I wasn't even talking about end of Manga Sasuke. Just Post War. Before he fought Naruto or after he got the replacement arm. If we use epilogue Sasuke then we'd have to assume he's mastered Doton, Suiton, and Fuuton too.

As for Sasuke without his doujutsu. People seem to be forgetting is that the chakra that Hagamoro gave Sasuke and Naruto is Sage Chakra. They're both pretty much in Sage Mode constantly.

 

Holy crap, all these crazy power-ups feel like some kind of badly-written Mary Sue fanfic story.

 

I'll just leave this here...https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4445564/16/Naruto-Eleven

 

O_O

/goes off to read

 

His writing hasn't aged as well as I'd have hoped but at least his ideas are still solid. Certainly worse fics to brush up on.

 

It's decent, so far. How did that fic escape my Naruto/Yugito mad dash? Or my second one? Or the third?

 

Chapter 16...

 

Well, it just updated, so he felt it relevant, since the last update was... from November 2013.

 

I deliberately did not name them in case it was a spoiler, but I'll drop this here in case you want the short version:

Spoiler

6th Hokage = Kakashi. As for why Kakashi is so powerful...

Near the end of the manga we find out that Tobi was Obito all along and that he has mega hax eye powers that give him spacetime abilities arguably better than the 4th Hokage's Hiraishin. He can teleport at will and he can turn parts of his body intangible at will. This is connected with Kakashi's hax eye power from Obito's other eye, which sends other objects into the same holding dimension that Obito passes through.

In one of the last few chapters Obito dies for real and gives his other eye to Kakashi. And somehow makes it so Kakashi can now activate/deactivate the Sharingan. So now Kakashi has Obito's mega hax eye powers, all of his own skill (and near the end of the manga he starts acting like the badass we keep hearing about, rather than just a punching bag for S-class shinobi), and literally seconds after getting Obito's eye powers he masters Susano'o and figures out how to combine it with his eye powers.

So basically, he can fight on the level of Naruto and Sasuke for a limited amount of time before he runs into the issue that he lacks their level of stamina.

---

Speaking of which, near the end of the manga we find out that the 1st Hokage was considered "the greatest shinobi ever." He and Madara are the only two characters who break control of Edo Tensei after being resurrected. Apparently when Orochimaru resurrected him the first time, he only brought him back at a fraction of his true power because otherwise he would not be able to control him.

So Sarutobi being the strongest Hokage was, as far as I'm concerned, fully retconned. When the resurrected 1st Hokage is in the same room as the resurrected 3rd Hokage, the title "God of Shinobi" is given to the 1st without it ever being acknowledged that the 3rd also had that title.

We also get flashbacks to the original fight between the 1st Hokage and Uchiha Madara, in which the 1st was able to actually fend off the Kyuubi using his Mokuton in combination with Sage Mode.

---

7th Hokage = Naruto.

Who at this point has become a Sage with all the power and chakra sensing abilities that title suggests, can literally heal people at just a freaking touch, and has fully mastered how to use the Kyuubi's full power.

Naruto does all kinds of crazy ass shit at the end of the manga like give literally every soldier in the combined armies of the 5 great shinobi nations a Kyuubi chakra cloak, create armies of Kage Bunshin that can fight against actual Kage opponents, blow up entire mountains at will, etc.

A bit of a long winded reply to call a "short version" but I don't know exactly where you stopped reading so I had to give some background.

 

What the fu...

I don't know how you guys stuck through all that...

 

It's in the library and tagged with naruto/yugito, so if you missed it three times, you may want to brush up on your fic-finding skills lol.

 

Uh, yes. Sarutobi Hiruzen was a fucking MONSTER. What we see in the manga is an extremely decrepit old man who is STILL an S-rank Ninja who takes on both Hashirama AND Tobirama at the same time, along with Orochimau, and pulls out a tie. Three Kage level Ninja, two of which who can recover from being blown to bits and who have unlimited chakra, at the cost of his own life.

While he's a pale, miserable shade of his former self. It only gets more badass because he didn't have a bloodline or built-in powerup of any sort. He was just That Fucking Good.

Sarutobi Hiruzen is canonically stated, at the time, to be the strongest Hokage Konoha ever had, in his prime. Stronger than the Shodaime, stronger than the Nidaime, stronger than the Yondaime. He was a, heh, walking disaster area.

If his strength level had been retconned, it would be in the wiki, but it hasn't, and wasn't. All of his stats in the official stat books are Top Rank (5), except the three affected by aging. One can thus infer that when he was younger, they were at the Top Rank as well. He was, quite literally, the Perfect Shinobi. A master of all categories of Shinobi Combat, a genius intellectually, strategically, and tactically, and incredibly experienced.

