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This article, Z, is property of Sir Ice Man. |
| editZ | |||
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| (ゼィー, Zī)
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| Debut | |||
| Appears in | Manga | ||
| Voice Actors | |||
| English | Sean Schemmel 
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| Japanese | Hiroya Ishimaru | ||
| Personal | |||
| Birthdate |  September 24
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| Gender |  Male
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| Age | 30 | ||
| Height | 175cm1.75 m <br />5.741 ft <br />68.898 in <br /> | ||
| Weight | 175lbs79.379 kg <br /> | ||
| Blood type | B | ||
| Occupation | Anbu Captain Mercenary Ninja Monk | ||
| Affiliation | |||
| Team | Z Warriors | ||
| Partner | Mayuri | ||
| Rank | |||
| Ninja Rank | ANBU | ||
| Ninja Registration | EZ2517 | ||
| Academy Grad. Age | 18 | ||
| Chūnin Prom. Age | 18 | ||
| Jōnin Prom. Age | 19 | ||
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"I'm not the strongest ninja around, nor am I the fastest, nor the smartest, nor the saddest, nor the most gifted. I'm just the very best there is, that's it." |
Z (ゼィー, Zī) is a shinobi from Kumogakure. He was once a ninja monk from the Lightning Temple, where he was highly respected and had established himself as the most powerful monk in the Temple's multi-century history. After his departure from the Temple and subsequent return to Kumogakure, he was recruited in the village's Anbu corps, where he went on to become a captain.
Currently, he is deemed a super-elite ninja, and is the boss of his own private military team, the Z Warriors. Z has led an illustrious career in commanding his squad of exclusively recruited combat specialists, and as one of the strongest ninjas in Kumogakure, he is among the chosen few who operate directly under the Raikage.
Unbeknownst to most people, Z is secretly a mercenary who is extremely notorious for his very particular set of special skills, and charging hefty fees for his services. Infamous as the Silk King (羅王, Raō), he is a wanted hitman who boasts a heavy bounty on his head. Well-versed in several arts, Z is a seasoned polymath, priding himself on knowledge and mastery over many ways of combat as well as a number of other crafts.
Background[]
Early life[]
Z was born to a shinobi and a kunoichi in Kumogakure. His mother and father were caring parents, but were also a gloomy couple who spent too much of their time at their duties as ninja. While he respected and loved them tremendously, he never really talked much to them and never truly knew them. His parents were just as oblivious to their son's feelings as he was to theirs. He grew up to be a rather melancholic person who didn't have many friends, and was the butt of jokes for most of his classmates. Despite being a rather lonely boy, he never really seeked friends; this may be because he was so used to solitude that he actually found comfort in it. The advices of his fellow classmates encouraging him to be more uncommunicative fell on deaf ears. He was, however, much more friendly with his partners in crime.
The little boy was precocious and, despite showing no interest in being a ninja, wanted to earn from early childhood. As he grew older, he began to earn for himself and his family on his own. From doing odd jobs for the rich to smuggling goods for criminals, he had participated in numerous missions. Eventually, he began to prefer illegal tasks over legal ones, and continued to be involved in such tasks even after joining the Academy, which he did at the age of 18, later than most students (and therefore was the eldest student in the class). Sometimes he even had to juggle between his missions as a ninja and his missions as an errand runner. While his work was strenuous and exhausting, it actually made his life less pathetic. He not only acquired several valuable skills through these tasks, but the adventurous nature of his work excited him to the point that in order to entertain himself, he even used to specifically demand more threatening tasks than before. As he began to involve himself in more dangerous liaisons, he gradually gained greater reputation as a highly skilled professional criminal-for-hire, working under the title of the Silk King.
At the Academy, although he was regarded as a brilliant student by his teachers and students alike, his performance in the exams were above average at best. He went on to become a genin soon enough, and passed the Chūnin Exams in the same year. By the time, he became a jōnin, he had completed hundreds of missions, official and unofficial. One night, while high on a hash brownie, the young man decided to "walk the Earth."
