Yamato

is a member of Konoha's ANBU and a younger peer of Kakashi Hatake. He is also the temporary leader of Kakashi Hatake's Team 7, consisting of Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, and Sai. "Yamato" is actually a codename given to him for the purposes of joining Team 7, his real name being. Yamato, however, seems to prefer going by his codename while near his teammates.

Background
Shortly after his birth, Yamato was one of 60 infants that became test subjects of Orochimaru. They were injected with the First Hokage's DNA in the hopes that they could replicate the First's ability to use Wood Release techniques, as well as an unquantified ability to control tailed beasts. Orochimaru was forced to flee Konoha before he could finish his experimentation, but believed that all of his test subjects had died. Yamato, however, was the lone survivor, and found himself endowed with the First's abilities. Yamato would go on to join the ANBU, and for a time he would serve under the guidance of Kakashi Hatake. Yamato would also come to have the best performance record of any ANBU serving under the Third Hokage, leading the Third's successor, Tsunade, to have the utmost confidence in Yamato.

Personality
Like other ANBU members, "Captain" Yamato projects a calm, stoic demeanor in stressful situations. Despite this, he can also be quite laid back when not on duty, and is not above using his Wood Release techniques for creating comforts such as making a house to "camp out" in. While he has been good natured so far, Yamato claims to be a different sort of leader than Kakashi, one who is not above "ruling by the use of terror" when his team misbehaves. Aside from his obviously intimidating skills as a ninja, however, this "terror" has so far primarily consisted of casting a creepy "ghoul-eyes" expression directed at his charges, which seems more humorous than terrifying. Naruto, however, is easily creeped out by it, and states that it feels like Yamato is controlling his fear. Yamato also seems to be very gullible, as seen has been tricked into paying for Kakashi's, Naruto's and his own ramen because of Kakashi's devious mind leaving him to pay. His favorite food is walnuts and he dislikes any food that is oily, which is why he couldn't eat ramen at Ichiraku.

Sasuke and Sai arc
Yamato is assigned to lead Team 7 in meeting with one of Sasori's spies within Orochimaru's ranks. Naruto and Sakura find it difficult to work with their newest team member Sai, and much of Yamato's time is spent trying to get them to cooperate. Upon arriving at the arranged meeting place, Yamato goes ahead dressed as Sasori to make meeting with the spy easier. After the spy arrives, who turns out to be Kabuto Yakushi, Yamato is able to learn a great deal of information until Orochimaru shows up. Just as Yamato starts to contemplate how he will fight Orochimaru and keep up his act as Sasori, Kabuto cuts off the head of the Sasori costume, having hoped to kill the real Sasori.

Faced with a combined attack from Kabuto and Orochimaru, Yamato creates a wood clone to escape, causing Orochimaru to realize that one of his test subjects had survived. A battle between Orochimaru and Naruto ensues, and Yamato spends much of his time protecting Sakura. When the battle is over, Sai is found to be missing, though a wood clone that Yamato has following Sai reveals that the latter has joined with Orochimaru. As the clone follows Sai to Orochimaru's hideout, the rest of Team 7 follows the clone. Once they arrive, Yamato uses his Wood Release abilities to infiltrate the base. When they eventually find Sai, they restrain him and are able to learn about Sai's real mission: to join forces with Orochimaru on behalf of his organization, Root, in an attempt to destroy Konoha.

Sai is eventually freed by Kabuto, who in turn is restrained by Sai. Sai, touched by Naruto's words about Sasuke Uchiha, rejoins Team 7 in their other mission of retrieving Sasuke. When the group splits up again, Yamato discovers a bingo book when going through some of Sai's belongings. In doing so, Yamato learns that Sai once again has an ulterior motive: to kill Sasuke Uchiha. In desperation, Team 7 goes looking for Sai, hoping to stop him from fulfilling his mission. Sai, however, really has had a change of heart, and attempts to bring Sasuke back to Konoha on Naruto's behalf. Due to Sasuke's exponential growth in fighting abilities, however, Sai is no match for him.

Due to an explosive attack from Sasuke, Team 7 is able to find Sai and learn that he really has allied with them. Upon failing to persuade Sasuke to return to Konoha, the team decides to use force instead. Sasuke's growth, however, is too much for the four's joint effort, and he is able to repel them all. After a brief confrontation between Naruto and Sasuke, Yamato attempts to capture Sasuke with his Wood Release: Wood Locking Wall, though Sasuke is able to escape. As an answer to this, Yamato declares that he had no intention of getting too rough on him in front of Naruto and Sakura, but has no choice. Despite this, Sasuke prepares what appears to be a finishing move, Orochimaru and a freed Kabuto arrive to stop him, and they disappear to leave Team 7 defeated.

