Kirigakure Saizō

Kirigakure Saizō (霧隠才蔵) was a legendary ninja of the final phase of the Sengoku period of Japan. In the folklore he is one of the Sanada Ten Braves, and next to Sarutobi Sasuke, he is the most recognized of the Ten.

As in the case of Sasuke, Saizō might be a fictional creation of the Meiji era popular literature, possibly based on Kirigakure Shikaemon. According to the historian Stephen Turnbull and non-fiction writer Joel Levy, there is a historical record of a failed assassination attempt by a ninja called Kirigakure Saizō, sent by the warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu to kill his rival Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Tokichiro Kinoshita). According to another version of this incident, presented by the martial artist and researcher Donn F. Draeger, the "careless ninja" Saizō was captured while only spying on Hideyoshi, which actually saved the life of the warlord because he was about to be killed by a double agent, Yusuke Takiguchi; Saizō's life was then spared on the condition of declaring loyalty to the Toyotomi clan.