Kakuzu

1. 1
   The Waterfall's hunter

   Takigakure's hardest work

   Kakuzu comes up in Takigakure, the Hidden Waterfall, in a generation long past by the time the series begins. He is the shinobi his village sends on the work no one else can be sent on.

2. 2
   The failure that broke him

   Punished for surviving

   Sent to kill the First Hokage, Kakuzu fails — and lives. Takigakure punishes him bitterly for the failure. The man who returns from that punishment has no loyalty left to give the village.

3. 3
   The stolen technique

   He takes the hearts

   Kakuzu steals Takigakure's forbidden Earth Grudge Fear, kills the village elders, and tears out their hearts to carry with him. He leaves the Waterfall a missing-nin and never looks back.

4. 4
   A life across generations

   Replacing the hearts

   Each stolen heart is a spare life. As his hearts fail or are destroyed, Kakuzu simply takes new ones — and so lives on, decade after decade, working as a bounty hunter for hire.

5. 5
   The Akatsuki's treasurerDebut Arc · Twelve Guardian Ninja

   The man who counts the coins

   Kakuzu joins the Akatsuki and is paired with the immortal Hidan. He handles the organisation's money and its bounties, calling himself its treasurer — the partnership all greed and friction.

6. 6
   The last heart

   Bankrupted of lives

   Kakashi Hatake destroys Kakuzu's stolen hearts one after another in the field. Naruto Uzumaki finishes it — the first battlefield use of his Wind Release: Rasenshuriken takes the last heart.

Kakuzu fought like a man with lives to spare, because he was. Earth Grudge Fear let him implant the hearts of others into his own body, and he carried as many as five — each a spare life and access to one chakra nature. With all five, he could fight with Fire, Water, Wind, Lightning, and Earth, a range almost no single shinobi could match.

Play today's Narutodle or browse past answers.

• Who is Kakuzu?+

  Kakuzu is a missing-nin of Takigakure and a member of the Akatsuki. A bounty hunter who called himself the organisation's treasurer, he extended his life by stealing the hearts of other shinobi, and was partnered with the immortal Hidan.
• What is Earth Grudge Fear?+

  Earth Grudge Fear is the forbidden technique Kakuzu stole from Takigakure. It lets him detach his body into segments bound by thread, and implant the hearts of others into himself — each heart a spare life and a new chakra nature.
• Why does Kakuzu have five hearts?+

  Kakuzu used Earth Grudge Fear to take the hearts of other shinobi, storing as many as five inside his body. Each heart was both a spare life and access to one chakra nature, so to kill him an enemy had to destroy every heart.
• How did Kakuzu die?+

  Kakuzu died in the Twelve Guardian Ninja arc. Kakashi Hatake destroyed several of his stolen hearts, and Naruto Uzumaki destroyed the last of them with the first battlefield use of his Wind Release: Rasenshuriken.
• Why is Kakuzu obsessed with money?+

  Kakuzu was relentlessly greedy and called himself the treasurer of the Akatsuki. He judged missions by their profit and collected bounties on the side, reluctant to act at all when there was nothing to gain.
• Has Kakuzu been a Narutodle answer?+

  Kakuzu is in the daily answer pool of 210 characters. The Previous Narutodle Appearances list on this page shows every date he was the Classic answer, each linking to a replayable archive puzzle.
• How do you guess Kakuzu in Narutodle?+

  Kakuzu's Nature Types column is the giveaway — all five basic natures, a full row almost no one else shows. His Takigakure village is rare, and his Akatsuki member attribute confirms.