Kusagakure

is located in the Land of Grass. Nothing apart from that is known about it at this point, but it stands to reason that its ninja specialize in jutsu involving flora or fauna. Judging from the ninja that have hailed from Kusagakure, it can be assumed that this village is far less pleasant than Konohagakure.

During the second part of the Chunin Exams, Orochimaru and his Sound ninja impersonated a three-man Genin team (Team Shiore) from Kusagakure using a mysterious technique which literally melts the victims' faces off. This made the unfortunate Grass-nin identifiable only by their ID tags. Later, in the third stage finals of the Chunin exams, two shinobi from Kusagakure (Tsuba and Midori) were hired to intimidate Gaara into forfeiting his match against Sasuke Uchiha intentionally so their feudal lord would win a bet on the fight. When Gaara didn't respond, they attacked him, and were killed without hesitation. In a stroke of luck, it is their deaths that kept Gaara from attacking Naruto and Shikamaru, since Gaara's bloodlust was satisfied for the moment. Akatsuki member Zetsu is presumed to be from this village, but it remains unconfirmed.