<div class="quote"><i> <p>Namikazenaruto9 wrote: Also that rasenshuriken not affecting raikage during battle is a moot point since the technique doesn't cause huge physical damage (not comparable to what it does to internal chakra network)instead it destroys the chakra network(that's why tsunade was talking about it being more like a poison than some physical attack). so comparing his defence by stating this feat is obsolete since if he had been alive he would have definitely died because of a damaged chakra network even if his body survived the physical damage. </p> </i></div>
<p>Err....you might want to check out what Naruto's Sage Mode Enhanced Rasenshuriken did to Pain's Human Path. </p><p>SPOILERS: Only the upper part of his face was left when the Rasenshuriken was done with its job. The rest of the body was totally obliterated. I'm pretty sure THAT feat his highly relevant to this discussion, since the jutsu that obliterated 90% of Pain's Human Path only gave a few minor scratches to the Raikage's body. </p><p>There's no way in hell Itachi's normal katon and shuriken jutsus would get past the Lightning Armour. His only hopes are Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi and Totsuka Blade. If Itachi resorts to using Susanoo, and he <i>will</i>, it's only a matter of time before he runs out of chakra and collapses to the floor out of sheer pain and exhaustion. </p><p>Like I've said before, the Raikage has no need to break or damage the Susanoo. All he needs to do is to pressurize Itachi into maintaining his Susanoo by relentlessly attacking from different angles. It's highly unlikely the Totsuka Blade will be able to make physical contact, thanks to the Raikage's speed. So we have an impasse that will eventually (and quickly) be broken by an exhausted Itachi collapsing to the ground. </p>

<p>@Legendary Super Saiya-Jin 4 Naruto doesn't use the Body Flicker Technique </p>

<div class="quote"><i> <p>UltimaDude wrote: @Legendary Super Saiya-Jin 4 Naruto doesn't use the Body Flicker Technique </p> </i></div>
<p>It is a basic technique that almost all shinobi can use according to the wiki, and if not, that only further proves my point that he was holding back severely. </p>

<div class="quote"><i> <p>Legendary Super Saiya-Jin 4 wrote: It is a basic technique that almost all shinobi can use according to the wiki, and if not, that only further proves my point that he was holding back severely. </p> </i></div>
<p>He hasn't used it in base so I don't think he was using it in KCM. Nonetheless, I agree with you </p>

<p>@rachin 123 well to me it looked like a small taijutsu spar ,and I was trying to explain how itachi was able to keep up with Naruto using his sharingan prowess. also during the fight between sasuke and 4th raikage it was sasuke who was able to match his speed and reflexes throughout the fight (with sasuke even dodging his attack and using chidori to penetrate his cloak of lightning or whatever).if you are quoting that instance where he couldn't keep up with raikage I would like to point out that Amaterasu causes a huge strain and recoil to his eyes too which was perhaps why he couldn't keep up with him after the use. @Legendary Super Saiya-Jin 4 and BakumatsuWarrior , I think perhaps I exaggerated about the physical damage but nevertheless if that 3rd raikage was alive during that fight(with Naruto) he would have definitely died a long painful death also whatever I said about that chakra network and that he not being able to heal up that damage is still true. </p>

<p>@Namikaze But Naruto never fought Itachi in taijutsu or period in his KCM. Like I said Itachi used Body Flicker, jumping above, Naruto jumped after him, Itachi swung, Naruto blocked, conversation. That's there fight. From there Naruto fought Nagato. I don't know what you were looking at but it wasn't them fighting. </p><p>Also about the damage of the Rasenshuriken. It very briefly left the Raikage unconscious and with small scars, but him surviving had nothing to do with being an Edo especially with his astounding durability either. The fact that it didn't even tear him apart like it did the Human Path actually proves your theory wrong. It is shown that the stronger the attack the longer it takes to regenerate. It is not possible that after the dust cleared he regenerated. </p>

