Kabuto Yakushi

**Kabuto Yakushi** (薬師カブト, *Yakushi Kabuto*) spent most of his life as a spy working for many different individuals, organisations, and countries. His natural talents in intelligence-gathering and medicine attracted the attention of Orochimaru when he was younger, who made Kabuto his right-hand man. Although Kabuto learns much about the world under Orochimaru, he eventually decides that his life of serving others has prevented him from making an identity for himself. He thereafter seeks power and becomes a major factor in the Fourth Shinobi World War, using his higher place in the world so that he can find where in it he belongs. After finally finding himself in the world, Kabuto returns to Konohagakure to run the orphanage there, helping others such as himself to find their own way.

## Kabuto Yakushi

* Current
* Human
* Snake
* Young

### Occupation

Caretaker at the Konoha Orphanage, Scientist in Hell's Gate

## Appearances

### Portrayed by

Nobutoshi CannaMariko Mizuno (Child)Henry DittmanTara Sands (Child)

## Background

Kabuto was found as a child by Nonō Yakushi on the outskirts of a city recently destroyed in a battle; he had suffered a head injury, leaving him with no memory of his name or past. Nonō treated his wound and brought him to the Konoha Orphanage. Urushi, another orphan, placed a helmet on his head so he wouldn't be injured again, prompting Nonō to name him "Kabuto". Kabuto liked the name and left his bed that night so that he could thank her, unaware of the orphanage's strict schedule. When Nonō found him, she discovered that this was in part because he couldn't read a clock due to his poor eyesight. She gave him her glasses so that he could see, overwhelming Kabuto with thankfulness.

To earn money for the orphanage's operations, Nonō used her medical ninjutsu to treat injured shinobi of Konohagakure; Kabuto, having been taught medical ninjutsu by Nonō, would assist. Although the money helped, they still relied on direct funding from Konoha in order to get by. Aware of this fact, Danzō Shimura visited the orphanage one day threatening to withhold Konoha's funding if Nonō didn't turn one of the orphans over to his Root organisation. Kabuto, after eavesdropping on this conversation, volunteered against Nonō and Urushi's protests. Root trained Kabuto in espionage and over the years sent him to gain intel by, at different times, posing as a ninja of Kumo, Kiri, Suna, and Iwa. While in Iwa, Kabuto's spying was discovered and an Iwa-nin cornered him. He was able to strike down his pursuer, but only afterwards discovered that it was Nonō, who was also working for Root.

Kabuto apologised profusely and tried to heal Nonō, but she didn't recognise his face, even when he told her his name. She died from her injuries and Kabuto was forced to flee before Nonō's backup found him. Once safe, Kabuto was disillusioned by what had happened, wondering who he was if even Nonō didn't know him. He was soon confronted by Orochimaru, an underling of Danzō who'd taken an interest in Kabuto over the years. Orochimaru explained that Danzō had been giving Nonō falsified photographs of Kabuto so that she would no longer recognise him when they met. This in turn allowed Danzō to pit Nonō and Kabuto against each other and thus eliminate Root's two most effective, and consequently, knowledgeable spies. Assuming that Orochimaru planned to finish him off, Kabuto attacked him, distraught by the loss of both Nonō and the self-identification he'd acquired through her.

Orochimaru survived the attack and suggested that Kabuto now try making a new identity for himself using whatever knowledge of the world he could acquire. Orochimaru offered to help him in this regard and invited him to help make a new village, Otogakure, where individuality could thrive. Kabuto agreed and Orochimaru gave him a new backstory: that he was found by Nonō - a captain of Konoha's Medic Corps - after the Battle of Kikyō Pass and adopted as her son. With this backstory, Kabuto was able to become a genin of Konoha, which he used to enter the biannual Chūnin Exams so that he could gather information on his fellow participants for Orochimaru's use. Later, he was found by Akatsuki and was turned into one of Sasori's sleeper agents so he would spy on Orochimaru. Shortly afterwards, Orochimaru realised the truth and freed him from this control, allowing Kabuto to effectively infiltrate the organisation for Orochimaru. When not spying, Kabuto helped Orochimaru with his experimentations and his studies of different Oto-nin's abilities. In the anime, Kabuto also helped Orochimaru find genetic samples for use in the Impure World Reincarnation and also helped him escape from Itachi Uchiha after the latter's failed attempt to capture Itachi.

