I don't see how Sasuke learning about the conditions from another person makes him less than Madara who discovered it himself. Achieving the Mangekyou doesn't really require hard work or anything. And hints of Naruto and Sasuke equaling/surpassing Hashirama and Madara have been around since Pre-TS so this is nothing new. Now it's just been made concrete from reliable sources.

 

Sasuke surpassing Madara isn't too farfetched, actually. I mean, sure, he's not going to be casting Meteor anytime soon, and we probably won't see it n the manga, but it could happen. Obviously, the same is true for Naruto when it comes to Hashirama.

I mean, consider how powerful they are now. They are probably the two most powerful shinobi alive right now. (Obviously not counting Edo Tensei, and the already Half dead Obito) The are also only 16. (17 at most, though I highly doubt it. I can't be bothered to check) This gives them quite a bit of time to surpass Madara and Hashirama after the 4th Shinobi World War.

 

Naruto's a day or less away from 17 so Sasuke must already be there.

 

Yeah, based on their ages and current abilities, Naruto and Sasuke will definitely surpass Hashirama and Madara. Both of them have plenty of time (assuming they both survive the war) to get stronger, as well as methods of cheating. Sasuke has his Sharingan's copy ability to learn new ninjutsu rapidly, and Naruto has masses of Kage Bunshin so that he can accomplish the same thing.

Nonetheless, they're definitely not there yet.

Hashirama has the same amount of chakra as Kurama, so he doesn't even need to be a jinchuuriki in order to be Naruto's equal in that respect. On top of that, he's got Mokuton (which is crazily OP), senjutsu, high level skills in powerful arts like fuuinjutsu and kekkai ninjutsu, and who knows what else? But the hardest part of surpassing Hashirama for Naruto will be developing abilities that compensate for his lack of Mokuton.

The same applies to Sasuke. His Susanoo is likely stronger than Madara's already, at least with Juugo around to feed it natural energy. But without Mokuton and the Rinnegan, Sasuke is still quite a bit behind Madara.

You know, it annoys me that Kishi didn't give Naruto the Mokuton kekkei genkai. It would make everything a lot more... symmetrical.

 

I just want to know who the Orochimaru look-alike was. As for the rest of the chapter all I could think was "Can we just start fighting already?". 3/5 stars from me.

 

Sechrima, I agree with your post, and imma let you finish, but

Lol. Yeah no.

 

Plus Sasuke's Susanoo can't pull meteors from spaaaaaaace >.>

 

You need to sign a summoning contract with aliens in order to summon meteor. It is actually their version of tadpoles only usefull.

 

Hrm, well Sasuke's Susanoo is certainly less developed, but the Cursed Seal power probably makes it about as strong as Madara's, maybe stronger. Senjutsu drastically increases strength, after all. Without natural energy, Sasuke's Susanoo would be weaker, but in its current state? I wouldn't be so sure.

And on top of that, Sasuke's Susanoo has Amaterasu incorporated into it, which is something Madara's doesn't have.

But yes, it's obvious that Madara's Susanoo is further evolved and he has far greater skill in manipulating it. Sasuke's big Sharingan-centric advantage over Madara would be his mastery of Amaterasu - something we've never seen Madara using.

 

How do you know this? Madara's Susanoo seems to be full of flames. Is it stated somewhere that Sasuke is using it when Madara is not?

 

Amaterasu/Blaze Release has a pretty distinctive appearance, not really similar to regular flames. And Kishimoto draws it so that you couldn't really mistake it for normal fire. Anyway, all Susanoo have a sort of fiery aura - that is the nature of Uchiha chakra, I guess. But Amaterasu is a significant step up from that. Look in this picture:



You can see that Sasuke's Susanoo's chakra is fire-like, the same as Madara's, but the contrast between the Susanoo chakra and the Amaterasu sword is unmistakable, like night and day. And we've yet to see anything like that from Madara. His Susanoo's offensive abilities seem to be on the same level as Sasuke's Susanoo's old arrow projectile when he still had a regular Mangekyou. Bright, powerful chakra - not Blaze Release.

 

Ok, but it still doesn't seem like any sort of big deal. Like Naruto's 9k rasengan variations. if you're going to be crushed by a spiritual giant construct, it'll hardly matter if he is on fire as well.

And really, I seriously there is anything, literally anything, that Sasuke can do that Madara could not or has not done.

 

Yeah. Against Madara, Blaze Release might not be all that useful, though it would be very useful against many other opponents for a variety of reasons.

Actually, I just realised something. Amaterasu burns its victim and doesn't extinguish until the target is turned completely to ashes. Since Sasuke's Susanoo is now charged with natural energy (and thus, able to hurt Obito), and since his Susanoo uses Amaterasu in its attacks... couldn't he just hit the God Tree and Obito once and then declare 'game over'? I mean, Obito has zero talent with the Mangekyou except Kamui. I doubt he could overcome Sasuke's advanced Blaze Release mastery and forcefully extinguish Amaterasu. So the black flames would wipe him out now, and very swiftly. And even if he kept using Kamui to dodge, Sasuke could still ruin his plans by using it on the massive God Tree, which can't evade anything.

Naruto doesn't even really need to be there anymore. Sasuke can handle this chump.

 

Kamui can be (and has been) used to suck away the flames.

 

Not to mention that juubi has simply gotten rid of its burning parts in the past before.