A ninja monk[]
The young man left his village in his quest as a wanderer. Of course, by the time he was sober, his resolve to walk the Earth got weaker. Yet, he continued on his path. After a couple of days, right before he was about to turn back and go home, his eyes spotted the Lightning Temple. Mistaking it for a "fancy cafe," he walked over there for a meal. When he finally reached the gate, he found that it was sealed, yet it was obvious that there were people inside. With his curiosity piqued, he infiltrated the Temple. His infiltration lasted only a few minutes before he was caught by the ninja monks. While he managed to fight off four of them, he was soon curbed. Upon learning that he has arrived at an elite monastery of ninja monks, he desired to stay there for some more time. In a few more days, his interactions and observations of the monks invoked a sense of respect and admiration in him for them. Before he knew it, he found himself training at the Temple.
His time at the Temple gradually changed his disposition for the better. With time, he found a cup of tea more refreshing than a pint of soda; he found his training as a monk more strengthening than his practice as a ninja; meditation and a game of chess brought him more joy than any official or unofficial mission assigned to him. He spent almost a decade training at the Temple and became the most powerful and one of the most respected of the monks. He also learned to use the Gift of the Hermit Group chakra and perform the secret technique of the Temple. The young man, now a monk, also made his contributions to the Temple. He not only protected the Temple from threats, but also taught some of his significant abilities to the younger monks, improved on the methods of training, fighting and practices, and even developed new techniques.
A Captain[]
Ultimately, however, the young ninja monk realised that he could get nothing more from the Temple, and the Temple could get nothing more from him. So he decided to leave the Temple and return to Kumogakure. He found that doing this turned out to be a harder than he had expected. At the Temple, he had finally met people he could call his friends; leaving the Temple meant a farewell to them. After a heartfelt goodbye, he returned to his home village. His return to Kumogakure was also the return of the Silk King, now much more powerful than ever before. He was also recruited into the Anbu black ops. He acquired more abilities and usage of weapons during his time as an Anbu. Also during his time as an Anbu, he met the peacock princess Mayuri and formed a summoning contract with her. Their mutual respect and fierce loyalty for each other gradually blossomed into a powerful bond of friendship. Mayuri also accompanied Z with his criminal activities, using a special transformation technique to shape-shift into Silk King's mighty stallion, the Runner.
He received many codenames and missions as an Anbu, which he completed flawlessly for most of the time. Due to his personality, training at the Temple, and set of special abilities, it was not long before became an Anbu captain. He was also the foremost among the few elite Anbu who served directly under the Raikage. It was at this point when he was given the codename "Z," as well as the command of his own personal roster of ninjas. This squad came to be famously known as "The Z Warriors". It consisted of Anbu members who were handpicked, as well as uniquely instructed and led by Z himself. The members of this squad were eventually given codenames, named after a variety of deadly vipers.
Appearance[]
Z was a brawny man of average height, standing in at 69 inches. He had long, wild hair of black color that he used to wear in a mohawk, but after years of wearing his helmet, got flattened into a large, circular pompadour-like mass at the top. His hair also included a prominent widow's peak and triangular sideburns. He had sharp, black eyes whose inner and outer corners were marked by black jags going down and up respectively, and above a pair of prominent, highly arched eyebrows. He also wore red face paint around his eyes. He had a slightly hooked nose and a broad chin. His body was well-toned and decorated in scars.
In casual wear, Z typically wore a kimono of orange color, leaving most of his legs exposed; the kimono had two yellow crescent moon designs on it. During his ninja missions, he wore black and green body armor. Sometimes, he wore a black turtleneck and trousers with a grey flak jacket and sports sandals. While carrying out his missions as the Silk King, he wore a metallic silver helmet, a matte silver body armor, and a silver silk cape (his namesake).
Personality[]
Z is a cynical, disagreeable individual who was known for his dry wit and tendency to speak without any filter to his words. Yuria described him as someone who had no patience for speeches or memorials, was allergic to politics and suspicious of causes. He also hated bullies and could never stand down when confronted with them, and when he took on a difficult mission, he was never interested in knowing the odds of succeeding.