<p>@Namikazenaruto9: </p><p>Well let's look at it this way. Sage-enhanced Rasenshuriken is so destructive that its microscopic wind needles completely obliterate 90% of the cells it comes into contact with, at least for shinobis with normal bodies. But this does not work on the Raikage. He first has his Lightning Armour, which effectively blocks a good chunk of those microscopic Wind needles. Those needles that do make it past the Lightning Armour managed to produce only minor scratches in the Raikage's body. </p><p>Since you're talking at the microscopic level, I'll try and do the same. The extreme durability of the Raikage's body could perhaps be because.....the Raikage's individual cells have extremely thick cell walls? In real life, animal cells don't have cell walls but plants do. At least that was what I was taught in high school, so feel free to correct me. Maybe the Raikage's cells were somewhat like plants, except that the cell "walls" were orders of magnitude tougher than anything known in the real world. </p><p>Or we could throw that ridiculous theory out of the window and assume that the Raikage possessed special chakra that enhanced his cells and somehow the chakra also gave strong protective shields to the individual cells. That sounds more in tune with the Naruto-verse. </p><p>Either way, contrary to your claims, the Rasenshuriken's chakra needles failed to do any notable damage to the Raikage's chakra system. Had the damage been done, the Raikage's scars would have been much, much deeper. Yet the manga shows that the Raikage's scars were very shallow. There couldn't have been any damage done to the Raikage's chakra system with such shallow scars. </p><p>And as @Rachin123 made it clear, even in Edo mode the Raikage's body didn't show any sign of significant body recovery. I'm talking about how, a damaged Edo body reconstructs itself from its scattered debris. The debris themselves look like pieces of paper. If your theory were correct, there should have been a lot of Edo debris around the Raikage thanks to the huge damage to the chakra network. But there was not. The wounds were too shallow and looked little more than scratches. So no, in real life, the 3rd Raikage would successfully tank KCM Naruto's Rasenshuriken. </p>

