Characters / Chiaroscuro (Naruto)

Team 7

Team 7

• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The team setup starts out like expected, with Naruto as the fighter, Ino as the mage, and Shikamaru as the thief. As their skill sets expand and develop, they shift roles: Ino becomes the fighter, Shikamaru becomes the mage, and Naruto becomes the thief.
• Like Brother and Sister

Shikamaru Nara

• Adaptational Personality Change: The premise of Chiaroscuro being "what if Shikamaru takes after Yoshino instead of Shikaku personality wise".
• Awesomeness by Analysis:
  • Shikamaru created a plan to defeat the bell test between the time it took for Naruto to get caught in the snare and for Kakashi to bend down and pick up the bells off the ground. It worked perfectly. Or would have, had Kakashi not cheated.
  • During the Chunin Exams, he comes up with and executes a plan to trick the sannin Orochimaru into destroying himself.
• Badass Bookworm: Shikamaru takes his studies seriously, unlike in Canon.
• Brainy Brunette
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Averted. The story is built a Shikamaru with his mother's work ethic.
• Child Prodigy: and later Teen Genius, because he decides to actually apply himself unlike in canon.
• Deadpan Snarker: He has his moments.

Ino Yamanaka

• Character Development: Contrasting with her shallow, boy-obsessed canon depiction, Ino is established as caring and motherly but also a master of psychological warfare from the start. After several painful deaths she starts becoming more hardened.
• Cool Big Sis: To Naruto.
• Daddy's Girl: Which is why she takes it really hard when Inoichi dies.
• The Heart: Coming from a family of ninja psychologists, she's the most emotionally in-tune of all the characters.
• Knowledge Broker: through her gossip column.
• Squishy Wizard: Starts out this way, but becomes more combat-prepared as time goes on.

Naruto Uzumaki

• Break the Cutie: Has a short episode after he massacres dozens of enemy ninja when he thought the rest of the team was dead.
• Character Development: Due to the setting being a bit more serious than canon, he is forced to mature extremely quickly.
• Fuzz Therapy: His Dog summon helps him get through the PTSD.
• Stepford Smiler: His happy nature isn't always out of naivete. There are certain parts in the story where it is implied that he feels obligated to remain optimistic for the sake of everyone around him.
• Summon Magic: Signs Kakashi's Dog contract, where it's eventually revealed that the Dog Boss is a Cerberus, the guardian of Hell, and a direct connection to the Shinigami.

Kakashi Hatake

• Brought Down to Normal: After accidentally taking one of Orochimaru's Curse Seals to the shoulder, Kakashi loses almost all of his elemental ninjutsu ability. This paves the way for his mastery of sealing techniques, including the Hiraishin no Jutsu.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: In a cast full of complex characters he's one of the most colorful.
• Eccentric Mentor: Kakashi (pretends) to have No Social Skills, commonly provokes people into starting arguments, makes his students question reality, and can kill entire squads of ninja in seconds when he's "out of practice".
• Even the Guys Want Him: Played for laughs, with Kakashi's "greatest" disguise.
  "She's even prettier than Sakura-chan…"
• Gaslighting: Kakashi is a master of psychological manipulation, to the point where he could convince someone to legitimately question whether the sky is, in fact, blue. That said, many of his peers are on to his game and tend to just roll with it because arguing leads to headaches.
• Manchild: Several characters observe that at his core Kakashi never moved beyond the twelve year old child who lost both of his teammates and his teacher in a very traumatic fashion. The fact that he is a brilliant practitioner of ANBU-style psychological manipulation and a very effective planner and schemer means that most people are left wondering how much of his childish behavior is authentic and how much of it is feigned.
• Obfuscating Insanity: To impressive levels. Once he openly eats fresh sushi while in Suna, claiming that he caught the fish from ponds (mirages) out in the desert. It was a ruse to see how many idle shinobi Suna had on hand.
  • Though it's implied that he does have some sort of legitimate psychological issue. Word of God states his emotional intelligence never matured due to his long history of trauma.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: Kakashi is fond of making Team 7 learn things "the hard way". He also makes a habit out of seemingly abandoning his students at random to teach them independence. That being said, he is a massive Papa Wolf when it comes to their safety.
• Troll: He considers it a lifetime mission of his to irritate as many people as he can on a daily basis. This extends to pranking the Hokage by rotating objects in his office just slightly to the left as petty revenge for displeasing him with a policy decision. While the Hokage is sitting right in front of him.
• The Wonka: Kakashi, to Team 7. It's questionable how much of his supposedly "pretend" insanity is actually "pretend."

