His Gift to Her (Mary Sue Series)

Chapter 43

"Why do you trust this 'Uncle Igo' so much? I have never seen a child, who clearly has a loving household, would follow an outsider with so much trust and willingness," Kabuto asked, looking at Qui. She wasn't ignorant of the situation at hand. They would soon go to war against the Five Great Nations in an attempt to create world peace. 

Qui flipped the large puzzle in her hands over to move the rolling parts into different positions. A board game with its pieces askew was placed at her side. Kabuto sat in front of her, looking at this own game board with prepared pieces placed strategically before him. 

"Qui?" 

She looked up, raising her eyebrows as she looked curiously at him. Then she leaned back slightly, thinking over her reply. Seeing as he wasn't about to get his answer soon, Kabuto returned to his board and looked it over, schemes and ploys planted in every possible route against their enemy.

"Several reasons." 

Kabuto lifted his eyes to stare at his ex-niece. He glanced back down, surveying the "battlefield."

"Uncle Igo saved my family. He covered up Mom's identity and protected her from any scandal that might come. That's no easy feat. Uncle Igo may have claimed to be with friends or a part of a team, but the truth is...he is by himself. He works alone. Uncle Igo saved Mom by himself, erased all record of her, then created a new identity for her to live by. He saved Mom in just one night. The Elders didn't do anything much when they found out. Well, they couldn't really accuse her unless they wanted to reveal my birth and risk losing me in the early stages." 

Kabuto nodded, moving more pieces onto the board. Clans, especially of the Uchiha Clan back then, would have kept a close watch on their members from leaving the clan. Leaving it was neigh high impossible. Uncle Igo would have had to silence Noriaki's close family from telling their leader (or create a believable story) and find a new life for the "missing" girl to live. It would have taken weeks for papers to process and new signatures to inform the government files of new corrections. By then, the clan would have had found out and stopped the process immediately. 

But for a man to single-handedly save one girl who birthed a miracle child later? Kabuto frowned deeply, pressing another piece onto the game board. This Uncle Igo must have either saw a way to gain favor from Noriaki or saw the future and decided to take the child as a weapon. 

Qui wasn't done and Kabuto turned his attention back to her. "I'm okay with fighting. If given the choice, I wouldn't fight. I may have been born a fighter, but I..." 

She stared off into the distance, water dripping onto the floor in a hallucinating manner. "...never asked to be one. In the Konoha system, everything revolves around fighting. The education system paints the reality as a romantic fantasy of protecting your loved ones, but the truth is, they hide death staining the battlefields." 

Kabuto stopped putting more pieces on his board and looked at Qui quietly. 

"Becoming Shinobi isn't a game of life or death. It's not...something to flaunt proudly. It's downright suicide. Even if you survive, you carry the weight of losing, failure, and depression. There's nothing more for a dead man. A glorified gravestone? As if he could bring it with him."

She trailed off, hands moving nimbly as she fixed the puzzle into its final position and with a loud snap, she completed the puzzle. Her eyes were fixed on something at the back, yet Kabuto knew only the walls of the cave was behind him.  

"Life...is so precious. Many people don't see it that way and easily slap a price tag on life. But to me? Life is priceless. Man can imitate life, but you can never freely create a human being and breathe life into a corpse."

She glanced over at Kabuto and gestured to his work. "You have the reincarnate jutsu. But you didn't give them life. You control their corpses. They may have retained their personalities and personal goals, but in the end, they live by their revivor and not of their own will." 

"I believe a life-giving jutsu exists," Kabuto murmured, leaning to the side to stretch. 

"Yet that serves a consequence. A cost of your own life and a request of immense Chakra that may take up more than your own."

"What about your parents? They loved you and cared for you," Kabuto asked. 

Qui set the puzzle aside, the wood panels clattering noisily on the stone floor. "All the more reason to join the Akatsuki's quest for world peace. With this project, I can assure world peace will forever protect my parents and set my future. If all it takes is to fight one final battle...then I'd do it." 

Kabuto cleared the space around himself slowly as he spoke, "You know, you might have to do more than just 'fight one final battle'."

"I know. But if I can succeed, then Uncle Igo will be happy."