Yakushi Kabuto

[sunshinehistory]

Country/Village: Rice, Otogakure
Rank: Jounin
Age at Game Start: 21
Birthday: February 29th

Appearance

Height: 5'9" Kabuto is tall but not overly imposing, tending toward lean muscle rather than bulk. He has shoulder length grey hair he usually keeps tied in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. His 'uniform' is a dark purple outfit, with loose capri pants, a sash, and a white t-shirt under a wide-necked overshirt.

His most obvious feature is the large round glasses he wears, a relic of his time at the Konoha orphanage. They have a tendency to get shattered during fights, and so he's rather adept at fighting without them, however he requires them to see in the distance.

Abilities/Powers

Ninjutsu
Kabuto has a strong affinity for medical jutsu. He is a healer, first and foremost, and will used his knowledge both to heal and hurt, depending on the situation. His ability to self-heal is a close mimic to the healing through precise chakra control and knowledge of the human body.

He has a good grasp of basic ninjutsu, and plenty of in-field experience from over his years working with Nono.

Taijutsu
His preferred weapons are chakra scalpels, but he shows aptitude at using most of the normal ninja weapons, shuriken, knives, etc.

Politics
Having traveled so much, he has a good feel for the politics, basic intel, and structure of most of the ninja villages and broader countries. He also has minor contacts throughout the world, mostly people who owe him favors for healing. In general, he doesn't know specific village secrets, but he can usually guess when something large will happen, based upon readily available information such as ninja sightings and trade convoys.

Other
His main talents are in information gathering and intelligence work. He is far more likely to attempt to manipulate his way out of a situation than engage in direct combat. But he does go out of his way to refrain from killing, if just because it would be a terrible waste of parts.

Looking to the future, Kabuto has expressed an interest in tackling the "sage" problem and that of resurrection. Of course, it is possible that they will eventually develop Impure World Resurrection.

Personality

Kabuto is a quiet young man with a highly driven nature. He is immensely loyal to those who recognize his skills, and has a bad habit of depending on others to define his identity. Over the years he has gotten more stable, but deaths of mentors and friends still affect him strongly, and he goes out of his way to prevent such deaths, even if that means putting himself at risk.

Generally, Kabuto maintains a calm exterior, even in times of great personal turmoil. He has a wry sense of humor and a tendency to self-deprecate. He undervalues his own skills and his response to attacks against his weak sense of self are generally further self-deprecation with a twist of sarcasm - 'if I'm so terrible, won't it be pathetic if you lose to me?' kind of thing.

He's a bit of an idealist, but not in terms of belief in humanity; rather he believes strongly in the power of science and research and has a tendency to view governments and bureaucracy as serving their own interests rather than the people who depend on them.

This habit, however, does not manifest in his interactions with outsiders. If he does not view someone as an immediate threat, he treats them with vague politeness and genuine helpfulness, waiting to see how much they have already judged him before acting appropriately. If they already view him with disdain, then the sarcasm comes out as a kind of defense, but if people have no clue who he is Kabuto can be immensely kind and helpful. He's the sort that will heal first and ask questions later, even with supposed enemies. And when those enemies declare him insane or a monster, he acts as if the insults don't hurt, while privately believing that they must be right.

He distrusts most ninja in positions of power, but is quick to help any who have been hurt just doing their job.

He is thoughtful and organized, falling back on structures and patterns when he is stressed or distracted. But he comes alive in the the lab, where that intense focus and drive lead him to learn new skills quickly and the lack of self-worth pushes him to experiment on himself just as much as others in search of greater understanding of chakra and bloodline talents. This makes him a good foil for Orochimaru, as Kabuto cares too little about himself and Orochimaru cares only for himself. Kabuto sometimes struggles to act as the moral center for his master: it is all too easy for him to be swept up in Orochimaru's enthusiasm. But when he draws the line, he sticks to it, even if he generally manipulates Orochimaru and others into his point of view, rather than having an outright confrontation.

