Yamato: The Captain With the Power of Wood Release

CharacterWood Release (Mokuton)Yamato

His rarest power was implanted in him by force. Kinoe, Tenzo, Yamato: three acquired names for a single man, the only survivor of Orochimaru's experiments with Hashirama's cells. From that graft he gains the Mokuton, the power of Wood Release, which makes him the ideal guardian of Team 7 — it falls to him to restrain Kurama's chakra inside Naruto. This profile runs all the way to his capture by Kabuto.

Introduced as the only ninja, alongside the First Hokage, able to wield Wood Release — a power that was implanted in him by force: Yamato, also known as Tenzo, watches over Team 7 and over the demon that sleeps inside Naruto. Profile.

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Tenzo, the Man in the Shadows

The character has no known birth name. A child test subject of Orochimaru, he lost every memory of who he was, and when he finally chooses to call himself "Tenzo" he still does not know his real name: the three names the series gives him are code names. The third databook officially records "Yamato" and "Tenzo" on page 338; his entry, on pages 174 to 177 of the same volume, notes that he graduated from the Ninja Academy at six and was promoted to chunin at the same age.

"Kinoe" (甲) is the code name Danzo Shimura gives him when bringing him into Root; the word refers to the first sign of the Chinese calendar. "Tenzo" (天造) means "heavenly creation" and describes what is made by nature rather than by man: it is the only one of the three he chose himself, and in the anime he owes it to a little girl he met underground — more on that below.

"Yamato" is the code name Tsunade gives him when she places him at the head of Team Kakashi, during the Tenchi Bridge arc. Yamato is an ancient name for Japan, also borne by a World War II battleship. He is attached to these labels and insists on being called by whichever code name is his at the time; much later, once he is Seventh Hokage, Naruto will be asked to stop saying "Captain Yamato."

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Kinoe, the Agent Danzo Trained and Kakashi Turned

This entire account is exclusive to the anime: the "Kakashi Anbu" arc runs from episodes 349 to 361 of Shippuden and slots into the middle of the climax of the Fourth Great Ninja War. Danzo Shimura takes in the amnesiac child who escaped the tank, brings him into Root under the code name Kinoe, trains him personally and hands him a scroll containing the secrets of the Mokuton (episode 355). First turning point: when Hiruzen Sarutobi takes back the post of Hokage after Minato's death, Danzo sends Root agents, Kinoe among them, to assassinate him.

Kakashi, a recent Root recruit, warns the Hokage and goes in his place; he defeats Kinoe and spares him, convinced that such an ally will one day be useful to Konoha (episode 351). Three years after the Iburi clan affair told below, Danzo, who fears his grafted Sharingan will burn out with use, tasks Kinoe and Kinoto with bringing him Kakashi's. In an old Orochimaru laboratory, Kinoe attacks his elder and throws in his face the death of Rin Nohara; Kakashi overpowers him and answers that she died because he failed to protect her.

A snake experiment then escapes from its tank: Kakashi cuts it down, but the carcass gives off a toxic vapor that poisons him. Kinoe carries him to safety, gives him an antidote, abandons his mission and makes a fake wooden Sharingan to fool Danzo. The old man knocks him out with his Sharingan and orders the tongue Curse Mark activated, the one Root imposes on all its members and which paralyzes the bearer if he says anything compromising about Danzo (fourth databook, page 321). Kakashi frees him, the Third steps in, but Danzo refuses to remove the seal (episode 356).

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Yukimi and the Iburi Clan: Where the Name "Tenzo" Comes From

The Iburi clan lived underground in the Land of Fire. Its members turned into smoke at will while still being able to touch the world, but the ability triggered on its own and the wind scattered them for good: they died young, confined to caves, and planted a tree rather than a gravestone for their dead, convinced those souls watched over them. Orochimaru partially stabilized them by marking them with his Curse Mark, then demanded children as test subjects, the ability being stronger in the youngest.