As a young boy, he only had a few people he could call his "friends." He did not like to talk much and would not shut up on the very rare occasion when he does start talking. In his youth, Z was often curious, impatient, looking ahead to the future with little regard for his present surroundings, and even a bit brash. According to Mayuri, his first impression of Z was a naïve kid who needed to be taught a thing or two. He was impulsive, reckless, and often had little regard for his own personal safety. It is this attitude that led him to not only get involved with smugglers and other criminals, but also to volunteer for more and more dangerous tasks. Despite these traits, Z had a happy childhood anyway, having found solace in work and solitude. When he was younger, he believed that every great ninja had to go through a traumatic experience to attain grandiose, and as such, was mildly irritated by the lack of sorrow in his life. As he grew older, however, he would joke about the lack of sorrow in his life, while also being confident of his own abilities that he achieved with hard-work.
As his skills progressed, Z became more patient and seasoned, and was often seen as having wisdom beyond his years. At some times, he could be almost passive, serene, remaining calm and in control even in the heat of battle. Aside from his seemingly self-centered ways, Z is actually a good man and very loyal to his friends. He is empathetic to his friends and would go to great lengths to help them, whenever he could. His loyalty and devotion to his comrades was virtually unshakable.
Z has an affinity for chess and gambling games. He also has a loud snore that bothers everyone around him. He is known to dislike samurai and avoids interacting with them in his missions, although he relented in certain circumstances, as seen when he recruited a former samurai in his team. Nevertheless, he rarely has a good word to any of the samurai.
He is dedicated to whatever job he is doing, and would often suspend grudges if it meant completing his mission. He pays close attention to all details and double-checked his surroundings to calculate the best option to solve a problem. While he is willing to be ruthless and go to extreme lengths to complete his mission, he does not take any pleasure in the collateral damage wrought by him. He once said he preferred to strike first as opposed to striking second, and used to his advantage on at least one occasion the fact that he was ambidextrous. He also acknowledged his great talent at lying and bluffing, a trait that many people could infer. Despite the fact that he frequently encounters jinchūriki, sages and dōjutsu-toting ninja in his missions, Z is far from helpless in comparison. His ability to think up inventive and often extremely unorthodox solutions to problems on the fly proved to be a constant source of frustration to all enemies he encountered (and often his friends).
Many people, including the Raikage, consider Z to be one of the finest shinobi in Kumogakure. Z is aware of this opinion and it emboldened him enough to occasionally converse with the Raikage in an irreverent tone that no one besides other Kage or daimyō would dare take with him. Throughout the many years of his ninja career, Z developed a strong sense of justice, moral obligation, and adhered to his own code of honor. He took only certain missions that agreed with his own beliefs and brutal justice. But to those few, he whole-heartedly devoted all of his magnificent skill should the occasion call for it. This led him to believe in a quick, clean kill. His moral code however, did not prevent him from taking numerous unofficial missions as Silk King. He also mentioned at one point that he preferred working for clients who would be around to hire him again, and as such often worked for criminals because he believed that "trouble is always around."
Abilities[]
Z is a highly talented and exceptionally powerful shinobi who possesses advanced prowess in all three main ninja skill sets. Even as a kid, he was capable of beating an average adult in a fight. Due to the various criminal activities in which he participated, he acquired several abilities and became an extremely capable fighter even before enrolling in the Ninja Academy. During his time as a ninja monk, he was reputed as the strongest fighter in the Lightning Temple's history that spanned multiple centuries, with his power surpassing even the likes of Scars and the head monk, and the latter claiming that Z could possibly take on the entire Temple single-handedly. Prior to this, he was an accomplished jōnin who had rapid risen through the ninja ranks, earning recognition from senior ninja despite his young age.
In general, Z is a very versatile man with high proficiency in countless areas. His abilities earned him the position of Anbu captain soon after his return to Kumogakure. Currently, he is hailed as a super-elite shinobi who is immensely difficult to take down in combat. He is lauded to be one of the most powerful ninja of his generation, as well as one of the strongest shinobi ever produced in Kumogakure. To his allies in both Kumogakure as well as the Lightning Temple, Z is valued highly for his combat prowess and capabilities as a leader, such that he was appointed to serve directly under the Raikage, and given command of his own personal squad. Z has led his squad in various missions to great success, establishing a fantastic record in military prowess. His power is such, that some believe he could take on an entire village by himself, and an entire country with his team.
As the professional mercenary Silk King, he is feared throughout the world as a legendary hitman with great efficiency and a knack for swift completion of missions. He is featured on numerous Bingo Books and boasts a big bounty on his head. His services are remarkable enough to not only demand heavy fees from his clients, but also warrant flee-on-sight orders given to numerous shinobi teams around the world should they ever see him.