He is kind when he can be, happiest while in the laboratories in the Sound, and slowly figuring out who he is and what he truly values.

History

Kabuto was one of the last orphans of the third shinobi war found on a battle-field. Having lost his memories at the age of around eight, he was quickly adopted by the Konoha Orphanage and immediately attached himself to Nono, a former intelligence officer of ROOT and a healer.

Though quiet, Kabuto was a remarkably perceptive child, and when Nono was brought back in to assist with the disbanding of ROOT, he recognized the toll it might take on his mentor and offered to help. While originally hesitant to train one of the orphans in the world she had tried so hard to protect them from, she eventually relented when Kabuto proved that he was able to keep up with her, hold cover, and act as her backup. When a well-timed tantrum prevented her temporary cover from being blown, she finally relented and allowed Kabuto to tag along as she traveled throughout the ninja world, extracting spies, disposing of dangerous informants, and in general cleaning up the last hints of ROOT scattered around the world.

The pair of them - two healers, the perfect image of mother and child - were able to succeed at gaining entrance to some of the best defended cities and countries, precisely because they appeared so harmless. And whether or not the administration approved of the use of a child-spy, his results were undeniable, and the specter of ROOT was slowly erased from the world.

After each mission, Nono and Kabuto would return back to Konoha, to debrief, spend time at the orphanage, and for Kabuto to attend the academy, something both Nono and their handlers insisted on. Frankly, Kabuto found the academy work boring, having already learned much of the more practical jutsus while on the road and with his expertise in chakra control necessary for healing helping him to master new justus quickly. He had little in common with the other students, partially because he had seen a much broader swath of the world, but also because his skills were the opposite of 'flashy' - he didn't feel he was permitted to explain how being beneath notice was something he had worked for a year perfecting, or how he knew the exact moment to start crying to get the most sympathy. And healing could never unlock the same blood-line talents that earned so much envy from the rest of the students and praise from the teachers. Plus, there were no other healers class, not that he advertised his own status. That meant he didn't feel welcome sharing his views on the wider philosophy of the ninja world, nor the underpinnings of the chakra system.

He found himself longing for the times spent on missions and neglecting his schooling, even as Nono tried to push him to interact with his cohort and forget about their other work. Traveling the world was fun, meeting new people and helping them escape was fascinating, and learning about new jutsus was quickly becoming a passion. When Nono finally put her foot down and stopped him from going on the increasingly dangerous, if infrequent, missions, he threw himself into research, trying to support her through knowledge of the ninja world, desperate to help and terrified of losing the one thing that tied him to the village. This only further alienated him from his classmates, and he found himself more and more frustrated with the whole system.

Then Nono died. It wasn't even on a mission: it was in Konoha, after doing a debriefing that she had promised him was to be the last. One moment she was alive, finishing her paperwork, and the next she was gone, collapsed in a complete heart failure.

In the haze of grief that followed, Kabuto was sure of one thing - Nono's death couldn't have been an accident. She had been taken out, just like all those spies and traitors that he'd seen over the years and helped Nono to deal with. And it made a brutal kind of sense: she was the last one. The last disposable spy from ROOT's less savory side.

And she had tried to protect him from it all, gotten him out of the system before they could've seen him as a threat... and left him to the world they had helped build. Her will urged him, and all the other children at the Orphanage, to live their lives fully, to pursue their dreams, and to find their place. He could finally graduate the academy, find a career as a ninja, or join a hospital and work as a medic. A perfect, easy life in which the memories of the dark time before could be completely forgotten.

Instead, he suffered a mental breakdown. He found that there was nothing that remained to tie him to the Leaf: while he had gone with Nono partially to inspire the Orphanage and show that the orphans could contribute to Konoha, he hadn't made any strong bonds with the other children. It seemed the same for the Leaf - perhaps some of his teachers would remember him if he disappeared, but would they really care? The administration appeared to have forgotten about him, and if they ever remembered, it was sure it would mean that he'd be next on the hit list: with no strong ties and no one to complain if he went missing, it would probably be easier to kill him than to risk him ever revealing what he knew.

