Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-34656247-20181008062436/@comment-34194151-20181010231333

@LegionZero

Nowhere was it stated that raikiri makes you as fast as lightning. They clearly told us in the canon that natural lightning is unevadeable (at least for characters below A4 at the time), and that happened during the same fight sasuke was using chidori against itachi. We don't know the context in which kakashi cut the lightning bolt. He could have simply been out during a thunderstorm running out with raikiri, and he could have been in the right place with the right timing. Sure, it takes speed to hit it, but that doesn't mean he is as fast as lightning. again timing and positioning matter too.

And I can throw this back at you, what is the minimum amount of damage to destroy the chibaku tensei core? Until you prove that, this is a stalemate. We don't even know how much damage his full power yakasa matagama is capable of, but if itachi calls it his strongest long range attack, it obviously isn't fodder. The matagama he used against the core was about the same size as killer bee's bijuu dama. Alive Nagato IC is more likely to open with summoning jutsu anyway, he summons his dogs and whatever else as itachi forms susano'o, then he gets blitzed by totsuka since kishimoto already showed us he can't mentally react to the blade even in his strongest form to date. A finger genjutsu plus the blade perfectly replicates the smokescreen + totsuka combo. Nagato breaks the genjutsu but then gets rekt by the blade.

Oro got blitzed mid-sentence. He couldn't react, hence his surprise. He had less than a second to react. Orochimaru isn't known for reflexes. He said it's a little cut in the next panel, by your own admission. He realized the damage after he got blitzed, and initially thought he was fine. then he realized he was horribly wrong.

Itachi has no speed feats? You cited evidence from a fight where we know he was jobbing like everyone knows he was jobbing hard to sasuke. We have clear character statements from kakashi and kurenai acknowledging his speed. We have clear evidence of itachi keeping up with a perfect sage. his stamina issues has nothing to do with his speed until he gets really tired. hell, hebi sasuke acknowledged itachi's speed. itachi kept up with killer bee as well. Sick itachi used multiple mangeyko techniques and handled the strain just fine when he pushed himself. He has plenty of time to finishing coughing off blood and rest after the pains are dead. hell, be basically nearly outlasted hebi sasuke. we have clear evidence of the totuska blade's speed as well.

Itachi is always using layers when he fights. The only time we don't see him using layers is when he is strong enough to one shot his opponent immediately, or he lacks complete killing intent. Literally, let's go through his fights. Part one kakashi, weaves a water-style jutsu and a kage bunshin seal in his robe and sheathes shurikens all before kakashi could even blink. The water style goes off and kakashi barely blocks in time, and itachi didn't even throw the shurikens, showing he was clearly holding back. kakashi thought the shurikens were the ruse but that wasn't even the ruse, it was the water style attack. the shadow clone was itachi's true purpose. The shadow clone spawns behind kakashi. Kakashi always uses a clone when he fights, so no surprise that he used a clone while he was hidden in the water wall. Then itachi clone substitutes and explodes his clone. Every single ninja cycles through attacks until one works, that is literally how fights work... That doesn't diminish itachi in anyway. Deidara, one shotted by genjutsu. orochimaru, one shotted by genjutsu and a kunai, leaves akatsuki. orochimaru one shotted by totsuka blade. Nagato one shotted by totsuka blade lol. no strategy needed in these fights, low diff wins. Kabuto? itachi holding back, can't go for kill, and was setting up izanami, which has specific requirements. killer bee? itachi distracted him with shuriken and tricked him into looking into his eyes, which is a win in my book. tsykuyomi would have one-shotted. Killer bee barely reacted to the shurikens itachi threw while bee was in the genjutsu, and shurikens aren't even close to being itachi's fastest attack. even in his fight with sasuke, itachi was still showing some glimmers of his usual tactical prowess. Using crow clones to spawn crows and distract sasuke to catch him in tsykyomi. using amaterasu on his own fireball technique. The list goes on.

