Err, sorry to burst your Sasuke-bubble, but you're wrong. Itachi orchestrated that fight, he never meant to beat Sasuke. There is the fact that Itachi let Sasuke win, and only put up enough of a fight to make it seme believable, and there is also the fact that Itachi was deathly sick.

Sasuke, even with all his recent powerups, would most probably be beaten quite soundly if he faced a healthy Itachi at full power.

Unless his plot-armor saves him, as it usually does.

 

Itachi not meaning to win doesn't mean that he planned the entire fight out. He was fighting Sasuke and Sasuke was keeping up with him. The only times Itachi completely outclassed Sasuke was with his MS. Itachi is a more seasoned version of Sasuke. The only significant advantage Itachi has in a fight is that he's noticeably smarter.

If Itachi won that battle it wouldn't be because he was far more skilled. It would be because he's a better tactician or because he pulls out an unstoppable secret Uchiha kinjutsu that Sasuke doesn't know about.

 

^ disagree with everything

 

Itachi's sole purpose in that fight was to die by Sasuke's hand. Itachi was deathly ill. Zetsu comments on how Itachi's movements are slower/weaker than usual. How can you say that Sasuke could keep up with a serious, full-power Itachi?

 

Was it ever explained what exactly was wrong with Itachi? Or was it just a plot sickness without any details?

 

Nah, just an unknown, incurable, lethal disease that was going to kill him soon anyways that he's had for years.

Oh, and Itachi was almost blind too.

 

Not everyone is impervious to Kishimoto's "love Sasuke" campaign.

 

This.

How can you honestly say that Sasuke was on par with Itachi, when Itachi was supposed to be dead years ago (iirc, he was taking some pills that were keeping him alive, but only just) and nearly blind.

Itachi still almost killed Sasuke, even with all of those handicaps. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if his tears at the end of the battle were despair over the fact that he worked so hard, only for his brother to ruin everything.

A lot of us hate Sasuke here, and for a multitude of reasons, but it began in Part 1, for most of us, because he was an entitled faggot. He expected to be trained, because he was the Last Loyal Uchiha. That right there is enough, but no.

Sasuke decided to take a flying fucking leap over the moral event horizon. His morality turned from questionably grey straight into black. And his revenge for his brother killing his entire family? Well, that turned into revenge against Konoha, for putting his brother in that position.

That's fucking childish, and here's why. The Uchiha put Itachi in that position, with their little coup. Furthermore, Sasuke is a follower. He wants to destroy Konoha because Orochimaru wanted to, he simply twisted the reasoning. He went to Orochimaru because Orochimaru promised easy power to kill his brother, completely regardless of the fact that he had a life in Konoha. Hell, Sasuke probably wanted to kill Itachi because other people did.

Also, Sasuke is not nearly as powerful as you or the manga make him out to be. He has almost as much plot armor as Batman does (which is saying something, I would think, and this is coming from a die hard Batman fan), and solely because he is required to be there at the end of the story, to show that Naruto could redeem him, and will do so.

It's going to be a choices story, in the end, and a shitty one. Sasuke has, time and again, proved himself to be not wanting to be redeemed, nor deserving of it.

No wonder there's so many Sasuke/Naruto fanfics out there. All jokes aside, Naruto should've abandoned Sasuke a long time ago, but he didn't, because Sasuke was his best friend/rival. I can't believe I actually have to say this, and this is directed entirely at Naruto, so it's going to go unheard, but it's a life lesson, too.

Get better friends.

 

The thing is though Naruto does have better friends. True Shikamaru/Chouji/Kiba hanged around with him and didn't really like him, but they seem pretty close now.

Neji seems to be one of Naruto's best friends out of the bunch now, and in the anime fillers- although they don't count- is one of the only ones who don't insult Naruto at all, when even someone like Chouji takes shots at Naruto back then.

The one thing I dont understand though is the series says Sasuke was his first bond, which I can understand, but the Sandaime is never mentioned apart from the once, and he is "like a grandfather" to Naruto I remember reading at some point, so shouldn't he be the first bond? Although the friendship between Naruto and Sasuke is one of the better plot elements of the show imo.

 

That's fanon. There's nothing to suggest Hiruzen was anything more than an acquaintance to Naruto.

And Sasuke wasn't his first bond but one of his first. His relationships progressed like this: Iruka -> Team 7 -> K12 etc. Sasuke's just happened to be one of the most meaningful since he felt they had an understanding due to their lonely childhoods, and later idolised him for his talent and popularity.

I agree with you, except for this part (unless I misunderstood you). Generally speaking, Sasuke didn't become an outright unlikeable character until he woke up from his Tsukuyomi-induced coma. Prior to that he was a decent guy and was willing to sacrifice himself for his teammates on more than occasion. And I don't recall a time before his defection that he came across as an "entitled faggot", especially in a way that relied on his family name.

 

Actually, I've never understood this. When did Sasuke arrogantly demand to be trained? When did he ever refer to himself as "the last loyal Uchiha"? He mostly trained by himself, and then had that Chunin Exam finals training with Kakashi. That's really all.

 

And then went ahead and figured that staying in the Leaf would not make him strong enough. Which ... doesn't really make sense, since itachi was a Leaf nin, but hey, Sasuke-logic.

 

I'm kinda on the edge regarding this. You can make that point, yes. All those superior shinobi became that strong while in the Leaf. However, Orochimaru did just kill the Hokage, supposedly the strongest person in Leaf, the iconic God of Shinobi, in his own fucking village, and got away with it. That pretty much demonstrates that Orochimaru > Leaf. Then there's the whole Cursed Seal massive power-up that both gave Sasuke great power he so desperately craved, and probably fucked with his mind some. Since he made a resolution to be an avenger, gain as much power as quickly as possible, I can see why he chose to run to Orochimaru.

 

Orochimaru beat up an old man well past his prime and only achieved that because he had the two previous Kage's as his henchmen. If Sarutobi had had a little more chakra/been a few years younger he would have sealed Orochimaru along with the other two. (And that's not even getting into the fact that Orochimaru was only interested in Sasuke because Itachi > Oro in a fight).

ps: The whole God of Shinobi thing is very much fanon and shouldn't be brought into the whole discussion.

 

The title god of Shinobi is fanon? Are you sure? What about The Proffessor?

 

All very true, but Sasuke didn't know that. All he knew was that Orochimaru came, killed the Hokage, and escaped. I'm pretty sure that the kids thought that the Hokage is the strongest shinobi in the village.

Also, God of Shinobi? Canon. Databooks.

 

Pretty sure he was the strongest Shinobi in the village, excluding Jiraiya and maybe Tsunade.

 

The God of Shinobi title isn't fanon. Orochimaru mentioned it during the invasion, iirc.

 

It's not fanon, but everyone should keep in mind that Orochimaru was patronizing him when he called Sarutobi that. He was emphasizing how much power Sarutobi had lost due to old age.

Having said that, I'm reluctant to take that title at face value even when Sarutobi was younger given the firepower we've seen from other Kage, especially Oonoki who is even older than Sarutobi was.

The power scaling inherent in this type of manga has been really unkind to Sarutobi. If Kishi were to go back and rewrite that fight in light of the current manga, I think we'd be seeing a hell of a lot more from all four characters involved.

 

Looking at the basic stats from the Databooks also Kakashi was stronger (or rather became stronger because his stats increased between 1st and 2nd, though I wonder what was in story explanation for that). Not to mention that the only stats that the Third didn't have maxed were physical ones these probably went down with his age. Otherwise he would own everybody.

Agreed. I would especially like to see Sarutobi's Sage Mode that he definitely had.