Karatachi Yagura was one of Kiri's jinchūriki, appointed as their living weapon of mass destruction since the day he was chosen to be the host of the Sanbi. Too bad for the hierarchy, Yagura was well on his way to becoming the leader of their village.
"Mizukage, huh?"
Yagura nodded forlornly. He had precious years of what amounted to 'freedom' for jinchūriki left if he was truly chosen to become the Yondaime Kage of Kirigakure.
"Aren't you too short to even be considered?"
The dark-haired teenager behind him suddenly had a curved staff hooked around his neck and was brought down to Yagura's height to be face to face with his comrade. Baring his teeth like fangs, a stilted growl came from the shorter boy's throat.
"Call me short again and I'll become Mizukage just to give you D-Ranks for the rest of your life."
The dark-haired shinobi smirked.
"Aww, need a weapon to bring an unarmed ally to your level? How cute."
Yagura's chakra flickered red with demonic chakra for a moment before the darker haired shinobi ducked out of the staff's hook and swept at Yagura's legs.
Yagura fell off the roof he'd been perched on, flailing and shouting curses as the taller boy sprinted away laughing maniacally.
The black-haired boy "ha ha"ed mockingly under his breath as he ran away from Yagura's distant cursing.
He was Utakata, the future host of the Rokubi, and about as normal as any other shinobi — with things he liked and things he hated and loyalty to his Kage — bar his status as one of Kiri's most valuable and volatile assets. Of course, his next Kage was possibly going to be his fellow jinchūriki, so he wondered if he should get closer to the other host.
He brushed away the thought.
He and Yagura never had much interaction besides his occasional jabs at Yagura's height and their passing meetings when matters regarding the bijū were brought up by the Kirigakure higher-ups, though the limited association didn't stop his admiration of his coral pink eyes or the small genuine smile he'd once seen on that face.
Utakata supposed that a lot of things should have made them friends; they were both jinchūriki of Kirigakure no Sato, both had relatively healthy relationships with their bijū and they were raised almost exactly the same. But that wasn't enough. He and Yagura could never be friends.
So what was the fluttering in the pits of his stomach every time Yagura's face lit up red in anger and embarassment? What was the tightening in his chest when Yagura's attention was turned to another person?
Why did he care?
The fogs were only classified as a natural disaster in Mizu no Kuni, and odd places in Kaze no Kuni. In Mizu, they moved fast, covering entire villages, so thick they left water in the lungs and left a daily laundry soaked clothes despite the rare rain.
Kirigakure no Sato, even as the biggest chakra-populated village in Mizu no Kuni, was still none the wiser to the thickening air until they were completely consumed by it, and what was once sometimes (very rarely if you squinted and turned your head at an odd angle to catch the sunlight's reflection on a shiny surface) sunny became a place where stepping outside meant death by secret assassin or water-logged lungs. About the only people who could stand to be in the fog longer than a few moments were the two Mizu jinchūriki, who'd been raised in the unforgiving country and had specially adapted with their bijū to survive the climate year-round.
This left Yagura and Utakata as the only living creatures in the fog except for the few rare lost people who'd never be found, though reports of sightings would surely follow their disappearances.
This wasn't uncommon, but this was one of the worst fogs Mizu no Kuni had experienced for quite a few years.
Utakata wondered when was the last time he'd been so isolated. His sensei was cooped up inside, doing official work he'd been putting off for weeks with excuses that didn't hold up with the untiring fog that even he couldn't survive in. Utakata knew no one else.
Utakata briefly mused going to Yagura - he was only halfway across the village from him. A talk about what it was like being jinchūriki would be welcome after over a decade of being forced to live with only the demon sealed away inside of him as his source of answers and entertainment. Would Yagura even talk to him?
The two were the only ones in the fog, but they did not work.
No shinobi of Mizu could see or sense through the fog that hung heavy with the chakra it had gathered from around it, residues of shinobi training and the small techniques that had built up so much chakra over the decades of Kiri's existence that terrible weather meant that no one was going anywhere.
If a Shinobi of these lands couldn't find their way around, neither could a shinobi of any another.
Utakata was content to watch the changing clouds rolling along higher than the eyes could see, but a Shinobi landing next to him startled him into a defensive position. Yagura was unfazed by the reaction, sitting next to him with more noise than typically appropriate for a shinobi of his skill.
Sinking to the ground and out of his stance, Utakata glanced to the side at Yagura's blank look, wondering why he was here. Yagura gave no allusions to his intentions, just watching the fog as Utakata had, following some untraceable pattern he likely saw considering his bijū was much more water-related than Utakata's gooey slug of a companion.
Utakata opened their conversation instead.
"Would the village even let you?"
Yagura didn't acknowledge him with a glance, but his shift in posture to lift up his leg on the ledge of the roof they sat on told him more than was meant to.
"If I don't try, they'll never."
'And if you do?'
Utakata kept the silence longer. They didn't speak for the rest of the fog.
"Would you look at that," Utakata mumbled bitterly, Yagura's inauguration as Mizukage bringing a dark tilt to his voice.
The screams were terrible. He could call them them out as Yagura's doing, but he wouldn't have done this.
Yagura would not have done any of this, he told himself, but what did he know of Yagura to be able to say that?
The bloodshed lasted so long even Kiri civilians knew the moniker the other villages had given them. They knew it'd be almost impossible to change in the coming decades long after Yagura's reign send lineage had died and been left for dust.
Utakata left Kirigakure with a trail of bodies behind him, the walls of the buildings melting as easily as candles and stabbing the ice growing on him with all the weapons he had.
He'd never seen those eyes that followed he out of the village. Those were not Yagura's eyes.
Maybe it was bad timing, but he was there. He was there and watched on blankly as the screaming continued.
The only interest was the black flames. The curious things would not extinguish. He mused to himself about the unusual flames and the man who'd conjured them, trying his best to look away, but he saw.
They caught each other's gaze and those eyes weren't ones he hadn't seen before, but they weren't Yagura.
They were bleached red with the demonic chakra that was being burned by black fire, and they screamed.
Utakata didn't leave until what was left of Yagura was indistinguishable ash.
There was a boy he met who had eyes like Yagura.
They were blue and said nothing of the emotions otherwise plain as day. They had a golden sheen and became purple as anger infested his mind.
Uzumaki Naruto was peculiar for his eyes, his birthmarks, his hair, his personality, but he had eyes like Yagura. Eyes born from the ocean.