Chakra[]
Z possesses extremely potent chakra of excellent quality. C regards Z's chakra to be one of the most wonderfully-flavored chakra he has ever sensed. According to Karin, his chakra is "cool" and "bright". His chakra was so dense that it could affect his surroundings when released, being strong enough to crack rocks while moulding. Despite the brilliance and strength of his chakra, Z's chakra reserves were below average. To compensate for this, Z has trained to achieve exceptionally refined chakra control, allowing him to perform powerful techniques very swiftly and in quick succession at the expense of little to no chakra and fight for extended periods. Due to rather small chakra reserves, he is able recover his chakra quite quickly (an ideal example of a weakness turned into a strength). As such, he only needs a brief period of rest upon exhaustion before he can step back into action.
Due to his great chakra control, he can perform jutsu with few hand seals, one-handed seals, or no hand seals at all, while needing only the minimum amount of chakra to use complex and large-scale techniques to their full efficiency. According to his teammates, he weaves more hand seals only when he takes an opponent seriously. He can even switch between hand seals of different techniques while weaving seals in order to not only prepare multiple techniques simultaneously, but also to confuse his opponents. Z's ability to prepare multiple techniques simultaneously is another proof of his advanced chakra control.
Taijutsu[]
In his boyhood days, due the nature of the criminal activities he committed, Z frequently found himself in entanglements with criminals and shinobi alike, resulting in a need to learn to defend himself. He mastered a self-styled technique (我流の拳, Garyū no Ken) in unarmed combat. His hand to hand fighting style was forged from regular sparrings with his pals, as well as from serious fights and growing experience. Despite not having recieved any official training in hand to hand fighting, he was a capable fighter. His method of combat revolved around overpowering the opposing force with a quicker, more powerful force. Due to his unorthodox training, his martial arts style was completely unpredictable with no particular fighting pattern. However, his fighting style had its flaws. While his speed and strength were impressive, Z lacked agility and flexibility. As a result, his fighting style turned out to be rather clumsy and his range was severely limited. He was unable to perform certain types of unarmed techniques, with flips, spin kicks and high-aimed kicks being just a few of them. His lack of agility and flexibility, as well as his dull reflexes, also resulted in the most gaping weakness in his fighting style — his inability to dodge. This flaw (which would remain uncorrected until his training at the Temple) resulted in him developing a tendency to block or take most attacks head on instead of dodging them, a tendency which has proved to be grossly counterproductive to him in several fights and missions.
Even before joining the Academy, Z was able to soundly beat genin-level, or sometimes even chūnin-level ninjas, often in a single blow (though such ninjas were almost always younger and much less experienced than him). Upon joining the Academy, he always emerged victorious in every shinobi sparring, and upon becoming a genin, was equally matched in taijutsu against his jōnin sensei during the bell test. He was also the only one who was able to take a bell all by himself. In the final round of the Chūnin Exams, he was undefeated and was able to defeat most of his opponents without much effort. His skills continued to evolve in later years as he went on to become a jōnin. In his infiltration of the Lightning Temple, he was able to defeat four proficient monks (knocking one of them out in one hit) before he was overwhelmed.
"Head monk: So... why did you just... stand there? |
Z went on to master the Mt. Thunder Temple Martial Arts (嵩山寺拳法, Sūzanji Kenpō) during his training as a ninja monk at the Lightning Temple. One of his first lessons also proved to be one of the most useful ones: the supreme art of dodging. Z's training to master the art of dodging turned out to be much more difficult than anyone could have possibly expected, taking him almost an entire year to finish his first lesson. However, by the time his training was complete, he was one of the most skilled dodgers at the Temple, with amazing and very sharply attuned reflexes. Also, thanks to his failure to dodge for a long part of the training, he had to bear the full brunt of powerful (and potentially lethal) attacks, building a tremendously high amount of endurance and durability within him. Z's speed, reflexes and new-found agility allows him to dodge most attacks, while his "granite jaw" allows him to tolerate the attacks he cannot dodge without getting knocked out.
