Araumi Funato

Strawberry blond hair falls to Araumi's shoulders, usually gathered into a high ponytail beneath a grey bandanna, and a thick beard with a wide moustache frames his jaw. He stands tall and heavily muscled, his skin darkened by years at sea, with sharp cheekbones, a broad chin, and deep hollows beneath icy blue eyes. Old wounds mark him: a slash runs down over his right eye, and a crossed scar cuts across his stomach. His usual dress pairs a long red vest over a white shirt with grey trousers and studded bands at the wrists. The years he spends locked away from the water leave him gaunt and shrunken.

Araumi is a hardened raider who spends years plundering the Land of Water's coasts and kills without a second thought. He carries himself with easy confidence and rarely lets a small reversal rattle him, yet outright failure enrages him, and he has no patience for men who retreat. He trusts head-on force above all, sneering at ambushes and trickery as beneath him. His charisma is considerable: his capture scatters the Funato, and his freedom draws crowds eager to serve.

Beneath the brutality runs a streak of feeling. He never recovers from his wife's death and longs to see his children become great, and though he seldom voices affection, he loves his adopted son Tenma and is incensed to learn of his killing. He clings to the clan's old traditions and will gamble his own children's lives to win, growing furious at Funamushi's death and at Ikada for not thirsting after revenge. Honoring his wife's dying wish, he stakes everything on Ikada and swells with pride as the young man turns ruthless. Chojuro judges him deluded, a man who claims to shield his clan even as he launches a war that bleeds away his allies and then faults his enemies for protecting themselves. His hunger to cement Funato rule over the seas is so total that he ignores his people's plea for peace and is ready to kill any child who defies him, a bitterness Isari attributes partly to his advancing age.

Under Araumi's command the Funato bend every other pirate band to their will, raiding islands, preying on trade routes, and seizing captives across the Land of Water, all backed by his terrifying mastery of water. His Water Release is so dangerous that jailers keep him away from any moisture even in chains, since he can drain the blood from a living body to leave a shriveled corpse and restore his own strength, a technique he later teaches Funamushi. He also once carries the singular Marlin Harpoon, bonding with it so completely that the weapon answers to him before any other hand, and he moves through deep water with ease. He marries Minamo and fathers three children, each tested by a clan rite to reveal their inherited gift. When Minamo is frozen to death in a clash with Kirigakure, she asks that he raise their youngest, Ikada, believing the boy to be the clan's future, and Araumi returns to her frozen body over the years to leave a pearl. On a raid he takes in an admiring boy named Tenma as an adopted son, though his attention stays fixed on his blood children, breeding Tenma's envy. Ikada's own coming-of-age trial comes amid a storm, and when Araumi flings him into the sea the child's power erupts in a wave that spares him from drowning. In time the harpoon passes to Isari, and eventually the Sixth Mizukage, Chojuro, leads a successful operation that puts Araumi behind bars for five years, cut off from the open sea.

A staged terrorist attack on Kirigakure masks the Funato's rescue of their leader, and Isari's team slips him out of his cell, where he drains a guard's moisture to recover. While the clan exploits the chaos to overrun island after island, Araumi feasts with his children and shrugs off news that a joint Kiri and Konoha force has destroyed his fortress ship and its chakra cannon, certain of victory. His mood turns savage as reports arrive that Seiren has fallen, that the Mizukage has killed Tenma, and that the diversion has collapsed. He strips Isari of command, hands it to the recovering Seiren, and orders a frontal assault on the village. As losses mount and manpower thins, he pins the blame on Isari again, then learns of Funamushi's death and Seiren's failing condition and concludes that Ikada is his only remaining hope.

After Seiren dies, Araumi watches with pride as Ikada buries his own dreams to avenge her and awakens his true Funato power. When Jibiki exposes Isari's quiet bid to broker peace with the Mizukage, Araumi feigns approval while secretly ordering the harpoon to kill his son, convinced Isari never grasped the war's necessity. He rallies the whole clan and its sympathizers, seizes the airwaves to declare a total attack, and proves his resolve as the harpoon strikes Isari down. Proud of Ikada for steering their fleet through the Sea of Death, he rallies their forces as the Shinonome 1 comes into view. Team 7's arrival and their plea to end the fighting only disappoint him, and he moves to a mobile fortress whose chakra cannon is charging a shot at the Shinonome 1. He watches coldly as Boruto offers his own life and casts himself into the churning sea; the sincerity of that act moves Ikada to rescue the boy and lead his men in abandoning their hatred of Kirigakure. Refusing any ending but his own triumph, Araumi readies the cannon, only for Kawaki to cut him down. He is returned to prison once the war is over.