hearts was still functioning with them even able to re-animate his body if his own heart was destroyed. If a heart was destroyed, Kakuzu was able to replace it by harvesting the heart of one of his victims where he gained their chakra nature as a result.

Among the techniques known to him included:

• Earth Grudge Fear (地怨虞­, Jiongu) :
• Earth Release: Earth Spear (土遁・土矛­, Doton: Domu) :
• Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work (火遁・頭刻苦­, Katon: Zukokku) :
• Lightning Release: False Darkness (雷遁・偽暗­ Raiton: Gian) :
• Strange Mask Exploding Flame (奇面ノ爆炎­ Kimen no Bakuen) :
• Wind Release: Pressure Damage (風遁・圧害­ Fūton: Atsugai) :

He came to be a member of the Akatsuki (暁, literally meaning: "Dawn" or "Daybreak").

Notes

• Kakuzu was created by Masashi Kishimoto where he featured in the setting of the Naruto universe.

In other media

Television

• In Naruto, Kakuzu appeared in the setting of the anime television series where he was voiced by Japanese actor Takaya Hashi and by English actor Fred Tatasciore in the dub. This version had Kakuzu and Hidan meet with Sasori and Deidara to discuss their new missions assigned by Akatsuki. After Kakuzu said they had a choice between a money-making mission and a war-mission, he chose the money mission after Sasori and Deidara showed no interest in it, much to Hidan's annoyance. Later on, Kakuzu and Hidan were sent to capture the jinchūriki Fū. Fū was excited to befriend a fellow Taki comrade, despite knowing the rogue shinobi's history. However, Kakuzu states that their motives were not to become friends with her. Kakuzu came to be summoned by Kabuto to battle Team Kakashi, who were investigating the massacre that he brought about in The Hole. Quickly after being summoned, Kakuzu's coffin vanished with Kabuto questioning if the Impure World Reincarnation was incomplete

Appearances

• Naruto:
• Naruto: Shippuden:

External Links

• Naruto Wiki Entry
• Comicvine Entry

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