The Mt. Thunder Temple Martial Arts is a versatile style that focuses on kicking techniques and rapid hand strikes which stab and slash the enemy to death. This freeform style has no stances and instead focuses on incredible speed and power. According to the Lightning Temple's head monk, its movements are comparable to a graceful waterbird, however, its destructive power is without equal and can slaughter enemies with its devastating cutting techniques. Z is equally adept at destroying enemies with open hand attacks as well as flying kick techniques. The elegant techniques of the Mt. Thunder Temple Martial Arts and Z's self-styled hand-to-hand combat method gives him "a strange clumsy grace" and makes his fighting style extremely unique among the ninja monks at the Lightning Temple. Z eventually became the strongest of the monks and even improved this mighty fighting style by refining the training methods and breathing exercises as well as developing skills and tactics such as afterimages and illusionary teleportation along with other techniques, and introducing such techniques to his fellow monks and students.
The Mt. Thunder Temple Martial Arts conditions its practitioner to be "as shocking as lightning, as sharp as winds, as fiery as flames, as swift as waves, as durable as mountains." The fighter is trained to unleash shockwave-inducing blows which produce vibrations and stun the target, use air pressure to slice the target apart, use friction to produce flames and set the target ablaze, flow like water, and absorb the impact of any opposing force without budging. Based on this, Scars created a nintaijutsu method. This special branch of the Mt. Thunder Temple Martial Arts utilizes nature transformation, and sometimes shape transformation, to increase the power of physical attacks. Z uses Wind Release and Lightning Release with his taijutsu techniques. Since Wind Release is his affinity, he is skilled with wind-based strikes that destroy enemies with long-range, vertical attacks. The speed of his techniques can slice the victim apart from the back without touching it. Due to his inferior skill in Lightning Release, his lightning-based attacks are not as powerful, but they notably have a delayed effect of paralysis and disorientation, which has proved to be useful to buy him time in desperate situations.
Ninjutsu[]
Despite his heavy reliance on taijutsu, Z also possesses great skill in ninjutsu, which is an integral part of Z's method of combat. While his arsenal of ninjutsu techniques is not massive, his immense mastery over his arsenal of techniques makes him a formidable ninjutsu user. He frequently uses very basic, low-ranking techniques, such as transformation, body flicker, body replacement, temporary paralysis, and simple disguises (like cloak of invisibility) or even general skills like tree-climbing and water-walking with tremendous ingenuity and to great effect. He can summon his personal ally, Mayuri the Peacock Princess to aid him in combat with her wide range of valuable techniques. He can also mount the peacock princess to fly and attack from air.
His major techniques include an array of clone techniques. He can use the Shadow Clone Technique, being able to create a maximum of ten clones at a time. He also has the ability to detonate the clones, allowing him to severely damage the opponents who attack the clones. He can also fuse his clones with his wind-natured chakra, causing such clones to create gusts upon dissipation, cutting or blowing away surrounding targets. One of his favourite attacks is a powerful technique created by the Third Hokage that combines cloning with shurikenjutsu, thus creating a thousand clones of shuriken in an instant that shoot a huge number of attacks at the target; such attack becomes nigh-impossible to dodge while also providing the user with a large stock of weapons without prior preparation. According to Z, this attack works the best with poisoned weaponry. This technique, which can be performed with fūma shuriken (to increase its lethality) or senbon (for more discrete attacks) as well, is also a template for one of Z's strongest attacks, which is detonating the cloned shuriken, thereby turning the thousand flying blades into explosions and unleashing an almost indefensible attack that can inflict potentially fatal injuries upon the target.
Bukijutsu[]
Z acquired some knowledge of weapon-wielding from his days as an errand runner. He typically used makeshift weapons. He was skilled at using and throwing knives. However, his skill with both waned with the passage of time. He trained in the usage of ninja tools after becoming a genin, but lacked finesse with any tool. It was only after his return to Kumogakure and subsequent recruitment into the Anbu ops that he decided to sharpen his skill with weaponry. Z's Anbu training turned him into a expert user of ninja tools. However, he uses his expertise with weaponry only to supplement his ninjutsu and taijutsu technique and not as a primary means of combat. He is fairly proficient at shurikenjutsu, allowing him to throw shuriken and kunai with precision; for complicated or moving targets, Z can guide shuriken to their mark using either wire strings or deflecting them off each other. While his throwing speed is quite decent, he prefers to maintain small stock and then use ninjutsu to throw a thousand shuriken or kunai at the target. He can also use shuriken and kunai as melee weapons to great effect, and often stores them literally up his sleeve. Z's skill with weapons extends to swordsmanship and archery, though he is admittedly a master of neither. He posseses better skill with wire strings and chains. He can use wires and chains to not only manipulate other objects or to bind other people but also as effective weapons. His favourite tools are explosives, which he uses in form of tags, powder, etc. and varies from low-impact and high-impact explosives to smoke, flash, sonic and poisonous explosives. These tools are almost always sealed in scrolls for portability.