I know this mobility excuse for nagato was coming, but unfortunately it's completely irrelevant. Nagato has preta path and shinra tensei. Last I check, those require a mental reaction, not mobility. He got roflblitzed by the totsuka blade the same way orochimaru did. if he can't react, there is no way his slower pains are reacting, so my battle simulation still stands. Itachi doesn't need resources to beat pain. He has a speedy one shot kill sword that can seal edo tensei, I have no reason to believe it can't seal corpses. even if it can't, its still a blade lol. the bodies can get sliced up and die. Preta path ain't absorbing susano'o because he isn't reacting to the totsuka blade in the first place. the totsuka blade is his element of surprise. his bunshin feint spawning behind naraka is his other element of surprise. We have seen multiple times that skilled users of kage bunshin can control where their clones form. Itachi did it to kakashi. even kid naruto could spawn clones behind zabuza's water clone. this battle is a fair battle, so it isn't starting at a distance greater than 30 feet. Itachi runs towards the pains as close as he needs to while protected by susano'o and then spawns the clone behind naraka path who is standing in the back. Then it's the beginning of the end. Itachi isn't getting pulled out of susano'o because that has only happened when susano'o itself was unable to move. Notice how gaara restrained madara's susano'o with sand first and then pulled madara out. why? because we have seen that susano'o follows the user in other cases. even if itachi gets pulled out, susano'o is still in play and can still be controlled and can launch the totsuka blade. and itachi isn't exactly defenseless without susano'o. He gets pulled out and he starts using ninjutsu, and can use his crow style substitution technique that saved him against sage kabuto. If kakashi has the time to use a chain while being pulled, itachi can weave signs.

And you disregarded my point that itachi used 3 crow clones. one to put a crow in naruto. one to tell sasuke where to find him, another one during his fight with sasuke. he split his stamina 3 times and still nearly outlasted sasuke, and even used all of his MS techniques, including more than one amaterasu, and a few katons. I have no reason to believe a fresh sick itachi can't use susano'o and amaterasu/tsykuyomi simultaneously if he needs to early on. There is no evidence that making one shadow clone cripples him like you claimed. sick itachi is in kakashi's tier of stamina, and he has an edge because his sharingan doesn't drain him the way kakashi's does, and kakashi wasn't crippled from using one raiton shadow clone against pain. The crow clone technique doesn't quite split the user's chakra in half, but using it 3 times definitely should come close to doing so given that the clones have been shown to be able to use techniques.

Lol, are we entertaining that itachi is weaker than pain in taijutsu? Itachi has a MS to see pain's attacks better, we have seen how the sharingan gives one a huge boost in taijutsu skills, obito accredited some of his success against a taijutsu master, Might Gai, to the sharingan. Itachi is quicker and faster than pain. Pain is decent at taijutsu but nothing special. while itachi has shown great skill with shurikenjutsu and taijutsu. pain's rod isn't tagging him in CQC. Like I said, pain is barely faster than kakashi, and itachi is objectively faster than kakashi in every way. Kakashi wasn never impressed by pain's physical speed, yet he commended itachi's. We don't know when ashura path started moving to save deva, so that can't be used as a speed feat. By that logic we might as well say base killer bee's tentacle is faster than V2 ayy because the tentacle intercepted minato before ayy could take a single step forward at his top speed. Furthermore, in my scenario itachi already has a huge advantage in that he will be behind the naraka path when he engages him. And my point about deva path still stands. He would be forced to use shinra tensei to dispel itachi's clone.

YI'm fully aware of the circumstances of naruto's battle. Doesn't change the fact that he outsmarted Pain multiple times, and 1 of those 3 kills he got against pain by "himself" as you claim were the direct result of naruto's strategic skill. Naruto lacks itachi's one shot speedy haxxed blade, an ultimate defense in susano'o, and overall speed and intelligence. And naruto still grew his intelligence as a ninja to the point he could actually outsmart Nagato in battle. If naruto can do that, so can itachi. Itachi has his own methods to accomplish it.

As for madara, there isn't enough info. Like I said, the blade clearly can expand it's length to an extent, given that the blade is still coming out toward the reader when it stabbed nagato. Even if the blade can reach madara's susano'o, we don't know if the blade can actually pierce it, depends on how you interpret the word ethereal. All I can tell you is, Black Zetsu knows all about Madara and still called itachi invincible with yata mirror and totsuka blade, so I believe it's possible totsuka lives up to the hype. Itachi might be able to defeat hashirama as well based on that hype, especially if he can catch him tsykuyomi which is likely with hashirama's personality. Minato and itachi together as a tag-team are borderline gatekeepers to god tier. I don't see anyone but god tiers beating that combo.