A is a supporting character in the Naruto series. He is the Fourth Raikage of the Hidden Cloud Village and the supreme leader of the Allied Shinobi Forces. As the Fourth Raikage, he is the most powerful shinobi and the leader of his village, and an inheritor of the legacy name A, forming the AB Combo with his chosen bodyguard and adoptive brother Killer B. After serving as the supreme commander of the Allied Shinobi Forces and one of the five great Kage, A retired as Raikage and was succeeded by his close subordinate Darui.
He is voiced by Hideaki Tezuka in the Japanese version, and by Beau Billingslea in the English version.
Appearance
A has dark skin with a large muscular build, white hair (blond in the anime) combed back, a small moustache and goatee. His face has pronounced cheekbones and tear troughs under his eyes, and a prominent crease across his forehead. He has pointed canines and his top lip also has a darker hue than the bottom one; traits he inherited from his father. During his fight with Sasuke, he amputated his left forearm after it was burned by Amaterasu.
A often wears a white haori without a shirt underneath and occasionally the traditional Raikage hat. He has black Fūma Shuriken tattoos on both shoulders and originally wore large, golden vambraces on his wrists, though he discarded them after the Five Kage Summit, wearing one on his remaining arm briefly near the start of the Fourth Shinobi World War. He also wears a gold belt around his waist with a boar's face engraved in the centre, black pants with torn ends, Kumo-nin shin guards, and shinobi sandals. All of these aspects combined give him the appearance of a professional wrestler.
After relinquishing the role of Raikage to Darui, A began wearing a simple black kimono held closed by a white sash. He has also begun balding with visible wrinkles.
Personality
A is generally characterised as stern, outspoken and decisive. It also becomes surprising when someone manages to convince him to change his mind. After becoming Raikage, A grew humbler as he referred to himself as "washi", a humble term used by old men, instead of "ore", a prideful way of saying "I" or "me". He believes that actions and strength mean everything and that ninja should never compromise or bow down in front of each other. Similarly, he views jinchūriki not as individuals, but as tools of villages that have no right to speak for themselves.He can also be somewhat hypocritical, voicing his disdain at the other five Great Nations for letting their finest ninja go rogue, while denying his own village's shameless acts, such as kidnapping and stealing secrets from other villages, and going back on promises.
However, he rationalises his actions on the goal of wanting to protect his village, willing to sacrifice allies for the greater good. Despite his militant demeanour, A has quite an emotional side; his short temper and eagerness can cause him out to act recklessly with regards to certain matters, including bursting through his office window to attend the Kage Summit and smashed the table when the conversation. Many people are left exasperated by A's rash behaviour, commenting that it undermines his position as Raikage. However, A has shown a loyal and responsible side, telling Darui not to blame himself over his lost arm and that Darui is his right-hand man.
Serious as he can be, A also loves and deeply cares for his family, especially his adoptive brother Killer B. Since the day they became partners, A and B bonded deeply as they completed missions and honed their skills together as the A–B Combo (エービーコンビ, Ē Bī Konbi). When B became Gyūki's jinchūriki and A's father died, A became determined to keep his village and B safe, confining his brother's movements to the village even if it went against B's personal wishes. As such, he is upset by his younger brother's capture by Akatsuki, and even more so upon discovering it was a ploy for B to have a vacation, swearing to punish him with his "Iron Claw". At the same time, A claims he has resolved to kill his brother if the situation ever called for it.
When confronting his older brother during the Fourth Shinobi World War, B points out the flaw in A's viewpoint: his over-protection of B prevents him from acknowledging and believing in B's own strength. When B and Naruto prove their worth by surpassing A in strength and speed respectively, A realises they are truly essential in ending war and lets them pass. A benefits greatly from serving in the Allied Shinobi Forces as well. He was initially distrustful of other villages for their connections to Akatsuki, but now accepts them as comrades, expressing care when they start to over-exert themselves or when they save him on the battlefield. A and Tsunade have somewhat of a rivalry and he is often critical of her, but he concedes her as a valuable comrade and shows concern for her during their battle against Madara. A is also capable of forgiveness although rarely. Despite his hatred towards Sasuke for his attempt to kidnap Killer B and his desire to kill him in retaliation, as well as the loss of his left hand from their battle, A recognises Sasuke's remorse for his crimes and decides to forgive him.
Abilities
As the Raikage, A is undoubtedly an extremely powerful shinobi. His younger brother Killer B also mentioned in his fight with Sasuke that, before him, only A was able to deflect the Eight-Tails. A's signature fighting style is a combination of taijutsu and ninjutsu to form the powerful nintaijutsu, which circumvented time-consuming hand seals. It is for this very reason that losing his left arm did very little to impede his fighting abilities. Despite the loss of his arm, A was still chosen to be Supreme Leader of the Allied Shinobi Forces, further implying the levels of his might.