The clan gave in, and among those children was Tenzo, Yukimi's little brother, who died in one of the tanks. When Danzo sends Kinoe to warn the clan of Orochimaru's escape, Yukimi mistakes him for her brother (episode 352). Then come the escape — chief Gotta having ordered the death of the two Konoha-nin —, Yukimi's possession of Kinoe's body, the fairground, then the decisive scene: to stop Kakashi from using her as bait, Kinoe flees with her, announcing that his name is "Tenzo" (episode 353).

Yukimi returns to the cave and finds her people dead: Orochimaru massacred the entire clan, looking for blood capable of passing the transformation on to him. Her own body destabilizes in turn, and it is the spirits of the Iburi, joined to Kinoe's Mokuton, that fix her power for good: she leaves to see the world with no more fear of the wind, the last survivor of her line, while he discovers that he has the power to save someone (episode 354). He will keep the name, and Kakashi will ask him to bear it when he joins Team Ro.

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Team Ro: Kakashi's Student, Itachi's Colleague

Team Ro is an elite Anbu unit answering directly to the Hokage and commanded by Kakashi Hatake; it is tied only to the anime, the novels and the games. Kinoe is reassigned there when he leaves Root, under the name Tenzo, and receives a warm welcome (episode 356). The manga confirms the period without telling it: in chapter 321, page 2, he served under his captain's command, for whom he would keep great respect. The anime adds that he handled a sword well enough to cross blades with his elder.

Two years later, a newcomer joins the team: Itachi Uchiha, called the youngest Anbu in history. Where several members worry at seeing a child come in, Tenzo and Kakashi take an interest in the prodigy (episode 357). Two years later again, Itachi is made captain younger than Kakashi had been, and it is Yugao Uzuki who replaces him in Team Ro. The unit is mobilized to defuse the Uchiha clan's coup, but arrives after the massacre: it collects the bodies, and it is Danzo who tells him that the culprit is his former comrade (episode 359).

Tenzo then tries to console Kakashi, whom his former comrade's fate leaves without an answer; when Kakashi leaves the Anbu to take charge of a genin team, he goes to see him and finds him visibly better (episode 361). Two missions recorded for the unit are attributed to him by name: eliminating hostile shinobi from Kirigakure, and cutting down on the spot five Kusagakure saboteurs who came to bury explosive scrolls, leaving no trace back to Konoha. The databook puts his career at 996 official missions: 80 D-rank, 176 C-rank, 400 B-rank, 305 A-rank and 35 S-rank.

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Hashirama's Mokuton

The Mokuton is not an inheritance: as a child, he was abducted by Orochimaru and injected with the First Hokage's DNA along with fifty-nine other test subjects. All of them died except him (chapter 291, pages 15-16). The kekkei genkai obtained this way requires combining earth chakra in one hand and water chakra in the other (chapter 316, page 6) to grow vegetation from any surface (chapter 513, page 14), including from his own body, his cells then serving as the source of life.

The power remains borrowed, and the character knows it: he admits that the scale of his techniques does not stand comparison with those of Hashirama Senju (chapter 297, page 9). The anime adds a prosaic explanation: most of his repertoire comes from a scroll of Mokuton techniques Danzo had given him (episode 355). The fourth databook also credits him with Yang Release and the First Hokage's regeneration, used without a single hand sign.

His wood clones share his cells, which changes everything in the field: he can locate them, communicate with them at a distance (chapter 300, page 14) and absorb with a single touch of the hand the information they have gathered (chapter 301, page 14). He can also turn a clone into a tracking seed (chapter 301, pages 15-17): at the Tenchi Bridge, it is a seed slipped into Sai's meal the day before, sensitive to any rise in chakra, that lets him follow his trail to Orochimaru's hideout.