He taught the Sannin, all three of whom went on to be dangerous S-Rank Shinobi. Even in his older age, he pushed the damned Kyuubi out of the village in a single strike. ONE. Not several, like the Shodaime needed to push around the Kyuubi even with an Anti-Demon bloodline. Just one. Even the Yondaime had to sacrifice his life, and the life of his wife, who also had a bloodline strong against the Kyuubi, to stop it's rampage and seal it. If Sarutobi had been in his prime, he could have crapped all over it, and Tobi as well.

Additionally, he would have absolutely destroyed

Spoiler

Kage!Kakashi. Especially since he lost his Sharingan.

So! Now! Does anyone have any Badass Sarutobi fics, around? Maybe something that focuses on him in his prime?

HOLY CRAP, REALLY? YES!

 

Basically what WD said about Sarutobi.

 

The problem with your list is that Kakashi's power up from Obito was temporary. He lost the power when Obito's soul fully left after Kaguya was defeated. He doesn't have any Sharingan anymore.

Wasn't it only Iruka who said Hiruzen was the strongest Hokage? He's not someone who would know how strong Hashirama or prime Hiruzen was. On top of that it was specifically stated that Hashirama was so strong that people believed stories about his strength were exaggerated fairy tails. Even his granddaughter didn't have a clue how powerful he was and she actually knew him.

I agree that Hiruzen was a monster but Hashirama was clearly better. Hiruzen is said to have mastered all categories of shinobi combat but look at Hashirama. He's demonstrated a mastery of all areas of shinobi combat on panel.

Madara was protecting the Kyuubi when they fought. Hashirama would have finished it off in moments had it been alone.

 

We know precious little of what it was like when Hiruzen was in his prime. What WD said can be logically deduced by his state in the canon timeline, but there is no way to know if he would actually beat Hashirama or not if they were both all-out.

The point is that prime!Hiruzen was definitely up there in the godlike!Tier with Hashirama and Madara.

 

Urgh. I have to agree with TvTropes here, discussion about who the Strongest Hokage is is pointless. A good argument can be made for all of them, depending on how you define 'Strongest.' In the end, power-levels got so out of hand and so hard to keep track of, it's almost as confusing to figure out as the damn timeline.

 

Except, Iruka WOULD know. He's a teacher, a damned good one, and that means he knows all about Konoha's history. He was the Author Voice, when he was saying that. Not an Unreliable Narrator.

Uh, no he didn't. He displayed a mastery of his bloodline, one powerful Genjutsu, some skills with weapons, and is stated to be damned good at Medical Jutsu. That isn't 'all forms of shinobi combat'. Nor is he ever stated to have mastered all forms of shinobi combat and have mastery thousands of jutsu, like Sarutobi.

This is actually a fair point. But you have to take into account his Anti-Demon bloodline. It's stated canonically that Hashirama could subdue the Bijuu because of his bloodline, not because he was just that badass in all of his skills.

Yup, Rep gets it right.

Edit:

Yeah, good point. It's just so fun! I'll stop now though, I promise.

 

Except canon events show that Hashirama's strength isn't common knowledge so there's no reason for even a teacher to know. I believe the ANBU were surprised at how strong the Edo Kages were when they fought and they were no where near full power. That's not to mention Tsunade like I've said. She's much closer to Hashirama's generation and she's incredibly knowledgeable and yet even she didn't know how strong he was.

A mastery of his bloodline(ninjutsu), a powerful Genjutsu that trapped even Hiruzen, high CQC skills since he could hang with Madara(taijutsu), large fuinjutsu capable of holding the Juubi, medical jutsu(at least on himself), Senjutsu, and a Hokage level barrier jutsu. That's pretty much all the major bases. Hashirama was also the leader of the clan of known for it's versatility.

The scale he uses his bloodline at is large even to fight bijuu with or without the suppressing aspects. This is shown by him going toe to toe with Perfect Susanoo.

For the most part. I'm usually the one that ends up arguing that Sakura can't beat Hiruzen and that it can't be stated that the Sannin have definitely surpassed Hiruzen.

 

It was explicitly stated that Orochimaru brought them back at a fraction of their true power.

Here is Madara (who LOST to the 1st) mopping the floor with the 5 Kage's simultaneously and not even breaking a sweat:
http://www.mangatown.com/manga/naruto/v59/c563/

Here is the resurrection of the deceased Kage's of yesteryear:
http://www.mangatown.com/manga/naruto/v60/c619/

Add to that the roles the various Kage play in the final battle (which they join as soon as discussion time is over) -- Sarutobi is the least useful.