<p>@Baku, except the raikage didn't keep up with minato, it was bee who saved him. The raikage blitzed minato purely out of ego, minato casually let the raikage close the distance, and nearly punished the raikage for that poor decision. That fight waa a perfect example of the flaws of blitzing since blitz ing speed=/= striking speed. Minato was just skirmishing with them it was never a fight to the death. The raikages arent killing any high level ninja with one blitz whether they are slower or faster, this isn't just about itachi like you think. In fact, you can't even reference me one shinobi with a name who the raikages killed with a blitz right off the back. The raikages have only blitzed fodder successfully, and fodder are irrelevant. You think that itachi, or anyone for that matter, can't weave a single hand sign when it takes a second for the raikage to even activate his raiton armor? It only takes a few hand signs for a substitution jutsu, crow substitution jutsu, a shadow clone jutsu, all the more easier with itachi's absurd jutsu speed. Mr. Rubber, who is much slower than the raikage successfully countered his blitz. Even the slower killer bee touched the supposedly untouchable v2 raikage. If you can't beat your opponent in speed, then simply dodging is out of the question but don't act like there arent a TON of other options for dealing with a blitz </p><p>Saying the raikage won't be disoriented after charging at sonic speed into a big explosion into it is pure bias. It won't damage him but he will be disoriented and need to regain his bearinngs. I have said time and time again how smart minato and naruto are, so I don't see that's relevant. The raikage dodged rasenshuriken because he SAW it coming. And even then, using careful misdirection naruto landed his attack on the supposed ly untouchable raikage. Itachi's fighting style involves overlaying multiple sneak attacks at once, just watch his fight with kakashi in part one. The third raikage is average intelligence because he was only known for his spear and shield. You guys can claim he has " kage level intelligence"all you want, he has zero intelligence hype and feats, and there is more than enough evidence that itachi is smarter and wiser. The raikage fought those 10, 000 shinobi and gyuki purely using brawns. Then look at itachi vs kisame, he used crow substitution to dodge kisame's shark droplets, then after reforming he clashed his katon with kisame's suiton creating mist but itachi used his sharingan prowess to tag kisame's shadow in the mist to then gain the upper hand, and also had his crow observe kisame's location to then counter kisame's bunshin feint. So like I said, let the third raikage use his sonic blitz right into an explosion, become disoriented, itachi isnt disoriented and has his crow summon plus shadow tracking to detect raikage's location with more ease. If the raikage sees itachi's GG jutsu coming, he will be able to dodge, but that's if he does. All that speed doesn't mean a thing if you don't see the attack coming . Referencing sasuke is pointless because he didn't even make one attempt to trick the raikage, he let the raikage see amaterasu coming, and then used a poor defense once raikage closed the distance. If he was smarter, he would have used a smoke bomb then step out side of susanoo. The hotheaded, reckless raikage knocks down susanoo, doesn't know where sasuke is, and by that time he gets an amaterasu to the head. Unlike sasuke, itachi will be putting his intelligence to good use. So now that I have said that let's recap once again, the raikage isn't untouchable as he and his son have been touched by slower opponents, the raikage is a close range fighter so that makes him have a higher chance if getting caught in genjustu, there is no evidence of how he would fair against itachi's lower tier genjustu considering his son was one shotted by madara's regular sharingan genjustu, who is not as good a specialist as itachi, and that genjustu deactivated his raiton armor iirrc, itachi isn't standing idoly while the raikage attempts to stall out susanoo, and the third's armor is irrevelant because itachi has 2-3 jutsu that one shot and itachi is smarter. The raikage does have a decent chance to win but let's stop with the myths. His speed, strength and durability as well as stamina are all very impressive, but itachi has answers for everything, the only real problem is speed but there are counter measures for that. </p><p>No one is overrating prime itachi, his stamina is still medicore, tell me something I don't already know. But using stamina feats from a sick , blind, holding back itachi who already sapped 30 percent of his chakra on his GG genjustu that only sasuke and few others could break, and then spamming amaterasu across the battle field on purpose to further drain his stamina on purpose is very illogical. His susanoo time will obviously be better. </p><p>@Ninja of War, I'm free to dismiss the argument about itachi not being able to outpace a shuriken on the grounds that even black zetsu said that should have been a piece of cake for itachi, and that we are talking about prime itach, not sick itachi. Itachi cant dodge a lighting technique? Oh so dodging sasukes chidori in part one must have been a miracle. He couldn't dodge kirin because no can , it's actual lighting which hits the ground in a fraction of a second, even black zetsu says this. I'm not addresing the smoke bomb argument, because by that logic no ninja should use smoke bombs since it obscures the vision of anyone who lacks a byakugan, so I guess sharingan kakashi was hindered by the smoke bomb he almost killed pain with too. Evidence the third raikage has more battle experience? Battle experience=/= wisdom, and no he isn't wiser than itachi who actually has wisdom feats, unlike the raikage. Evidence the raiton armor is sturdier than susanoo? The rasenshuriken he tanked left him without armor and incapacitated for a brief moment, and for all we know he recovered quickly because of edo tensei and also rasenshuriken messes up the chakra network. The only way to cure that is edo tensi , the raikage's armor is durable and he has high pain tolerance but he is still flesh and blood. Without edo tensi he would be paralyzed like kakazu was.Just as he was about to be sealed he then got back up. His one finger nukite was more effective because of the energy being concentrated instead of being distributed across his armor. I highly doubt it's gonna completely break through armored susanoo. </p>

