Raiga Kurosuki

was a former member of Kirigakure's Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist introduced in the anime.

Background
Raiga was a member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist and inherited the dual swords Kiba from Ameyuri Ringo. While he was still loyal to Kirigakure and a member of ANBU, Raiga met Ranmaru during a mission, a disabled boy who came to act as additional eyes and ears for Raiga in exchange for being carried upon his back. Ranmaru would become the only person Raiga cared about. Sometime after his defection, Raiga enslaved a town and forced its villagers to work in its mines, also assembling some followers (including Karashi) to form the Kurosuki Family. Besides him, his followers wore a hooded robe, gloves that sprout claws from the back of the hand, and enforced his laws. Should a law of his be broken, whoever committed the "crime" would end up being buried alive.

Personality
During his life in Kirikagure, Raiga was a very tormented, cruel and lonely individual asking every day to looking for the meaning of life, killing unscrupulously and randomly anyone during his missions without any precise purpose in mind, and began to cry in his heart whenever he killed someone. After he met Ranmaru and deserted Kirigakure, his goal was to take care and protect Ranmaru at all costs, Raiga being Ranmaru's body and Ranmaru being Raiga's eyes and ears, allowing him to see and explore the world that he could never do alone, both finding their meaning of life. One particularity of Raiga is his love to give funerals to people by bury them alive, where he cries sincerely and remember their lives. Also, for unknown reasons, he hates Zabuza, Kisame and all of the other Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.

Appearance
Raiga has blue eyes with a ripple around the pupil, waist-length green hair with the top two bangs falling down on his cheeks on each side, and having dark fleshy lips. When he lived in Kiri as an ANBU, he wears the traditional Kiri ANBU uniform with a white mask with thin, short curved eye-holes, a mischievous smile and two red wave design on the top and bottom on the left side, as well as the Kirigakure symbol on the forehead.

After his defection, he wears a grey hooded mantle with three red stripes where he hides Ranmaru in a nest strapped to his back. Under his mantle, Raiga wears a dark brown sleeveless vest falling to his knees where the inside is purple, a light brown belt, a light grey pants and, like all the Swordsmen of the Mist, he has bandages covering most of his body, his neck down to his chest, including his arms and his tibias.

Abilities
As one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist and a former ANBU, Raiga is one of the most powerful shinobi produced in Kirigakure. Ranmaru, being hidden under Raiga's hood, uses his ability, which involves heightened perception and analytical powers, as well as countering other dōjutsu, to assist Raiga in combat.



As one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, Raiga wielded two spiked swords that he used in a similar manner to lightning rods to attract and channel lightning and electricity. He can connect them at their hilts to form a larger double-bladed sword, effectively increasing the weapon's size and allowing him to perform different and more powerful blade-wielding abilities.

Using his swords, Raiga could use powerful long-distance lightning abilities more easily than normal lightning techniques. He could also use natural lightning as a power source, and as long as he had access to it, he could battle continuously without feeling tired. Even without his swords, he can use electrical energy to cause a Rock Avalanche.

Curry of Life Arc
When Raiga tried to bury Rorusuke, his group ran afoul of Naruto Uzumaki, Rock Lee, Neji Hyūga, and Tenten. He later engaged them using the Hiding in Mist Technique while Ranmaru negated Neji's Byakugan. While unconscious from one of Raiga's attacks, Lee manages to fight him off despite this. When Naruto asks if he knows Zabuza Momochi and Kisame Hoshigaki, Raiga stated that he hated those two, along with the rest of the seven sword members. Naruto then manages to hit him with his Rasengan, causing him to fall from a cliff and be left unconscious.



When Karashi brought Ranmaru to where Raiga's body was, his energy awakened Raiga, who thought Ranmaru died trying to revive him. When Tenten arrived, she fought Raiga but was defeated. Raiga then had Karashi lure Naruto, Lee, and Neji to where he is. Raiga manages to trump the three until the curry Tenten and Karashi fed them enabled them to be able to fight him again. When Ranmaru acts on his beliefs and tries to convince Raiga to stop fighting, Raiga feels betrayed. Upon being knocked off a cliff by Naruto, Raiga kills himself in midair with one of his own bolts of lightning, but not before saying "Ranmaru, you're free now", presumably stating that he now believed that Ranmaru can live on, now that he has friends and that he can live a life without fear or loneliness.

Trivia

 * The name means lightning fang.  means black spade or black plough.
 * On the official TV Tokyo website, Raiga's family name is consistently given as . The ending credits of the anime episodes give his name as
 * Raiga is so far the only one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist whose name does not derive from a type of produce, though spades and ploughs are used in the planting and cultivating of crops. He is also the only one who does not have pointed teeth and the only one to discard his forehead protector.
 * He has a rank of jōnin in the trading card.