Without Nono - who was he? If no one needed him, if no one wanted him... what was his purpose? That was the world as he saw it then.

And, because Kabuto has a tendency to make very poor decisions when feeling lost, he simply left. Being in Konoha hurt too much, and he wasn't needed. In hindsight it was a stupid decision, but he was 13 years old, had lost the woman he considered a mother, and was thoroughly disenfranchised by the system he had helped support.

He was lucky: Konoha didn't stop him when he left. The shinobi life wasn't for everyone, and they weren't in the habit of forcing civilian children to stay if they didn't graduate. If anyone remembered him from the missions he and Nono had performed, they seemed to consider him too unimportant to worry about.

He left the Leaf and traveled the world, visiting many of the places he and Nono had infiltrated, seeing how they had changed over the years, even as the Leaf had. Just as before, being a healer opened many doors for the young man, but he never found a place he wanted to settle at.

Six months after leaving the Leaf, he ran across Orochimaru. Of course the Sannin had never heard of him, but Kabuto recognized the man immediately, despite the low-profile the Sannin was keeping. He knew the rumors about why the man had left. After talking with him for a few hours, all the information Kabuto had been hearing from the Land of the Rice Patties clicked and he bluntly asked Orochimaru if he was starting a new village. At that point he had been traveling for half a year and felt no closer to finding a home or identity, and was half expecting Orochimaru to kill him on the spot.

Instead, the Sannin immediately recognized Kabuto's potential talent and brought him in on the spot, offering him everything he'd ever wanted. A chance to create a new village, one which wouldn't have all the problems of the old. One which was based on research and took in starving kids, just like his orphanage had. And one in which all of Kabuto's skills could be used, one where he would be given free reign over his own experiments and not have to pretend he was something lesser just because it made it easier to fit in.

Over the next eight years Kabuto devoted himself completely to Otogakure, acting as Orochimaru's right-hand man, lead medic, and moral center. Unlike in canon, Kabuto had a stronger sense of self, even after Nono's loss, and enough of a conscience to resist some of Orochimaru's most extreme experiments. (If he wasn't willing to do it to himself, then he wasn't willing to do it to another. That rule is the biggest source of discord between the man and his leader.) Add that to a healthy dose of practicality and Orochimaru's charisma, and Kabuto had experiments volunteering for the knife, coming to Otogakure in search of power or food or a place to call home, just as he had.

With the reveal of Oto's existence the year previous, Kabuto also has been working to establish the village outside their home country. He uses the knowledge he picked up while traveling with Nono, in addition to his memories of village politics, as well as old contacts who owe him favors for healing, to slowly expand Oto's influence while not inciting the ire of the more powerful nations.

He still has his own experiments, and he splits his time evenly between the daily running of Otogakure and his own research. He's immensely loyal to Orochimaru, though hesitant to show it blatantly to the man, knowing how Orochimaru takes advantage of others. He has enough sense of self-worth, and enough confidence in his own skills to fix himself, to argue with his leader even though Orochimaru terrifies him.

Being an integral part of Otogakure has done much to heal Kabuto's low self-esteem. Even if it might just be a lie or manipulation, Orochimaru's praise and recognition have given Kabuto a sense of identity, and the Otogakure Village in Rice is physical proof of that. Even if Orochimaru dies, no one can take that fact away. Otogakure exits, and in Rice, it's as much Kabuto's creation as Orochimaru's.

As Kabuto has aged, his hero-worship of Orochimaru has aged as well, growing to a well-founded respect. He would give his life for Orochimaru, but not unquestioningly, and not because he cannot imagine living without the man. It would be for Otogakure, the home he made for himself.