Physical Prowess
A possesses incredible physical strength, deceptive speed, and taijutsu skills to overwhelm his opponents in battle. He is capable of using lightning jutsu. His only known jutsu is "Lightning Armor" which augments his speed and reflexes and provides protection from outward attacks, preventing Sasuke Uchiha's "Chidori" from piercing him any deeper than his fingertips.
Befitting his appearance the Raikage seems to prefer taijutsu combat, forgoing any hand seals-based ninjutsu. He has shown tremendous prowess in this field: when Naruto and Killer B tried escaping him, A stalled Naruto and B for a considerable amount of time, even turning B's use of the Eight-Tails' tentacles against him. While possessing powerful and extremely fast punches, A prefers to use wrestling-style moves, than those of standard taijutsu, such as throws, take-downs, leg drops, high-flying strikes and in the anime, dropkicks.
Despite his large physique, the Raikage is noted for being incredibly fast, grabbing Zetsu by the throat before he had a chance to react and evading a point-blank Amaterasu flame. A has claimed that since the Fourth Hokage passed away, there is no shinobi that is faster than him in the world, until Naruto Uzumaki surpassed him in speed with his Nine-Tails Chakra Mode and became the second person to ever dodge his top-speed attack.
A has shown to have inherited his father's immense durability, able to take three Lariats to the chest from B without getting damaged. He also survived being transported by Mabui's Heavenly Transfer Technique unharmed. A also has an immense tolerance for pain, as he was able to withstand having his arm set on fire by Amaterasu and was even able to cut it off himself, all without flinching. A has been noted for an extremely high amount of stamina and strong chakra compared to other shinobi, with Karin noting that his chakra level is comparable to that of a tailed beast. By unleashing a full burst, he can repel everything around him and demolish the ground under him.
Ninjutsu
Nature Transformation
On top of his physical capabilities, A is also skilled in lightning-based techniques, able to focus lightning chakra into a point sharp enough to neatly cut through the horn of the Eight-Tails. or with in unison with another's Water Release and strong enough to paralyse enemies like Madara Uchiha. His signature technique is releasing a continuous surge of electricity from his body to form the Lightning Release Armour, augmenting his already formidable natural physical strength and speed.
Because of this, he is considered a master of nintaijutsu. His speed reaches a point where A claims not even the Sharingan should be able to keep up with his movements. This is due to electricity stimulating his nervous system and speeding up his neural synapses, amplifying his reflexes and reaction time, reaching comparable levels to Minato Namikaze, as noted by C. While using this ability in combination with the Body Flicker Technique, he is able to dodge Jūgo's multiple chakra blasts and Amaterasu at point-blank range.
The electric armor can also work as a powerful defense, receive only a minor wound on his chest from a direct Chidori strike. By momentarily increasing the electrical surge, A was able to deflect a strike from Sasuke's Sword of Kusanagi: Chidori Katana from behind.
Background
A is the son of the Third Raikage. At some point in the past, a group of young children were gathered in order to determine who would be A's tag-partner in keeping with a long-standing Kumogakure tradition of the Raikage having a tag-team partner. Only one child was able to successfully match A's power and use the Double Lariat on a training dummy. As a result, that child was given the name "B", and A stated that they would be brothers from that day on. He and B would eventually be teamed together on a mission with A's cousin, the jinchūriki of the Eight-Tails. While on the mission, he told A that Killer B would need something to fill the void that would be created if he was chosen as the beast's next jinchūriki.
Some time later A's cousin lost control of the beast and it went on a rampage. A was made part of a special team tasked with subduing the rampaging Eight-Tails. When the beast impaled Motoi's father with its horn, A cut it off. After B became the beast's jinchūriki, A, remembering what his cousin had said to him, tried his best to fill that apparent void.
Some time during the Third Shinobi World War, A would clash with Minato Namikaze for the first time. Before Minato retreated he recognized B as the jinchūriki of the Eight-Tails and told A that next time they met it would be to put the title of "Kage" on the line and also offered A the advice of making sure his brother knew who he was before becoming neither human nor jinchūriki. They would clash many more times after that. A was once even told by Jiraiya that he believed Minato was the "Child of Prophecy". When A's father died, he inherited the title of Raikage. Afterwards, out of fear of losing him, he forbade B's continued training in the Lariat and ordered him to complete his training in the Tailed Beast Ball at the Valley of Clouds and Lightning and restricted him to the confines of the village. At some point, he forbade B from fully transforming into his tailed beast due to its extreme power.