 

Well, it seems like Obito has two defenses (he can no longer use Kamui after becoming a jinchuuriki it seems).

He has that black-element thing which he used to attack, and which Sarutobi speculated was a 4 element-combo or somesuch. He can use that to attack, or surround himself with it to form a shield.

He also has somekind of reality altering yin-yang technique which simply erases normal ninjutsu out of existence, but cannot erase senjutsu. This is what he used to permanently destroy Minatos arm for example, while the above black-element only destroys jinton-style(but stronger), but does not "unmake".

So for example, we saw that Obito could not erase Gamakichis attack with his anti-ninjutsu technique, but he could certainly surround himself with a shield that blocked it fully, just did not reality-erase it or whatever.

So even with Senjutsu, Naruto and Sasuke will still need to breach through that black-element-shield that Obito will be protecting himself with. I expect Obito will be ready for Amaterasu, so its not as simple as you make it out to be. It might be that Naruto&Sasuke will together manage to make a breach in Obitos shield, and then through that breach Sasuke will manage to send senjutsu-Amaterasu to screw with Obito, but there is no way its as simple as Sasuke just looking at Obito and using Amaterasu. And even then, It would not surprise me if Obito has ways of extinguishing even senjutsu-Amaterasu. He could for example use that black element on himself to remove the part thats on fire, and then regenerate or something. Or recreate the shield skintight, at which point it would block the Amaterasu.

I figure this won't be a case of Obito catching on fire and running around screaming. If Naruto and Sasuke are going to win, they need to deal massive and fatal blows to Obito, not just catch him on fire. Maybe something like another combo of big-FRS and Amaterasu, except this time powered by senjutsu. Or one of those Amaterasu blades through Obitos head. Or a senjutsu-bijuudama through the shield and exploding at point-blank. Or something of that scale.

As for the God Tree. I expect it would just absorb the chakra from the Amaterasu. Note that the tree had no problems draining BSM Naruto, which means Natural Energy is no problem to the tree itself, even if it is to Obito (which makes sense since you know, its a form of Juubi and a TREE so why the heck would NE be a problem). So if Sasuke used Amaterasu on the tree, all he would be doing is making the tree stronger by feeding it more chakra. Even if the tree cannot absorb chakra directly or instantly, it could certainly move one of its branches and suck the chakra from the flames. Thats assuming ofcourse that it would even care. I doubt something called a GOD tree would be overly bothered by a small fire.

 

This is the only part that I disagree with. It has been a long, long time since a fight ended due to, or as a direct result of, fatal injuries. Hell, in this fight only Obito has simply not given a fuck about a number of injuries that would kill an elephant, or a herd of elephants.

 

I agree with everything but this bit. So far, the tree has shown the ability to drain chakra out of shinobi. It hasn't shown the ability to drain chakra from jutsu that are being used against it. In fact, Sasuke's Susanoo (a pure chakra construct) dealt it a serious blow without being drained in the process. Remember, the tree has shown that it drains chakra fast (Naruto and Kurama lost their huge reserves in an instant) so even though Sasuke struck it swiftly, it still could have taken a huge chunk of his chakra in that moment, but it didn't. I'm guessing it sucks chakra out of tenketsu or something along those lines.

So if Sasuke used his Amaterasu machine gun technique and covered the tree in black flames, and then began hacking it apart with his Amaterasu sword, there's a pretty good chance it wouldn't be able to absorb all the chakra and would get burnt to cinders. That would ruin Obito's plans. And whether or not Obito can still use Kamui wouldn't help the tree at all. Even if he can, his Kamui is restricted to his body and things he's touching. He was able to get rid of Itachi's direct Amaterasu-to-the-face, but that was a pretty small scale. Removing it from the entire God Tree? I seriously doubt it.

 

Well, its possible Madara will deal with Obito somehow. He has been talking about his trump card.

But if not, I would argue that you just emphasize my point. Given how much damage Obito has taken, does it really make sense for your basic simple amaterasu flame to kill him at this point? A huge Amaterasu sword/arrow going through him and dealing a huge hole I could buy, but not something that failed to kill Karin. Though in honesty, I expect Naruto will deal the final blow to Obito due to Obito. There is a closer link there, than with Sasuke storywise. Madara (who will probably take over and become Maduubi? Shinjura? whatever) could then be taken down by Sasuke.

Hmm, you bring out lots of valid points. There is a problem I can see with this though.

If the tree cannot protect itself from chakra attacks of that level, then the alliance just won.

How?

Oonoki+BM+Dust Release+Tree=Victory.

Since I presume Oonoki won't be instantly destroying the tree next chapter (that would be such a huge letdown), there has to be some way for it to defend itself from such attacks. And if it can protect against jinton, then I don't buy that Amaterasu could bring the tree down either. As you point out, Sasuke hacked a branch off before he got Juugos senjutsu boost, so the tree lacks the anti-ninjutsu protection Obito has. Senjutsu is not required.

In truth, we don't really know how the tree works yet, or even how its chakra absorbtion works. Is it automatic. Does Obito control it? Is Obito even still a jinchuuriki, if the tree is outside his body. Will killing Obito kill the tree, the way killing Naruto would kill Kurama, or just release the tree.

Maybe the trunk of the tree is just invulnerable or something, and they need to take down Obito to make it vulnerable. Dunno. I am not exactly a huge fan of the tree to be honest.

 

I have the weirdest boner right now...