Team 10

Team 10

• Demoted to Extra: Choji and Asuma, at least when compared to Sasuke and Hinata.

Sasuke Uchiha

• Butt-Monkey: Most of the raunchy jokes are done at his expense.
• Face–Heel Turn: Averted; he stays a good guy.
• No Social Skills: Played for laughs, especially the conflict between his desire to "repopulate his clan" and his total obliviousness regarding the birds and the bees…
  • Makes sense, since his father died before he was old enough to be given The Talk.

Hinata Hyuga

• Adaptational Badass: She grows a spine, in the most spectacular way possible. She fights Tenten instead of Neji during the Chunin exams, and though Tenten beats her, she's a good sport about it, giving Hinata a role model to look up to.
• Beware the Nice Ones: When Sasuke tries to abandon the village and their team, she breaks his nose. Then, when her father pushes her past her breaking point, she hospitalizes him, and later even overthrows him to become the next Hyuga clan head.
• Combat Medic: Not only does Hinata learn to heal, but also use healing offensively. She kills Hidan by "healing" him – that is, stimulating cell division – while he isn't injured, effectively giving him a bunch of tumors. She also has her unique taijutsu style that combines the Gentle Fist with Tsunade's monster strength.
• Deadpan Snarker: Surprisingly! When Sasuke mentions that Neji has changed, she responds with this gem:
  "Getting punched in the face tends to do that to arrogant jerks."

Other Konoha Characters

Other Konoha Characters

Hiruzen Sarutobi

• The Chessmaster: He's an old and experienced player at the political game, against Danzo and the other Kage.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Is forced to put up an uncaring persona to appear powerful before his rivals, when he really just wants to retire and spend time with his grandkids.
• Split Personality: In his narration segments, the "Sandaime" (his political side) and "Hiruzen" (his human side) converse with each other as if they are two different beings.

Shikaku Nara

• The Chessmaster: After Danzo attempted to kidnap Shikamaru into his army of prodigies, he was working tirelessly to take him down.
• La Résistance: Against Danzo.

Inoichi Yamanaka

• Number Two: To Shikaku.
• Parental Substitute: Seen by Gaara as this.
• The Shrink: Of the awesome variety. He manages to fix Gaara of all people. Too bad the Akatsuki kill him right after.

Villains

Villains

Orochimaru

• Freudian Excuse: Apart from his parents' deaths, it's implied that the reason why Orochimaru finally decided to abandon Konoha was because of their treatment of Sakumo Hatake.
• And I Must Scream: Once he's eventually captured, they seal what's left of his mind into a wood block – so no arms, legs, or a mouth. Said block is subsequently given to Anko and Kakashi to play with before he is executed.

Danzo

• Affably Evil: With a hint of Faux Affably Evil. He's very polite and even funny at times, and it's been stated that this is part of his personality. However, rather than serving to humanize him, it only makes him seem scarier.
• Hated by All: Played with. Only the people who know him hate him, but barely anyone has ever met him and those that have are mostly dead from old age.

Foreign Powers

Foreign Powers

Gaara

• Broken Bird: After everything that happened in Suna, he was finally abandoned to Konoha as a hostage after the failed Suna invasion. Then, his first friend Inoichi is killed by the Akatsuki, because they were after him.
• Stockholm Syndrome: Ends up caring more for Konoha than Suna. Justified, in that the Sandaime deliberately put him through special therapy in order to brainwash him into becoming loyal to Konoha.
• Trauma Conga Line

Mei Terumi

• Awesome by Analysis: Surprisingly, Kirigakure was the closest to figuring out Tobi's identity before anyone else, though they did end up being wrong.
• Best Served Cold: One of her driving motivations is finding the person behind Yagura and making them pay for what they did to the Hidden Mist.
• La Résistance: Secretly the real leader behind the Hidden Mist, as everyone else is also fed up with Yagura's insanity.

Zabuza and Haku

• The Mole: They are spies in the Akatsuki for Mei Terumi.

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