His most notable piece of weaponry, however, is the armour which he wears exclusively when he operates as Silk King. This suit of armour, while providing some extra tools and no special protection, is extremely lightweight and is only used as a means of disguise and intimidation. It is also equipped with a vocoder which allows "Silk King" to speak in a voice that is different from Z's natural voice.
Gift of the Hermit Group[]
Genjutsu[]
Z can blind his opponents with a light-natured genjutsu taught to him by C. However, unlike C, Z cannot simultaneously insert false images due his lack of mastery over this technique.
His other genjutsu technique, passed on to him by his mother as a secret family tradition, is Z's most powerful technique. A technique that demands a chakra preparement well before it is activated, the Imp and Crux of Eighty Technique requires a total of 80 hand seals. Z has to physically infuse the prepared chakra "dish" into two specific tenketsu of the target's chakra flow system to create a single avatar into their psyche. The avatar, who is equally Z and the target (and so, in a bizarre way, Z is thus one with himself and his target), can influence, interact with and even engage with the target. Once created, the avatar cannot be controlled by even Z, who only has the power to sustain or destroy it.
Intelligence[]
One of Z's most valuable assets is his incredible ingenuity. He is a highly analytical tactician with fantastic creativity in battle, able to use deception and cunning strategies to fight and defeat enemies who are more powerful than him. He first displayed his tactical mind as a kid during a smuggling errand, in which he used a bottle of rum as a weapon in a bar fight and then set the alcohol ablaze to create a distraction to escape with hoarded gold while everyone else attended to the growing fire. Even before he became a ninja, Z could eliminate all his rival smuggling gangs from their leaders to their vengeful subordinates with strategic schemes.
While most of the techniques used by him are simple, his ingenuity is tremendous. In battle, he has used the low-ranking Transformation Technique to change into not only other people, but also flora, fauna, inanimate objects or even jutsu to successfully catch his target off-guard. He had also used simple tools like explosive powder for not only theatricality and deception, but also as powerful, precise attacks. His creative way of thinking also helps him to devise methods of getting stronger and quickly mastering techniques. He has used shadow clones to train himself in the usage of different weapons, improved the Mt. Thunder Temple Martial Arts by refining training methods and inventing new techniques, and deliberately put his body through harm's way to enhance his durability, endurance and resistance to poison and electricity. His rapid rise through shinobi ranks, mastery as a ninja monk, and military record as an Anbu captain has led people around him to conclude that he naturally excels at whatever he puts his attention into. However, the actual reason for his success is simply his creative way of thinking.
Z's ploys in battle make full use of his willingness to embrace absurdity. Z often uses bizzare manoeuvres, such as using powerful, chakra-taxing high-level jutsu as feints or distractions to use a weaker but precise low-level jutsu as attacks (this is a manouvre of psychological warfare: an opponent, thinking that no sane ninja would waste chakra to use a high-ranking jutsu as a mere feint, would expect that high-ranking jutsu would be used as attacks, not as distractions). Z also uses attacks with multiple stages. For instance, in a battle, Z used three jutsu as feints, and even put himself at the risk of getting hit by his own jutsu, to successfully land a physical attack, thus not only displaying his tactical genius, but also his fearsome tenacity. While he has often used three-stage or four-stage attacks, he has also used attacks of even more stages. Z can think extremely quickly even in dire times of extreme danger, allowing him to come up with improvised maneuvers should those he executed initially fail to meet the expected result. He has a cunning talent for being well prepared in times of unexpected dangers, claiming that he always has an escape plan.