## Personality

At times, Kabuto can seem quite open, more than willing to approach people and always confident in his own words and actions. By his own admission, he is an introvert who doesn't like to be looked at and who wants to stick to the background. He can be very critical of others, dismissing their personal desires and outlining all the flaws he perceives them to be making. To those he feels are deserving, he is nothing but polite, regarding them with deference, using the appropriate honourifics, and chastising those who don't do the same. He can be cruel, preying on sensitive topics in order to rile someone up and punctuating his comments with sarcasm. Other times he is kind, putting himself at risk and being helpful for no immediate benefit to himself.

The many contradictions of Kabuto's personality are a result of his frequent role as a spy, having spent most of his life changing identities and loyalties in order to gather information for some organisation. Although he's been serving Orochimaru for the longest period of time, even Orochimaru isn't always sure what Kabuto's true feelings are: he trusts Kabuto implicitly, yet secretly suspects that Kabuto might intentionally undermine him. When Kabuto begins working with Tobi, Tobi is careful to be on guard with Kabuto and keep him on a short leash, aware that Kabuto does not always act for the reasons he claims to; even so, Kabuto is able to make himself simultaneously so valuable yet so dangerous that Tobi can't really do anything about it.

Kabuto appears to take his shifting allegiances in stride, but in truth he suffers an ongoing identity crisis. Because of the head injury he experienced when he was younger, Kabuto's early past is unknown to him and he has been having to construct an identity for himself ever since. While he was recruiting Kabuto, Orochimaru encouraged him to follow his own example and quite literally build who he wants to be out of whatever knowledge and abilities he can gather. Kabuto latched on to this idea at the time, but eventually realised that this was no different than what he did as a spy: aligning himself under some larger entity and then defining himself according to that. Kabuto decides it is better to follow Naruto Uzumaki's example and establish his own identity by becoming even greater than those under whose shadows he's lived under, namely Orochimaru. Kabuto sets out to become stronger, perfecting all the skills that Orochimaru could not, and use the resulting power so that he would never need to be answerable to anyone ever again.

In his quest to surpass Orochimaru, Kabuto convinces himself that he has become the "perfect" being. He uses this believed distinction in order to ally with Tobi during the Fourth Shinobi World War, pitting Tobi against the Allied Shinobi Forces so that they will destroy themselves and enable Kabuto to capitalise in the aftermath. But when his plans see continued setbacks, especially in his repeated failure to defeat Sasuke and Itachi Uchiha in battle, Kabuto's self-image as "perfect" starts to crack and he begins desperately trying to defend his final attempt at being recognised. Itachi tries to explain the misstep that Kabuto has been making, but it isn't until he is subjected to Izanami that Kabuto accepts it: in the act of making an identity for himself, he has only been burying who he truly is. When he peels away all his false personas, Kabuto again becomes the adoptive son of Nonō Yakushi, one who could be trusted to do things on his own and who was valued by the entire orphanage because of it. Despite having claimed to have surpassed Orochimaru, Kabuto still held great respect for Orochimaru, still referring to him with the honourific "-sama".

Kabuto feels indebted to Itachi for restoring to him the knowledge of who he is and where in the world he most belongs; he later returns the favour to Itachi by saving Sasuke's life. After the war, Kabuto returns to the orphanage where he was raised - his long-neglected true home - and resumes the life he once had there. He believes it is vital that the orphans have identities of their own and not allow themselves to be defined by their past associations. In the anime, Orochimaru expressed his confidence that Kabuto's chance of slipping back to his old days are even lower than himself.

