Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-28869806-20150825192623/@comment-5936871-20150826200540

@UchihaMasters After Kabuto used his sage art attack that hurt their ears and made it difficult for them to maintain the susanoo. He charged at Sasuke aiming to kill him but Itachi intervened and saved him. Itachi was Edo Tensei, so yes he was weaker than when alive, when he was healthy. But a sick Itachi is weaker than an Edo Tensei Itachi because his chakra drops very fast, he was nearly blind, and his physical ability was very weakened. Edo Tensei Itachi had constantly replenishing chakra, wasn't blind at all, and his physical ability was clearly better.

They didn't try to kill Kabuto because if they did the edo tensei would continue, so Itachi had to use Izanami. But even if they did try to kill him they wouldn't fair much better, they had both already used the strongest jutsu in their arsenal to try to stop Kabuto and badly injure him and all of that failed, while Kabuto himself didn't even attack them that much. Izanami was the only thing that stopped him, he was recovering from and countering all of their attacks and almost killed Sasuke until Itachi saved him. I highly doubt Sasuke was holding back "70% of his strength" when he was using Susanoo and firing Amaterasu arrows, and later about to be killed while holding his ears and closing his eyes in pain due to the bright light and deafening sound Kabuto created. SO my main point is that I see Kabuto as a pretty decent villain and I didn't find him disappoint, and he was definitely a big threat combat wise.