Z also possesses great knowledge of pantomimes. He had learned that a man has 17 pantomimes (a woman has 20), i.e., there are 17 things that a man can do to give himself away while lying. Z claims to know the pantomimes like he knows his own face and considers himself to be "the greatest lie detector in world". His knowledge of pantomimes helps him immensely in his tasks as an interrogator. He is also an adept liar who generally tells lies that are so absurd that he actually manage to decieve others through sheer absurdity of his lies. He is a bluff-master and has often coerced others into surrendering themselves with effective death threats.
Leadership skills[]
"At some point, I realised that it's not my job to create my vision for a strategy. My job is to have a vision for a strategy and hire skilled, talented individuals to take that vision and create it for me." |
As an adult, one of the most prominent tactical traits of Z in missions was that he rarely did anything related to planning all by himself. Z realises that as a leader, his job is not to fulfill his strategic ideas; his job is articulate his ideas to a team of professionals who understand his ideas. Z has handpicked some ninja among the Anbu and the jōnin of his village, as well as some others from other lands, and some monks from the Temple to form The Z Warriors, a private military team of individuals with specialised skills. He excessively relies on The Fighters for battle strategies and outlet of situation. In most missions, all he does is to merely demand a certain situation to occur, and the occurrence of the said situation is then handled by his team. His leadership capabilities come into play when he has to lead his team into fulfilling his idea. Z knows how to express his two-dimensional idea to his team so that they can understand its elements and make it three-dimensional.
While Z usually prefers to strategize, he also enjoys using unorthodox methods and is very capable of simply making things go as he prefers. This usually ends up being an advantage for the crew.
Other skills[]
Ever since he was a child, Z was involved in numerous activities, through which he acquired several skills. He is able to understand (if not fluently speak) several languages, expert at a variety of miscellaneous tasks like undoing binds, lock-picking, etc, and fairly skilled at negotiation and trade skills, though he is often hindered by his lack of social skills. He is also highly resourceful and keeps contact with various valuable associates who can exchange information or other resources with him. Likewise, he is also a master of stealth, very proficient in hiding, spying and infiltration, and capable of walking and running without making a sound. This enables him to sneak up to his target silently and attack without letting anyone know what happened. Even as a kid, he had nurtured within himself an enhanced resistance to poisons, toxins and chemicals by poisoning his own food, in small quantities at first and later increasing the poison intake, gradually withstanding their effects and building an immunity towards them. Thanks to his training at the Lightning Temple, he has also developed enormous tolerance to pain, as well as electricity due to frequent exposure to the head monk's powerful Lightning Release techniques.
Besides being the leader and the strongest Z-Fighter, Z is also the interrogation and torture specialist of the team. Z is one of the most efficient interrogators in the world. Z is masterfully adept at torturing people in order to get information out of them. His routine of torture seems to differ the traditional approach to the art of torturing. His routine apparently begins with more intricate and elaborate methods (like peeling off nails, breaking fingers, bones and teeth, etc.) before moving on to simpler methods (like groin trauma). In reality, however, his initial methods are relatively less complicated (as he is only inflicting pain and damage), while his gradual methods are more complex (as he then begins to impact and manipulate the target at a psychological level). Being an expert at interrogation, Z has also trained himself to withstand interrogation, using his immense stoicism and knowledge of pantomimes to withhold information.
Trivia[]
- Z's ninja registration number is a reference to Pulp Fiction (directed by Quentin Tarantino).
- According to Sir Ice Man:
- Z's hobbies are going on walks and meditating/napping.
- Z wishes to fight anyone, everyone, or no one, depending on his mood.
- Z's favorites foods are tomatoes, fish pakora, and tea. His least favorites are mushrooms, marshmallows and broccoli.
- Z has completed 108 official missions: 12 D-rank, 25 C-rank, 33 B-rank, 30 A-rank, 8 S-rank.
- Z's favorite phrase is "sunlight beaming through clouds" (雲漏れ日, kumomorebi).
Quotes[]
- (As a young boy, about legendary shinobi like Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha) "They suffered, winced in pain, got hurt... problems, tragedies... and me? I haven't gone through anything, never had a single problem. Wasn't beaten as a child, nor molested. Even my parents are still alive. I'm not even adopted. Never starved for food, never suffered for anything. Never had a life-threatening injury, nor had a tragic disease. Shit!