In the anime, after an encounter with the Nokizaru Group, A crossed paths with Tsunade and requested her aid in removing the Exploding Insect implanted in his subordinate. After accepting her arm wrestling challenge, realising that he could not beat Tsunade in terms of strength, but at the same time, he needed to help his subordinate, A used speed to defeat her. After Tsunade diagnoses the situation and realises that one of the insects was also inside A, she decided to conduct the surgery. However, when she had Shizune conduct the surgery and later left after blood splattered on her. Shizune explained Tsunade's haemophobia caused by the loss of her two great loves, A dismissed her state of mind as a weakness would not trust his mens' lives to her with Shizune who had successfully completed the surgery, defending her mistress.
Hyūga Affair
A is heavily implied to be behind the attempted kidnapping of Hinata that happened when the Hidden Leaf and Hidden Cloud were still at war, nine years prior to the start of the series. The date of Hinata's birthday coincided with the date a peace treaty was to be signed, with the Head Ninja of Kumogakure there to represent the Hidden Cloud Village. The treaty was revealed to have been nothing more than a cover for a planned theft of the powerful Byakugan when the Head Ninja attempted to kidnap Hinata. When Hinata was saved by her father Hisashi, who killed the man, Kumogakure demanded that Hisashi be killed in exchange, as a stipulation of the peace treaty they wanted. Forced to accept this deal, the Hidden Leaf Village reluctantly agreed in order to prevent another war, but in his steed, Hisashi's twin brother Hizashi sacrificed his life to protect him.
As Fourth Raikage, A is almost certainly the one responsible for ordering Hisashi to be killed. His involvement is never outright stated, but at the beginning of the Five Kage Summit Arc, when Naruto bowed down to A begging that he forgive Sasuke, Yamato told A that the Hyūga Affair is still unresolved, and asked him to show the same mercy to the Hidden Leaf that they showed to him, and also comparing Sasuke's abduction of Killer B with A's supposed attempted theft of the Byakugan to make him seem like a hypocrite.
Part II
A helped the Third Raikage re-capture the Hachibi when it's host lost control, breaking the Hachibi's left horn during the struggled. The Hachibi's next host was chosen to be Ay's kid brother Killer Bee.
Upon hearing the news of Killer Bee's capture, A erupted and sent Killer Bee's students, Samui, Omoi, and Karui, to Konohagakure to give the Hokage an invitation to a Kage summit in the Land of Iron to discuss what to do about Akatsuki, and also to request any information they have on Akatsuki and rogue ninja Sasuke Uchiha.
A sets out to the summit with his bodyguards, C and Darui. On his way to the summit he encounters Naruto Uzumaki, KakashiHatake, and Yamato; Naruto begs A not to kill Sasuke, but he rejects Naruto's pleas and tells him that a ninja is judged by their strength and that he shouldn't beg, and also said that Sasuke is an international criminal that needs to be stopped.
While at the summit, arguments and finger pointing started to ensue, including the accusations that the Cloud village had been gathering power and resources and making the other villages nervous. The Kages try to decide who should lead the alliance, in which the moderator, Mifune, opted for Danzo. This turned out to be Danzo's trick and chaos was about to erupt, but Zetsu's white half pops up in the middle of the Kage meeting, telling them that Sasuke's hiding somewhere and wants them to go find him. A rushes Zetsu and threatens to kill him if he doesn't tell them where Sasuke is, Zetsu offers to give him a hint but the Raikage apparently kills him out of frustration and runs off with his bodyguards to look for Sasuke. A does find Sasuke, where Sasuke rushes head-on but Darui defends with "Water Encampment Wall" to force Sasuke back, then uses an electrical attack called "Wave of Inspiration" to shock him, but Sasuke's able to escape. C then uses a genjutsu on Sasuke, stunning him while Darui and A go in for the kill, but Juugo and Suigetsu save Sasuke. Unfortunately Suigetsu's cracked sword is broke in two from A's punch. Juugo uses his full cursed form and the Raikage slams him against a wall with a thunderous punch, but Jūgo endures it with a shield and fires a large energy blast at him. He dodges and slams Juugo against another wall which takes him out of the fight.
Sasuke tries to attack A from behind, but he knocks Sasuke's sword from his hand. Sasuke then uses "Chidori" and rushes at Ay. They charge at each other, Sasuke manages to avoid Ay's attack and hit him with "Chidori", however Ay is too durable and only Sasuke's fingertips pierce him. He then gives Sasuke a powerbomb, but Sasuke saves himself from any serious damage with his Susanoo. Sasuke then tries to use "Amaterasu", but Ay uses "Body Flicker" to avoid it and goes to attack Sasuke again, but Sasuke however uses "Amaterasu" to cover Susanoo. Ay ignores it and strikes anyway, thrusting Sasuke into the ground. Ay is about to deal the finishing blow when Gaara appears and stops him.