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The Captain of Team 7

His appointment is first of all a political argument. Homura and Koharu fear Naruto falling into the Akatsuki's hands; Tsunade gets them to let him leave the village by placing at the head of Team Kakashi an Anbu, under the code name Yamato, until Kakashi leaves the hospital (Tenchi Bridge arc, chapters 282 to 310). At the start he is therefore only a temporary replacement: he will nevertheless stay on the team after his former captain returns.

The mission that reveals him is the one at the Tenchi Bridge. Yamato disguises himself as Sasori there to meet the spy; the spy is Kabuto, who slices off the disguise's head hoping to kill the real Sasori. The wood clone through which Yamato escapes teaches Orochimaru that one of his test subjects survived. Later, facing Sasuke, he takes the Kusanagi blade coursing with lightning, pushes the blade back out of the wound, then tries to lock the fugitive in a wood prison — whose roof Sasuke breaks through.

His role with Naruto is not limited to close protection. He is the one who tells him to save Sasuke through his own strength and to look at him with his own eyes, not the fox's (chapter 299, page 11). He is also the one Kakashi leaves alone to supervise the final phase of developing his new technique, having gone off to back up Asuma's team against the Akatsuki. As for Sai, who joined the team in Sasuke's place, it is over the course of these missions that he ends up truly rallying to it.

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The First Hokage's Necklace and the Tail Counter in His Palm

The technique carries a mouthful of a name: "Hokage Arcane Art – Six Decades – Rampart of the Return to the Source," recorded in the third databook, Sha no Sho, page 300. The user makes the kanji 座, "sit," appear in his palm, touches the tailed beast or its jinchuriki, and smothers the chakra inside an area that ten pillars normally ring (chapter 296, pages 15-16). It took only a few seconds for Yamato to bring Naruto back from his four-tailed form.

The First Hokage's necklace is not an ornament. Cut from a chakra crystal stone, it responded to Hashirama's chakra and amplified his ability to capture and control the tailed beasts; it is the object Tsunade had wagered against Naruto's Rasengan. Yamato added a seal of his own to it, which triggers when Naruto draws too much on the chakra of Kurama and which warns him by writing in his palm a number equal to the count of tails shown (chapter 438, page 13).

The tipping point fits in a handful of panels: at six tails, the fox breaks the necklace (chapter 438, pages 2-4). Yamato then declares that he will no longer be able to help Naruto contain the beast (chapter 455, page 12), which he will nevertheless attempt again at the Falls of Truth (chapter 497, page 14). The First, for his part, could use the technique directly on a tailed beast, doing without the pillars. An anime detail to finish: in episode 376, on a lurching palanquin, the kanji in his palm turns into 酔, "drunk."

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"Ruling Through Fear": The Character Behind the Mask

His introduction line to the team has stuck: he likes being kind, he says, but has no problem ruling through fear (chapter 286, page 13). In practice, that terror comes down to a ghoul-eyed grimace whose regular victim is Naruto, to the point that the genin, ordinarily so indifferent to manners, ends up speaking to him in polite language. The principle is sometimes applied to the letter: his wood cage serves to hold prisoners and to bring unruly subordinates to heel (chapter 286, page 12).

The other side of the character is a man of order and plans. Rather than pitching a tent on a mission, he puts up a four-pillar house (chapter 287, page 14) — his declared hobby in the databook is reading books on architecture. After Pain's invasion, he takes part in rebuilding Konoha with the Mokuton while complaining about the effort it costs him: the running gag attached to the character is precisely that he is overworked for his wood, and more is still asked of him after a whole street of houses.

He is not always the one holding the whip: Killer Bee gives him a fright by joking about the risks a jinchuriki runs when trying to master his beast (chapter 496, pages 5-6). He can also raise his voice, as when he reminds the Fourth Raikage that Konoha swallowed its tears of blood after the Byakugan affair rather than start a war (chapter 457, page 13). The databook completes the profile: he likes nuts, hates greasy food, wants to face Kakashi and has for a favorite proverb "tap the stone bridge before crossing it".

