Kyūsuke

was once a shinobi from Amegakure and one of the original founding Akatsuki members.

Background
In the anime, Kyūsuke at some point left Amegakure, having grown tired of Hanzō's rule. He and his comrades began stealing from villages to survive. One day, they came to the village that was protected by a newly-formed and small group called Akatsuki. As the trio easily repelled Kyūsuke and his comrades, Kyūsuke asked if they were working for Hanzō. The leader of the group, Yahiko, said they are not, but do share his goal of creating peace. Kyūsuke was untrusting of Yahiko and his views but after seeing the sincerity of Yahiko, Kyūsuke and his comrades ultimately decided to join Akatsuki. While offering to be subordinates, Yahiko refused to think of them as anything less than comrades. Kyūsuke soon became responsible for spreading the reputation of Akatsuki and handling requests for the Akatsuki's assistance. He was also presumably responsible for most of the reconnaissance for Akatsuki, having claimed his legs are incredibly fast and would gladly take on any intel gather job. At some point, Kyūsuke developed feelings for Konan of the Akatsuki's founding trio. She politely rejected his request to accept his feelings, saying she was too busy striving for peace to have a relationship, to which Kyūsuke politely accepted.

Sometime later, a messenger from Hanzō came with a request for Akatsuki to meet with him and form an alliance. Kyūsuke and the others were quickly overjoyed and celebrated their success in beginning to realise their dream. The following day, Kyūsuke learned that Konoha Anbu were sighted near Hanzō. Finding this suspicious, Kyūsuke and the others quickly went to meet with their allies. Before they could reach them, Tobi and Zetsu intercept the group, determined to let Hanzō's plan to murder the Akatsuki's leader succeed in order to fully awaken Nagato's Rinnegan.

Noting that Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan had given him a sense of purpose and hope he had long since lost, Kyūsuke was determined to defeat his assailants. Ultimately, Tobi's intangibility made Kyūsuke's attacks useless. Mortally wounded by his own sword, he teamed up with Daibutsu for a final team attack. He held Tobi in place for Daibutsu to trap them with water, and used his own quicklime technique in an attempt to petrify them both, knowing that he would die in the process but Tobi escaped by teleporting away which resulted in Kyūsuke's sacrifice and eventual death being in vain.

Personality
Kyūsuke was a very reserved individual. He would usually only speak when having something important to say. Despite this, he was shown to have a jovial side, regularly referring to his leader Yahiko as. When he was younger, he was notably more aggressive, willing to rob a minor village for supplies, yet was still hesitant to use unnecessary force. Kyūsuke was also a very brave individual in both the battlefield and in love as shown in how quick he was to confess his feelings to Konan, which irritated Yahiko who also had a crush on her. At the same time, he was very mature, calmly accepting Konan's rejection and did not let it affect their working relationship and still saw her as a comrade in arm.

Appearance
Kyūsuke had long black hair and black-coloured cat-like pupils. He wore a black Amegakure forehead protector and had black markings around and below his eyes. Extra distinguishing light purple features, dark black slanted cat like eye irises, worn a simple sleeveless light brown kimono with light black sleeves, a light grey scarf covering his neck, and a sword on his back. He later wore the classic Akatsuki cloak consisting of a black-coloured zip up robe with the zipper part being red in the anime.

Abilities
Kyūsuke's skills were unknown in the manga. In the anime, he was an extremely fast-moving shinobi whose speed earned him his nickname,. Proving his speed in battle, he showed himself to be highly evasive against the numerous Zetsu clones. He was also noted to be highly skilled in intelligence gathering. His preferred tactics in battle appeared to be kenjutsu, implying he was capable in wielding a sword in combat.

Nature Transformation
Kyūsuke was able to combine earth and fire-natured chakra to use Lava Release ninjutsu, which took the form of quicklime via Lava Release: Quicklime Congealing Technique.

Trivia

 * In the manga, Kyūsuke was simply an unnamed background character.
 * The kanji his name is written with mean "pigeon" and "help". This might be a reference to how early Akatsuki received information and calls for help through pigeons.