## Abilities

While Kabuto was just a child he possessed a natural talent in the shinobi arts, a trademark that caught the attention of Orochimaru upon first meeting Kabuto and studying his service record with Root, which ultimately led to Kabuto being his right-hand man. In Part I, Kabuto's skills are noted to be comparable to Kakashi Hatake's, and enough to defeat members of Konoha's Anbu with ease, noting that they should have readied at least ten guards for him. Tsunade even notes that his knack for ninjutsu and his sharpness surpass that of hers in her prime. During Part II, Kabuto sets out to correct the talents he feels were never fully realised: he later boasts that he has surpassed Orochimaru, is the closest living person to match the power of the Sage of Six Paths, and is the single most important player in the entire Fourth Shinobi World War. Kabuto's improved prowess enabled him to overwhelm Sasuke and the reincarnated Itachi, two Uchiha clan prodigies, several times in battle.

### Body Modifications

In order to achieve the "perfect being" identity he desires for himself, Kabuto makes a number of modifications to his body prior to the Fourth Shinobi World War, causing him to develop a different chakra signature and granting him a larger reserve that is strong enough to visibly effect his surroundings. The first and most notable of these modifications was infusing himself with the remains of Orochimaru's body, thus obtaining the Power of the White Snake. Over time, the remains alter his body, making his "true" appearance very snake-like, in which he can move around quickly and use his large mouth to swallow and thus capture targets. He usually disguises his appearance within a more normal-looking skin, which he can shed as needed. This outer skin has a snake embedded in its navel, which he can merge with others' bodies in order to heal them. Kabuto can in fact produce white snakes of varying sizes from his body, either to act as additional appendages or to detach from him and carry out his will. These snakes can use their heightened senses to communicate targets' locations to him, communicate on his behalf, possess his chakra signature to throw off sensor types, and share some of his other bodily modifications.

From his extensive study of Orochimaru's various human test subjects, Kabuto alters his body to replicate certain others' trademark skills: he creates a version of Suigetsu Hōzuki's Hydrification Technique to escape capture by liquefying his body; he can reproduce Karin's natural Uzumaki-based rejuvenation to heal injuries he suffers; he can use Jūgo's kekkei genkai to passively absorb natural energy, allowing him to continuously use Sage Mode without the need of remaining still. While in Sage Mode, he can make further use of others' abilities through his Strange Transmission Distant Shadow technique, granting him all the skill-sets of whoever he has genetic samples of. He does this through an application of Sakon's body merging ability, generating mindless clones of others from his navel snake that can use all of their techniques. With this, he is able to access the abilities of the Sound Five, such as Kimimaro's accelerated bone production and Kidōmaru's spider web-based bindings.

### Ninjutsu

Kabuto's natures include Earth, Water, and Wind, as well as Yin and Yang release. He can use Earth Release travel underground and, with Jirōbō's DNA, upend the earth. He can also use Water Release without a nearby water source, able to create large water projectiles and water dragons. Kabuto can produce barriers to hide his location and, in the anime, make himself invisible.

#### Medical Ninjutsu

Kabuto was taught medical ninjutsu by Nonō Yakushi when he was young and immediately displayed a natural talent for it. He can heal most injuries without difficulty, even performing the ordinarily close-contact Mystical Palm Technique from a slight distance. He invents Yin Healing Wound Destruction as a way of keeping test subjects alive longer by preemptively healing damage they receive, but he can also use it on himself when he expects to be badly injured. He uses chakra scalpels quite extensively outside their intended surgical use, either to cut through defences or augment his physical strikes, severing muscles on contact in order to disable opponents. Kabuto was also able to sever the chakra pathway system, which also prevented a jinchūriki from receiving chakra from their tailed-beast.