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Captured by Kabuto

The capture is nothing like a dragnet in the middle of a battle. Yamato is on the turtle island in the Land of Lightning, where he serves as Naruto's bodyguard and where he had shortly before neutralized Kisame's chakra in a wooden shackle (chapter 508, page 2). When Kabuto, whom Kurotsuchi has just captured, abandons his shell to free himself, it is Yamato he takes with him; Yamato pushes Motoi out of reach before being taken.

Off to the Mountains' Graveyard, where Obito and he extract information about the Allied Shinobi Forces from their prisoner. There Kabuto mainly studies the Hashirama DNA present in his body in order to strengthen the army of White Zetsu (chapter 515, page 10): the soldiers gain small pointed growths on their shoulders and back. Rather than killing him once his function is fulfilled, the two men hang him facing Hashirama's artificial body, for future use.

He then changes prisons. His body is embedded in the Zetsu named Tobi — Obito's Guruguru —, which seems to use his modified DNA to amplify its own Mokuton, to the point of holding off thousands of allied soldiers and four Kage on its own (chapter 662). Yamato is only extracted from it, unconscious and judged useless, when Madara triggers the Infinite Tsukuyomi, only to be caught in the genjutsu at once. The anime (episode 425) gives the content of his dream: being recognized as the permanent and official leader of Team 7, with Sasuke back among them.

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After the War: Orochimaru's Designated Watchman

With Orochimaru pardoned, Yamato is assigned to the surveillance team charged with keeping an eye on him in case he acts against the Five Great Nations, with orders not to make direct contact as long as nothing happens. He ends up known among his teammates as the only one able to approach the Sannin without trembling — it is the Boruto anime, episode 172, that reports this. The mission lasts: in the Boruto era, he still follows the Sannin on the road to Konoha during the Ninja Academy graduation exams arc.

The novels share him out. The one for The Last: Naruto the Movie tasks him with protecting Konoha from the meteorites broken off the Moon Sakura Hiden sends him to investigate the rumor of a Sasuke gone over to a terrorist group. Konoha Hiden shows him at Naruto and Hinata's wedding while tailing Orochimaru: there he is seen signaling to Konohamaru not to record the Sannin's congratulations message under any circumstances. In Sasuke Shinden: Book of Sunrise, he runs into Sasuke, asks him whether he is acting on Konoha's behalf and lets him pass in the name of trust between comrades.

In Naruto Gaiden, Kakashi sends him to back up Naruto, Sasuke and his daughter Sarada after Sakura's abduction; he chooses to wait outside while they question Orochimaru. The Boruto anime then shows him suspecting the Sannin over the disappearance of Mitsuki: he gives chase to the one he believes to be the boy — in reality Sarada in disguise — and pins him inside a barrier, before Karin takes the genin's place, reveals herself and escapes in a smoke screen. Among the feature films, Naruto Shippuden the Movie: The Lost Tower sends him twenty years into the past, where he saves Minato and Naruto with the Mokuton before Minato erases their memories.

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Summary Table

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FAQ

• Who is Yamato in Naruto?
  A veteran of Root and the Anbu, captain of Team 7 during Shippuden, one of the few Mokuton users.
• How does Yamato have the Mokuton?
  He did not inherit it: Orochimaru implanted Hashirama Senju's cells in him as a child. He was the only survivor out of some sixty test subjects.
• Is Yamato's real name Tenzo?
  That is a simplification: Yamato has no known birth name. "Kinoe," "Tenzo" and "Yamato" are all acquired names.
• Why does Yamato watch over Naruto?
  Because his Mokuton can suppress and control Kurama's chakra when Naruto loses control of the Nine-Tailed Fox.
• Why does Kabuto capture Yamato?
  For his Hashirama cells, which are used to strengthen the White Zetsu army before the Fourth Great Ninja War.

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In summary

A discreet guardian with a unique power, Yamato is the silent pillar of Team 7 — and the key that long kept Naruto's demon from sweeping everything away.

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