Kabuto: Borrowing an Identity

Kabuto tries to establish who he is by accumulating what other shinobi can do. That makes his search for identity a problem of measurement: the abilities he acquires can demonstrate capacity without settling what gives his own life a purpose.

Belonging under conditions

The official synopsis of Kabuto Yakushi describes Nonou raising him at an orphanage. Danzo and Orochimaru offer the orphanage financial help on the condition that she work as their spy.

That bargain places care inside a system of usefulness. Assistance for the institution comes with a demand for service from its caregiver. Our reading is that this is a useful starting point for Kabuto's later problem: the circumstances around belonging make it difficult to separate being valued from being useful. The synopsis establishes the coercive offer, not a complete psychological explanation of everything he subsequently does.

A collection is not an answer

The official synopsis of The Izanami Activated explicitly connects Kabuto's search for his identity with collecting and using other shinobi's abilities. Its examples include Kimimaro, the Sound Four and Orochimaru.

Borrowing is not inherently empty. Learning from other people is part of acquiring any skill, and having influences does not make someone unreal. The difficulty is the particular job Kabuto asks the collection to perform. If another ability is meant to answer who he is, every addition risks postponing the answer to the next acquisition. A larger inventory can still lack a principle for deciding what belongs in it.

There is also a difference between possessing a capacity and choosing its use. The former can be demonstrated through performance. The latter requires a judgment for which the borrower remains responsible. An inherited or acquired power cannot make that judgment on his behalf. Calling the power somebody else's does not make his actions somebody else's responsibility.

What competence leaves unresolved

On this reading, Kabuto's problem is not that his abilities fail to count. It is that they are asked to count as evidence for too much. A person can become more formidable while the question motivating the accumulation remains open. Success at acquisition can even make that unresolved question harder to notice.

The orphanage bargain and the later collection therefore belong beside each other without becoming a simple cause-and-effect formula. One shows care subjected to an external demand; the other shows identity pursued through other people's capacities. Together they sharpen the question of whether usefulness can ever supply all the recognition a person seeks.

The Itachi study examines another character's relationship with control. For the anime's progression, see the Naruto watch order.