After returning to Konoha, Yamato is recruited by Kakashi to help with Naruto's training in creating a new jutsu. In addition to being able to create training devices for Naruto with his Wood Release abilities, Yamato is also able to subdue Naruto if he loses control of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's chakra.

Fire Temple filler arc
Mid-way through Naruto's training, Yamato was ordered by Tsunade to take Naruto and the rest of his team to the Fire Temple to investigate a tomb raiding going on near the Fire Temple. While waiting for their guide, Yamato grew impatient and decided to search for the guide, unaware that Naruto left the campsite to get away from Sai (whose attempt at making friends yet again went bad.)

After finding the guide (Chiriku) and returning to camp to find Naruto had left, searched for him and found that Naruto had gotten into a fight with a young monk from the Fire Temple named Sora. After helping in calming the two down, they made their way to the Fire Temple, where Chiruku explained how one of the tombs belonging to a former member of the Twelve Guardian Ninja was robbed of its corpse.

Yamato found it very odd and wondered what could be obtained from the bodies of warriors that died years ago. He wondered if it was for a resurrection technique like Orochimaru’s did to revive the First and Second Hokage. Word then reaches the Fire Temple that the graves of three other former Ninja Guardian members also had their corpses stolen, Yamato and his team joined Chiriku in to find the thieves. They followed the trail into a large field where they found the four coffins. While Yamato knew it was clearly some sort of trap, he knew they had no choice but to follow if they wished to retrieve the bodies.

As they neared the coffins, the assumed trap was sprung, as Yamato and his team found themselves suddenly trapped within a Earth Release: Wheel of Fortune rocky cavern. While searching for this way out and dodging more traps, Yamato was approached by one of the thieves, Fudo. Caught off guard and completely unprepared for an opponent such as this, Yamato was completely overpowered by Fudo’s unique earth-jutsu prowess and indestructible body, forcing him completely on the defensive. Eventually, Fudo caught him in a crush rock jutsu, but deceived Fudo by merging with the rocks. Yamato quickly wasted no time as he searched for his team, After failing to recover the stolen corpses or capture the tomb robbers, Yamato and his team return to Konoha to regroup and wait to see how things play out. It was also decided that Sora would temporarily join the team. When back in Konoha, Yamato initially decided to Sora join the team in exercises to improve teamwork, but Asuma pointed out that Sora and Naruto are too stubborn to work together by force, so Yamato instead tricked Asuma to train them in wind-chakra.

Later when the tomb robbers emerged again to attack Konoha, Yamato was one of few jonin still available to defend the village. He was then sent out to stop one of the resurrected Ninja Guardians from completing the Limelight jutsu, but was intercepted by Fudo. After feeling out Fudo’s attack patterns, Yamato used Fudo’s blunt attack methods to set up the area for a water jutsu. As Fudo began sinking under the mud, Yamato revealed he already discovered the truth behind his armor. He then proceeded to finished off Fudo by crushing him in with a wood-jutsu. He then went to join Asuma and the others in stopping the bandits’ leader Furido, who turned out to be another former Ninja Guardian member, who performed the Five Element Unseal to release Sora’s demon chakra. Unfortunately because Yamato’s wood release was not as refined as the First Hokage’s, he couldn’t suppress Sora’s spliced demon chakra. Yamato instead used his wood jutsu to protect his allies from Sora’s demon chakra blasts.

Hidan and Kakuzu arc
Once Naruto completes the initial stages of his training, he moves on to perfecting his preexisting Rasengan. Kakashi, however, is not able to oversee Naruto in these final stages due to his volunteering to help Team 10 in the fight against Akatsuki. As such, he leaves Yamato in charge of the jutsu's perfection. Yamato is able to give advice in the jutsu's creation, and eventually bears witness to the fruits of Naruto's training.

Once Naruto has perfected his jutsu enough to be used in battle, Yamato, Naruto, and the rest of Team 7 join Kakashi and Team 10 in their battle. After teaming up with Naruto to stop an attack by Kakuzu, Yamato convinces Kakashi to allow Naruto to fight Kakuzu alone. Once Naruto is successful in defeating Kakuzu, Yamato joins everyone else in returning to Konoha.

Three-Tails Arrival filler arc
When Kakashi reports to Tsunade through Pakkun of the increasing danger of his and Team 8's mission, Tsunade calls for Yamato to gather Sakura and Sai for backup. After arriving at Team 8's general location, they find that a large portion of the area has become surrounded by crystal. Yamato even discovers that the very underground has been surrounded. As Naruto offers to try his new jutsu, Yamato smiles and decides to let him.