Gaara tries to talk sense to Sasuke, find common ground, but Sasuke refuses to come to an understanding. While this is happening, A severs his arm that's burning from "Amaterasu" and is being healed by C. Sasuke's Susanoo starts to fully form and everyone launches projectiles, but Susanoo swings his sword and causes the building to collapse on them and flees with Karin to find Danzo. A and the others get out of the rubble and go back to the meeting room where Madara (Tobi) appears and tries to negotiate with them. A also learns that Killer Bee wasn't captured and is running around somewhere. When the Kages refused to assist Madara, he declared the Fourth ninja world war.
After leaving the summit, A, Darui, and C notice a battle going on and the latter realizes Killer Bee's involved. They arrive to find Kisame Hoshigake attacking Killer Bee and intervene. Darui throws a kunai that breaks the sword Kisame took from Killer Bee and Killer Bee and Ay do a tag-team lariat which decapitates Kisame.
A is chosen to be the leader of the ninja alliance in the battle against Madara's forces. Since it was agreed best to keep Naruto and Killer Bee out of the battle and away from Madara's grasp, he sent them to a hidden island located in the Cloud village where Killer Bee helped Naruto take control of the Kyuubi and practice with his new abilities. During the war, A almost left his command post to fight the Two Shining Lights himself, knowing how powerful they are, but was talked out of it by the Hokage, Tsunade. Later on, A and Tsunade got the word that Naruto and Killer Bee left their hiding place to fight in the war, so they went to stop them. After a small skirmish where A proved to be capable of fighting Naruto even in his new form, but when asked why he was more willing to kill Naruto than Killer Bee, he replied that he would kill his brother if necessary. Killer Bee intervened to stop him from hitting Naruto again. A said that the jinchuuriki should learn their place, but Killer Bee said that he's still a person. A started to remember his past with Killer Bee, how they weren't related by blood, that Killer Bee was from a prestigious clan and was chosen to be his "brother" since only brothers could be the Cloud village's A-B Combo tag-team. He also remembered their confrontation with Minato.
In other media
Naruto the Movie: Blood Prison
During a thunderstorm, A has a discussion with Mabui and Team Samui about the Box of Ultimate Bliss, a magical artifact that allegedly had the power to allow the Hidden Grass Village to once nearly take over the world. While plotting to cooperate with the Hidden Leaf Village to destroy the box, A notices a mysterious smoke-colored gas after the four other ninja in the room collapse. After A pretends to fall asleep from the gas, a hooded figure enters the room and rushes to assassinate A. The assassin anticipates the real A to attack him by surprise and dodges A's attack from above, and watches the shadow clone of A disperse. In a chopsocky battle, A is able to destroy the hood, revealing that the mysterious assassin was none other than Naruto Uzumaki. He realizes that the situation is dire, and warrants the summon of Killer B.
As punishment for his crime, Naruto is discharged by Tsunade and sent to the dreaded Hōzuki Castle, where his chakra is sealed away by Mui. He becomes part of a community of criminals in place of his incriminator and is treated as one. At Hōzuki Castle, Naruto learns about the Box of Ultimate Bliss from Ryūzetsu and one day start a prison riot in hopes of probing the prison with cover from all the chaos. After Naruto is captured and used by Mui to activate the box, he declares that his wish is to resurrect his son Muku. When Muku emerged from the box, he was revealed to be possessed by the evil monster known as Satori. The monstrous avian was too swift and too mighty for Naruto and Gamabunta to handle, and Naruto's life becomes endangered when his summon is defeated by Satori.
When Killer B rescues Naruto, it is revealed that neither A nor Tsunade actually believed Naruto was a traitor. The two kage had joined forces to destroy the box, and had planned for Naruto to find out about the box and hopefully destroy it. Despite A orchestrating all of this, he was not there fighting Satori, counting B on being a one-man army. Naruto, Tsunade, Ryūzetsu, Mui, Killer B, with the rest of the Konoha 11 present, defeat Satori. Killer B then places the box in the ravaging ocean current near the prison so that it would never be opened again.
Video games
In the Ultimate Ninja Storm series, A first appeared Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations in 2012, and subsequently appeared in 3, 4, and Revolution. He also appeared in the mobile fighting game Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Blazing. He appeared in a few other lesser known mobile games, appearing in 13 in total.
The mobile RPGs Naruto x Boruto: Ninja Tribes and Naruto x Boruto: Ninja Voltage also feature A as a playable character. He was playable in Naruto: Shinobi Collection and Naruto: Shinobi Collection Shippū Ranbu. For the Naruto games of the Nintendo Wii, the only game that features A as a playable character is Naruto Shippūden: Gekitō Ninja Taisen! Special, the final installment of the Clash of Ninja series. On the PlayStation Portable, he appeared in Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Impact. He also appeared in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Online and Naruto Mobile.
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