<div class="quote"><i> <p>MIGshinobi wrote: @Baku, except the raikage didn't keep up with minato, it was bee who saved him. The raikage blitzed minato purely out of ego, minato casually let the raikage close the distance, and nearly punished the raikage for that poor decision. </p> </i></div>
<p>He was very close to Minato's speed. He got his ass handed down to him, but he was very, <i>very</i> close to Minato's speed indeed. It's no use denying that. Worse, you assume the Raikage will end up with the same result against Itachi. Minato has been hyped up to be one of the fastest shinobi in history, if not the fastest. Itachi has some speed hype but nowhere near that level. Failing to blitz an FTG master doesn't mean failure to blitz Itachi. Itachi is an entire tier lower to Minato in speed, thanks to FTG. And it was FTG that gave Minato the edge against the Raikage. </p> <div class="quote"><i> <p>Saying the raikage won't be disoriented after charging at sonic speed into a big explosion into it is pure bias. </p> </i></div>
<p>No it's not bias. It's a well-founded conclusion based on the feats of both the Raikage and the Exploding Clone Technique. The explosion isn't big at all, and the Raikage easily tanked NTCM Naruto's Rasenshuriken with <i>shallow</i> scratches. In order to disorient the Raikage, his body must be subjected to enough force to forcefully dislodge him from his path, or his eyes should be obscured with smoke or debris. </p><p>The force produced by Itachi's exploding clone isn't even going to budge the Raikage by a millimeter, forget about appreciably disorienting him. And he'll be moving too fast for any appreciable debris to latch on to his eyes. </p><p>There might be an argument if Itachi detonates his clone well before the Raikage hits him. That <i>might</i> blur a portion of the Raikage's field of vision for like a second. And Itachi would lose the element of surprise if he detonated before the Raikage hit the clone. Plus the shockwave of the explosion, insignificant as it is compared to the Raikage's tanking ability, will not hit the Raikage as forcefully as it would if Itachi were to explode when the Raikage is in point-blank range. But like I've already explained above, whether the clone explodes in point-blank range or not doesn't matter much in terms of the shockwave, since the Raikage eats shockwaves like that for breakfast. </p><p>The only advantage exploding a clone well before the Raikage hits it is that it might blur a portion of the Raikage's field of vision, which will give Itachi an extra second to do something. But on the flipside, the explosion will blur a portion of Itachi's field of vision too, since Raikage's speed will prevent Itachi from moving far away from his clone. As fast as Itachi's handseals are, the Raikage's attack is at least equally fast, if not more. Itachi will have his hands full, and hence will not have an easy time doing the bunshin feints you're conjuring up. </p> <div class="quote"><i> <p>The raikage dodged rasenshuriken because he SAW it coming. And even then, using careful misdirection naruto landed his attack on the supposedly untouchable raikage. </p> </i></div>
<p>Nobody here is saying that the Raikage is untouchable. We're merely claiming that he's '<i>difficult to touch</i>. And even if he is touched, we're claiming that he won't be harmed in the slightest bit by most of Itachi's attack, except for Amaterasu and Totsuka Blade. But it's going to be super difficult to Amaterasu the Raikage's ass, since not only is he a <i>moving target</i>, but he's a moving target that moves very, very <i>fast</i>. Fast enough to blitz Itachi if he loses focus for a second and doesn't have the Susanoo to protect him. </p> <div class="quote"><i> <p>Itachi's fighting style involves overlaying multiple sneak attacks at once, just watch his fight with kakashi in part one. </p> </i></div>
<p>Yes because the Raikage and Kakashi are sooooo comparable, the former is known as the <i>strongest</i> Raikage in history, while the latter is known as the <i>weakest</i> Hokage in history. </p><p>Well I'll put aside the sarcasm and give a clearer logic which has been repeated by me and others a hundred times already: <i>The Raikage is too fast for Itachi to effectively come up with multi-layered sneak attacks.</i> Itachi is definitely capable of <i>eventually</i> coming up with an attack, but it's not gonna happen against the Raikage in the beginning of the battle, and it's gonna take a lot of hit and miss strategies to come up with that. </p><p>But one "miss" could potentially end Itachi's life in an instant. So Itachi will inevitably use his Susanoo. And that will limit his abilities to sneak up considerably, thanks to the pain Susanoo causes. And once Itachi starts using the Susanoo, it's a downhill battle for Itachi if he doesn't finish the Raikage quickly. </p> <div class="quote"><i> <p>The third raikage is average intelligence because he was only known for his spear and shield. You guys can claim he has " kage level intelligence"all you want, he has zero intelligence hype and feats, and there is more than enough evidence that itachi is smarter and wiser. </p> </i></div>
<p>Without doubt, Itachi's intelligence hype and feats are above the Raikage. But the rest of us are not convinced it's enough to secure a victory against the Raikage. Because Itachi will have his hands full dodging the Raikage, so it will be very difficult for him to come up with effective plans quickly. </p> <div class="quote"><i> <p>Then look at itachi vs kisame </p> </i></div>
<p>Please don't bring game-only OVAs into the discussion. </p> <div class="quote"><i> <p>Referencing sasuke is pointless because he didn't even make one attempt to trick the raikage </p> </i></div>
<p>Nobody is referencing Sasuke with respect to intelligence. I'm referencing Sasuke to gauge Itachi's stamina while using SUSANOO. And like I said, if an Indra-transmigrant struggled to keep Susanoo activated for a prolonged period of time, then no way in hell is Itachi going to do that either, whether he is healthy or not. </p> <div class="quote"><i> <p>there is no evidence of how he would fair against itachi's lower tier genjustu considering his son was one shotted by madara's regular sharingan genjustu, who is not as good a specialist as itachi </p> </i></div>
<p>From the looks of it, it was Genjutsu:MS, not Genjutsu: Sharingan. Also, Edo Madara was an overwhelming MONSTER of strength and power, which is why the 4th Ay wasn't running around trying to blitz Madara, because Edo Madara was a monstrous tank while 4th Ay was a mini-jeep in comparison. His slower speed meant that Madara had enough reaction time to one-shot Ay with Genjutsu: MS. </p><p>Itachi is nothing like Edo Madara in terms of destructive power. Not even close. So the 3rd Ay has the luxury of blitzing around and going here and there casually avoiding Itachi's attacks, which drastically reduces his chances of establishing eye contact with Itachi. </p> <div class="quote"><i> <p>the third's armor is irrevelant because itachi has 2-3 jutsu that one shot </p> </i></div>
<p>Except Itachi's gonna have a very, very, VERY hard time one-shotting the Raikage, thanks to his speed, stamina, reflexes and his tank of a body. Itachi, on the other hand, is much slower and has far far less stamina: a fact you conveniently choose to ignore, over and over again. </p> <div class="quote"><i> <p>The raikage does have a decent chance to win but let's stop with the myths. </p> </i></div>
<p>ITACHI is the myth, NOT the Raikage. </p>