Kabuto has an unprecedented knowledge of the human body, enough that, when his body's electrical signals are scrambled, he is able to quickly compensate and relearn how to control his limbs. For others, he can use his knowledge to create drugs to various effects, either as pain killers, hormones to enhance physical attributes, poisons to specifically neutralise a particular target's abilities or immunities, and truth serums to aid in interrogations. Kabuto has a unique affinity for corpses, able to reanimate them for use as allies in combat or decoys; in the case of the latter, he can quickly alter the corpse's appearance to look like someone else, which is so convincing that the alteration is only noticeable on close scrutiny. He in fact likes to keep a supply of variously-aged corpses with him at all times, which he stores in scrolls until he needs them.

#### Summoning

Kabuto uses his own blood to help Orochimaru summon snakes a few times in Part I, but it's not until after he takes on Orochimaru's remains that he starts summoning snakes for himself. Like the snakes he makes with his own body, he can use these snake to restrain targets or inject them with venom or various drugs. He also managed to clone and genetically augment animals for his own usage, such as Manda II — a much larger and stronger clone of Manda. In the anime's Power arc, he summons several other varieties of modified snakes that can absorb chakra, morph into copies of himself, and small clone snakes that can combine into replicas of others.

Kabuto claims to have perfected the Impure World Reincarnation: he is able to reincarnate dozens of individuals at a time - something its creator, Tobirama Senju, could not - and bring them back with the same power they had while alive - something Orochimaru could not. Kabuto typically allows his reincarnated forces to keep their personalities while they carry out his bidding, making them more effective and allowing for a degree of psychological warfare against those who knew them when alive. By siphoning chakra from Orochimaru's cursed seals, he can remotely suppress their personalities and take full control of their actions. In the case of Madara Uchiha's reincarnated body, Kabuto makes several modifications to it in order to restore Madara's youth and give him the Rinnegan and Wood Release.

### Senjutsu

Due to the larger chakra reserves he gains from Orochimaru's remains, Kabuto is able to learn senjutsu from the White Snake Sage at the Ryūchi Cave. This allows him to enter Sage Mode, which he can use indefinitely due to his replication of Jūgo's passive ability to constantly absorb natural energy. In Sage Mode, Kabuto's only noticeable physical alterations are the markings around his eyes, the four horns on the back of his head, and brille to give him immunity to genjutsu and other visual attacks; he describes his transformation as changing him from a snake to a dragon. Using Sage Mode makes Kabuto's jutsu and physical attacks stronger, improves his physical defences, heightens his speed and reflexes, and allows him to sense his surroundings. He can also infuse natural energy into inanimate objects, giving them life.

### Intelligence

During his years in Root, Kabuto became one of the organisation's best spies, a role he continued to serve for Orochimaru. Over the years, he uncovers a great deal of information unknown to most of the world, such as how Zetsus are made, the truth surrounding the Uchiha Clan Downfall, and Tobi's true identity. Like Orochimaru, Kabuto has shown himself as an extensive researcher, performing multiple experiments to empower or neutralise an individual's abilities. In combat, Kabuto can use his gathered knowledge to plan around an opponents' abilities by employing appropriate countermeasures. This also speaks to his considerable ability to manipulate opponents, as he frequently tries to break down their resolve, turn them against their allies, or even come up with similarities that might convince them to join forces with him. Even if his manipulations fail or they cannot in and of themselves benefit him, Kabuto is good at making all possible outcomes work in his favour: the Allied Shinobi Forces' losses helped his stated objective of winning the Fourth Shinobi World War, while the Allied Shinobi Forces' victories helped his long-term objective of undermining Akatsuki.

### Other Skills

Although Kabuto rarely uses genjutsu, his high skill with it allows him to put a large number of people to sleep. After integrating Tayuya's DNA, he could use trap Itachi and Sasuke in her flute-based genjutsu, and despite the two being genjutsu masters, they were unable to break it independently. Although Kabuto admits that taijutsu is not his forte, he has shown to have good reflexes, reacting to threats just in time to defend himself or allies as well as fending off Naruto Uzumaki's and his shadow clones despite being outnumbered.