After Naruto's jutsu succeeds at destroying the crystal, Yamato's team finds Kakashi's. When it is discovered that Hinata was taken hostage in crystal, Yamato then aids Kakashi in in distracting Guren while Naruto retrieved Hinata. After freeing Hinata, Yamato and his team joins Kakashi in finding the enemies again.

Their search leads them to a lake where the enemies once again use a smokescreen. Yamato then notices terrifying roar coming from the lake. After a brief skirmish with the enemies, Yamato and his allies find the smokescreen being blown away, and replaced with a gigantic tidal wave coming at them.

While Yamato survives the wave along with his team, he finds that the enemies have escaped again. When a thick fog emerges, he notes that it is not normal.

Hunt for Uchiha arc
When Kakashi received permission from Tsunade to lead a special team to capture Itachi Uchiha in order to bait Sasuke, Yamato joined him as acting head of Team 8, with the pregnant Kurenai remaining behind in the village. Following a confrontation with Sasuke's cohorts on Team Snake and members of the Akatsuki, the group was forced to abandon the mission and return to Konoha.

Pain's Invasion arc
While Pain began his assault on Konoha, Yamato, along with Sai and Anko were sent on a mission to locate and capture Kabuto. Unfortunately as they began to close in on him, Yamato detected that the seal he placed on Naruto was broken and he had transformed further than ever before; all the way to the Six-Tailed form. He quickly heads back to Konoha, knowing full well he is the only one with any chance of stopping and saving Naruto.

Along the way, he finds to his horror that Naruto has already transformed to his Eight-Tailed stage, fearing he will be too late.

Abilities
As a Jonin and temporarily-relieved member of ANBU, he is highly proficient in multiple areas of shinobi combat, including tracking and trapping. During his test of his new team's skills, he demonstrated considerable ability in taijutsu and clever use of diversionary tactics. Also, thanks to his training as an ANBU black ops, Yamato has keen instincts in battle, allowing him to quickly react to threats.

Wood Element Techniques
Sharing the same DNA as the First Hokage, Yamato possesses many of his techniques and most notably his signature Wood Release Kekkei Genkai. By combining Earth Release and Water Release, Yamato uses his chakra to generate living plants and trees which can be manipulated in countless ways. These trees can be grown not only from the earth and preexisting flora, but from his own body as well, transforming the actual cells into a different form of life. How this relates to the suppression of the Tailed Beasts is still unknown.

In addition to simple binding techniques, Yamato has demonstrated multiple unique uses of Wood Release. One such example is his special Transformation Technique known as Wood Release: Transformation, in which Yamato covers his entire body with a wood imitation rather than using an illusion to mask his appearance. Perhaps his most often used technique is the Wood Clone Technique, a clone of him made with wood generated from his body. Because they share the same cells, Yamato is able to track its location, communicate with it at long distances, and absorb any information it has gathered by laying his hand on it. If needed, the clones may turn into pills that Yamato can use to track and communicate with whoever swallows one. Additionally, because of the cell-based nature of the technique, Wood Clones do not disperse when damaged and can merge with trees and plant life, making them especially difficult to defeat or detect. A less battle-oriented use of his kekkei genkai is Yamato's ability to generate wooden structures almost instantly, which he makes use of for his Wood Release: Four Pillars Prison Technique, a large cage used to hold prisoners and intimidate unruly subordinates, and the Wood Release: Four Pillars House Technique, a large house that can be erected at a moment's notice instead of setting up a camp.

Tailed Beast Suppression
Using the First Hokage's special necklce to amplify his powers, Yamato can suppress the power of bijuus. It is because of this legendary ability that Hashirama Senju was made Hokage in the first place, and it was greatly coveted by Orochimaru. Although the First Hokage could suppress entire Tailed Beasts, Yamato has admitted to not being as strong as the original, so it is unknown what the limits of his suppression ability are. However, he was able to suppress Naruto's Four-Tailed transformation in seconds despite it being released enough to grow a fourth tail.

Earth and Water Element Techniques
Because Wood Release is a combination of Water Release and Earth Release, Yamato also possesses a high aptitude for water and earth-element chakra. He can use them in combination without fusing them (fusion would produce Wood Release), as seen with Earth Release: Earth Flow Rampart and Water Release: Waterfall Basin Technique. He is also skilled in using the elements separately, with techniques like Earth Release: Winding Fissure, a technique used to create fissures in the ground, and Water Release: Tearing Torrent, a powerful surge of water that can be used to counter an enemy's attack.