Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-45206595-20200316210102/@comment-32685487-20200317024540

Itachi made it clear he wasn't only trying to make sure Kabuto was not killed, but he wanted to save Kabuto too, all the while protecting Sasuke.. let's also again not forget Itachi was an Edo Tensei so he was weaker than his living self to boot. But that doesn't take away from Kabuto either, he had 2 goals of his own. One was to take Sasuke, and the other was to use a re-write tag on Edo Itachi. So this fight was really just Itachi and Kabuto trying to figure out how to reach their goals.