Not having a bloodline does not make him superior. That argument makes no sense at all.

What's the canon source? Iruka? Or the first databook, which was released more than a decade ago, long before Kishimoto had planned how the manga would come to an end?

There hasn't been a databook in a long time. The Wiki copied data from old databooks. I present the evidence of the manga. I am fully acknowledging that it is evidence of implication, but I don't know how you can read the actual manga and still hold to the notion that the God of Shinobi is anyone other than the 1st.

No, you cannot automatically assume that he was "top rank" in all stats just because strength, speed and stamina are reduced by age. That argument makes no sense.

Knowing that someone has a rating of 3 in the databook when old does not in any way, shape or form guarantee a rating of 5 in youth.

I am not disputing his skill or intelligence. But in a world with DBZ power-ups, skill alone will only get you so far.

Relevance? The previous Hokage's taught him and the other elders. We've never seen Homura or Koharu in combat, but both Sarutobi and Danzo are S-rank.

Uhhh.... where does that happen?

Okay, let's re-read that chapter. Starting here:
http://www.mangatown.com/manga/naruto/v53/c503/5.html
We see Kyuubi in Konoha.
Here we see Iruka with his parents:
http://www.mangatown.com/manga/naruto/v53/c503/6.html
Here we see the Kyuubi driven out of Konoha and Sarutobi says "we've gotten it out of the village." The actual attack is NOT SHOWN:
http://www.mangatown.com/manga/naruto/v53/c503/7.html
Minato vs Tobi:
http://www.mangatown.com/manga/naruto/v53/c503/8.html
Old people telling young people to stay out of it:
http://www.mangatown.com/manga/naruto/v53/c503/9.html
The 4th arrives and everyone's like "thank god":
http://www.mangatown.com/manga/naruto/v53/c503/10.html
The 3rd is seen at the bottom of the page staring down the Kyuubi and says "Ugh!" when he sees a bijudama forming. Then Kyuubi disappears in the last panel:
http://www.mangatown.com/manga/naruto/v53/c503/11.html
The 3rd wonders where the Kyuubi is and then sees a big explosion in the distance. He is now out of the fight:
http://www.mangatown.com/manga/naruto/v53/c503/12.html

So that event does not happen in the manga.

Did you read the fight between the 1st and Madara? Because if you think that the 1st only won because he has an anti-demon bloodline then I don't know what manga you read.

I understand that Shiki Fuuin less every time I read that chapter. But you'll also notice that I ranked Minato below Sarutobi in my headcanon. Prior to Tsunade, I actually consider him the weakest Hokage.

Granted he was also the youngest, still in his 20's, and probably still improving. He died before reaching his prime.

Uhhh... what? You think that Sarutobi would 1-on-1 "crap all over" the Kyuubi?

...I'm not sure that even bears reply.

Spoiler

I interpreted the scene differently. When Kakashi says, "looks like Kakashi of the Sharingan is finished today," I interpreted that as "I'm done for the day" rather than "I no longer hold the Sharingan," but you may be right. The downside of reading english translations is that precise phraseology and intention are lost.

----------

I ended up parsing your argument quite a bit. I hate when people overly parse arguments, but it seemed like your argument was being driven on a lot of key points that are either irrelevant (e.g. Sarutobi not having a bloodline does not in any way lend credence to him being the strongest Kage) or erroneous (where does Sarutobi one-hit K.O. Kyuubi?).

I acknowledge that at one point Sarutobi was listed as the strongest by the databooks and by Iruka (who even you have to admit has a flawed perspective), but I also dispute that no such relations have been made in the past 10 years, that indeed, the focus shifted onto the 1st being the strongest. The 1st was a dead even match with Madara. If the 3rd was even stronger... why didn't he wipe the floor with Madara? Why didn't he just wipe out the other shinobi nations by himself? Why did he lose to Orochimaru?

And there's the argument you make, that he beat the 1st under Orochimaru's influence, but as I've pointed out, the 1st and 2nd were brought back at a fraction of their true strength. Which is a direct retcon.

Moreover, in the final battle the 3rd was not even particularly useful. If he was as strong as the 1st, you think he'd do a little more to help, ya know?

In the end, the only real evidence that the 3rd was strongest comes from the 1st databook. It's not supported by the story.

 

And then suddenly, Ninjas! is the best I can offer alongside Life in Konoha's ANBU. Chapter 9 is even titled with his name.