Kiiro

Envy and ambition rule the younger brother. Tradition names him guardian to the firstborn Kodaka, a role he despises, certain his gifts are wasted shielding another and that the bees belong in his own hands instead. He hungers for renown while Kodaka wishes only to earn enough to go home to their little brothers, and he never bothers to mask his bitterness. Kodaka's death in his place finally breaks that resentment, and remorse steers him toward the peaceful trade his brother always favored.

Since his clan hands its bee-control secrets to the eldest alone, Kiiro was never formally taught them, yet he worked out a deadly rhythm that let Kodaka's bees drop a mark in just two stings. He backs it with his own ninjutsu, most notably the Water Dragon Bullet, a Water Release jutsu he unleashed on Kisame Hoshigaki. Kodaka's dying gift of his swarm at last placed the bees in Kiiro's care, though he turned them to honey-making rather than killing.

Hungry for recognition, Kiiro pushes Kodaka into freelance jobs for the hidden villages, and their two-sting killing method earns steady work from Kirigakure. Assigned to a Kiri hunter-nin unit hunting Kisame Hoshigaki, the brothers watch their comrades cut down; Kiiro's water jutsu clears the way for one sting before Itachi Uchiha fells him with Tsukuyomi. When the two Akatsuki catch up again, Kodaka throws himself into the path of a fireball meant for Kiiro, then fakes a murder-suicide, feigning a killing blow to his brother before ending his own life so the enraged bees drive the attackers off.

Wracked with guilt, Kiiro carries the swarm home, raises the younger boys Ōmitsu and Komitsu on honey sales, and coaxes a stand of uncommon white blossoms to spread across the Valley of Lies, where he later weds Kanyū and fathers a son. Years afterward, meeting Sasuke Uchiha near those blooms, he grasps at last why Itachi spared him: like Kodaka, Itachi too had a younger brother.