Naruto Kuroki

**Naruto Kuroki** (**Kuroki Naruto, 黒木鳴人**) is one of the main characters of and the main antagonist of Part 1 in the Pumpkin Night series. He along his friends bullied Naoko in school. He was the perpetrator responsible for burning Naoko's face during the Pumpkin Queen event by putting sulfuric acid and filling polyethylene bags into the Pumpkin head. He returns as a posthumous supporting character in Part 2 after his death as a ghost, regretful for his actions towards Naoko.

## Naruto Kuroki

### Relatives

Tatsuo Kuroki (father)Sae Kuroki (mother)

## Physical description

### Gender

Male

**Encounter with the Pumpkin Night**

He first appears in Chapter 1 as he meets up with his gang after Atsumi's death, at first he appears to be a reasonable person, even one of the good guys considering Naoko's actions. Yet he opts to try to have her dead before she gets caught as he knows she will not be given the death penalty considering her insanity. However, he and gang get a follow from the Pumpkin Night's account on their phones and get constantly attacked by her and coming across her antics, especially at the funeral home and at the hospital, where they had to get fixed up from their injuries from a car chase with her.

After the incident in the hospital, Naruto is back near the high school pondering his next move when Noizumi comes in and tries to have an affair with him. He got attacked by Naoko in the process and despite him fighting back, he gets knocked out and dragged to a storehouse by Naoko. There he got tied up and was tortured by an elaborate method of wire garroting involving Noizumi; he was forced to confess his crimes on a livestream. Yet he managed to escape, despite being unable to save Noizumi from being murdered and seriously injure Naoko's hand just when Arata came in to rescue him and the two beat up Naoko more of which prompts Kazuya to kick the two of them down. They get back up and knock out both Naoko and Kazuya and have them tied up along with having his father, Tatsuo, carry them away to a construction sight where the two are disposed of from a high distance, of which supposedly "killed off" Naoko but not Kazuya. Afterwards, when they arrive at his high level apartment, he gets irritated with Arata's paranoia with Naoko's vow to return from the dead and kicks him out. Then, when Arata gets attacked by a now deranged Kazuya, as well as seriously injured by him, Naruto reluctantly rescues him from Kazuya and demands answers from him while he calls for an ambulance; he then kills Arata by suffocating him with a pillow so as to prevent him from confessing to the police. He then chops up his corpse in a bathroom to his dad's horror, sensing that he seems to be getting delusional because of his encounter from the Pumpkin Night.

**Fight with the Pumpkin King and death**

When he, his dad, and the yakuza unit travel out of his apartment to dispose of Arata's body, they get attacked by Kazuya who now goes by the name of the Pumpkin King, who is supported by Hayakawa who seeks revenge against Tatsuo for her father's death. After a fight with the yakuza who got seriously injured (or even dead) as well as Hayakawa herself, as well as the fiery death of Tatsuo, Naruto escapes, unable to save his dad and flees in terror from Kazuya. He tries to get help from the bystanders, yelling at them he's being stalked by a slasher serial killer, they all think it's an act considering by then Halloween is nearby, much to his dismay. He gets cornered in an alleyway and tries to plead mercy and even turn himself in and even "redeem" himself but Kazuya was too hell-bent on avenging Naoko's "death" and does him in by way of using acid to melt the inside of his head by tearing a hole in his forehead as well as decapitating him.

**Sudden "Reappearance"**

In Part 2 while Kazuya, being manipulated by Sae via nerve control into trying to kill Naoko when at the Hirayama clinic, a supposed ghost that seems to be taking on the form of Naruto, at least according to the two (regardless of whether or not it is "real" or in their own twisted minds), appears telling him about the nerve in question and how he has a choice of fixing it at the risk of death or allowing the nerve to let him kill Naoko. This seems to indicate that, according to them, he has "redeemed" himself in helping the two in spite of the events of Part 2. The "ghost" of Naruto disappears as Shingo knocks Kazuya head first down to the ground.

However, it appears Naruto had indeed returned as a spirit, as he later appears in front of his mother, Sae Kuroki, to stop her from enacting an emergency "Plan B" to kill Naoko and Kazuya as well as all the mental patients of her asylum. He reveals that, in death he fully regrets what he had done to Naoko, and the reason he did everything he had done to her, including disfiguring her face was because Naruto was actually scared of Naoko because she had the ability to "change the world". Soon after revealing this Naruto's face and head begins to melt, being an exaggerated reference to his own death, before he vanishes, with his words convincing his mother to abort her plan, causing everyone still alive in the asylum to leave.