<p>Minato purposely let the raikage get that close is what you are not understanding. The point was to flicker the kunai near the raikage's body once he got close so he could easily teleport back and counter attack. The speed wasn't the moral of the story its why blitzing isn't killing any high level shinobi right off the back. Killer bee was able to tag his brother in the fight to kill naruto too despite being the slower of the two. Itachi is slower than the third raikage, however like i said, blitzing speed =/= striking speed. Substitution, crow substitution, shadow clone , susanoo are options for itachi. Look, if the third raikage blitzes top speed into an explosion, it doesn't matter that it won't damage him, he is getting disoriented. The emphasis is on the sonic speed, he isn't gonna notice the great explosion detonating, it will be sudden, and even if he opted to keep running, he is still temporarily blinded by the smoke and debris, he has lost sight of itachi, he needs to stop and regain his bearings, meanwhile, itachi has the better position, his sharingan can help in taggimg the raikage's position. The rasenshuriken example even shows that the third raikage waa unable to do anything once he was trapped within the sphere and then was left on the ground for several seconds. And whyy exactly is the madara scenario any different when itachi is also a skilled susanoo user? The raikage wasn't blitzing around madara like an idiot because he knows that achieves nothing and his speed doesn't help him other than for dodging attacks because he is a close range fighter. Like I said , blitising speed =/= striking speed. Even against sasuke, once the raikage closed in he slowed down to begin his chop giving sasuke the chance to react, and sasuke was using a very premature version of susanoo, he couldn't use limbs. I dont see what madara being stronger has to do with anything, susnaoo is susanoo at the end of the day , only difference was that madara was using legs, but they still have the swords and yasska matagama. Itachi has genjustu: Ms as well as tsyukyomi, and as well as ephemeral and his demoinc illusions which don't even require eye contact, so he brings even mmore genjustu press ure than madara does. As much as the raikage showed impressive dodging feats, naruto used his chakra arms to carefully land his attack, andnthe raikage even saw them coming. With itachi, he won't see them coming as well because itachi is even smarter than naruto. Kakashi is still very intelligent, he is smarter thannthe raikage as well and still barely outmaneuvered the sneak attacks, and the raikage being " too fast" cop out has already been refuted. Once raikage is in close range he is still vulnerable to the attack overlays. His speed will help, but one mistake on his part causes him to get hit with A GG jutsu. </p><p>And even in the smoke screen example, once in the smoke another crow bunshin feint can be created that can make an attempt to attack , the raikage will counter but itachi has shown he can use thst feint with the crows flocking to initiate tsyukyomi, sothat' s another possibility. </p><p>I don't see how the ova isn't relevant, because it confirmed the canon state ments that kisame wasinferior to itachi and is the same hypothetical battle thing we are doing here. And nothing in it was really unrealistic. So like I said, the raikage's armor isnt a problem in this match up, it's only the speed and stamina. But based on all the screen time ive seen from the raikage s, the effectivnes of their speed has never made any battle one sided bar the sasuke one, and the stamina dominace is the problem itachi lacks against every opponent, so like I said nothing new. </p>