Naruto2Talk

I have been asking myself over and over of whether who is really the strongest member in the Akatsuki.

I know Pain as a leader of the association is supposed to be the one who is stronger than others apart of Madara, but to some extent and for some reason, I do feel that Uchiha Itachi was very strong as well and he is considered a threat to Madara.

If I am to compare Pain and Itachi, I will say Itachi is much stronger apart that Pain is immortal and the real body is the Nagato who isn't even at the battle field. Therefore, I am not sure whether Genjutsu is effective against him.

Without a doubt in my mind, putting aside Pain and Madara, Itachi will be the next strongest member in the Akatsuki. Even though we haven't really seen the other members' powers, but we know that Itachi is very dangerous person especially with his Sharingan.

However, if Madara is very strong, then the first Hokage who was stronger than him is the strongest in the Naruto series. Some people do argue if Fourth the strongest Hokage. Well, all Hokages are very powerful and strong.

Kishi has made a statement that 3^rd and 4^th Hokage are the stongest among the Hokages, but did he mean among all ninjas or just among the Konoha ninjas?

It has caught my attention when Itachi’s true identity was revealed in previous chapters of Naruto manga. We know that Itachi is stronger than Orochimaru, who is praised as one of the legendary Sannins. Now, who is the strongest among the Sannins? Orochimaru? Jiraiya? Or Tsunade?

The status of one ninja is defined by their skills and mental capability in devising strategy. Therefore, being Hokage means the person must has the defined values. As we know Itachi is stronger than Orochimaru and he is genius as well, so that means he is qualified as Hokage as well. It is really sad Itachi has to betray his own clan for the peace of ninja world. Madara also seems to be afraid of Itachi when he said he is relieved with the death of Itachi, where nobody can stop him from attacking Konoha.

From my point of view, Jiraiya also seems to be stronger than Orochimaru when he fought with Paine, the Akatsuki’s leader. The Sage technique looks like very impressive and with its ability to use the nature’s power, it’s surely a powerful jutsu.

Even thought Paine taking order from Madara, but I do believe Paine is still stronger than Madara. Maybe Madara isn’t ranked lower than Paine as well despite Paine being the leader. Both of them probably devising or plan movements for Akatsuki for certain purpose, but I think Madara is using or fooling Paine to do the job for him where his real intention is something else that hasn’t been discovered yet.

Now, Sasuke has becomes so powerful that even ranked not less than Madara. Even supposing he is still weaker than Madara, but I believe it won’t be far behind. One thing that makes Sasuke is still visible to Naruto is the power that Itachi gave to Naruto. We don’t know what is it but we do believe in Itachi. Madara may seem to have everything under his control or things went as his plan, but Itachi has his own plan as well.

Is Kyuubi existence important in the later story of Naruto? Will the Sage technique be completed within time? How much Naruto will improve from his training this time? Will he becomes more mature or gains more powers? I still believe even supposing Naruto becomes more mature and gains more powers, he is still powerless against Paine. The only way to beat Paine is the crack the code left by Jiraiya and know Paine’s secret. Paine mentioned before if Jiraiya had known his secret earlier, Jiraiya could beat him. So the code is apparently deadly to Paine.

Is 9-tailed beast existence means anything in the story? For some reason, I don’t think so. He could just be a part of the story to show how powerful Sasuke is. We still haven’t known the new power that Sasuke got from Itachi. So we might probably see this in the later chapters when the battle between the 8-tailed beast and Sasuke begins.

Due to over debate about Naruto's new power, I will post my view here. Is the power going to be sharingan? No. I don't think so. From my point of view, it's simply some power than neutralize Sasuke MS and the power that Itachi transferred to Sasuke.

Why Itachi choose Naruto? This is because Itachi was about to die, well be specific he planned to die on his brother's hands. Just right before he dies, Itachi had transferred the technique to Sasuke. However, Itachi had doubt that Naruto won't get Sasuke faster than Madara, so he predicted what Madara will said and do with Sasuke, and that's to attack Konoha. With his love to Konoha and peace, Itachi still wants to protect the village but he knew he is going to die anyway. So, the only way for he to protect the village is to pass his power to someone that can be trusted without killing Sasuke. So this put him in a very difficult position as well, to protect the village but need to kill Sasuke if the worst case. Then, to make the right choice, Itachi planned to talk to Naruto to convince himself that Naruto is capable to fulfill his wish and that is to save the Konoha without killing Sasuke.

Agree?

Before I begin, I would like to praise myself :) for my earlier prediction and opinion that Itachi was faking about taking Sasuke's eyes just to make Sasuke out of chakra so that this can dragged Orochimaru out, the reason why he joined Akatsuki in order watch Akatsuki's movements and activities just to protect Konoha or specifically Sasuke and that Itachi has health problem. All were for his beloved brother Sasuke. Thanks for my prediction.

However, there's still something I doubt in this chapter as to how far be the truth that Itachi said that Madara is the one responsible for the kyuubi attack. I seriously think that Sasuke might join Madara in his venture which I personally think (I don't have any backup evidence for this, just another my prediction) it's not about revenge but maybe something more that that e.g. world domination, take over Konoha and claimed himself as true leader or Hokage.

So what do you think? Will Sasuke join Madara after all the truth revealed about Itachi? I personally think this is highly to happen. If not, then there's no point about Madara getting his hand on Sasuke.

Due to the statement above, I also feel that Madara is the one telling the truth because Itachi knew from the beginning if Sasuke fall into the hand of Madara, then this will cause Sasuke to be on the evil side, helping Madara in his venture which Itachi knew about Madara's real intention of founding Akatsuki. That's why Itachi met Naruto earlier to tell Naruto the truth about him but Naruto couldn't believe it. If Naruto get to get Sasuke earlier than Madara, then Sasuke will be hero of Konoha for killing his brother.

Unfortunately, since Madara is the one who get to Sasuke, then Itachi's plan for making Sasuke a hero might fail due to several possibilities.

From my previous post, there has been a question about if Madara is possessing Obito’s body, why didn’t he take Itachi’s? Well, I am not quite sure about that I will stay with my opinion and the only reason I can think of is that maybe Madara requires a death Uchicha’s body instead of live one. Itachi might still be strong enough for Madara to take over his body.

But if that’s the reason, why not Madara takes Itachi’s body as he is dead now? This is possibly that Itachi’s body has no longer use for Madara since Itachi had transferred his techniques to Sasuke which makes Sasuke become the target of Madara. Apart from that, maybe Itachi is useful for Madara during their first meeting. That’s why Itachi agreed to join the Akatsuki in order to observe the activities of the organisation.

We all know that Itachi was pretending to be bad so far. Even Madara know about that. But what make me confuse is why Madara still intend to keep Itachi as a member of Akatsuki if he knew that Itachi is in good side.

From Naruto manga volume 400
So, it was a mistake all long this time for Sasuke to kill his own blood brother, Uchiha Itachi. The truth has unveiled by the Uchiha Madara, that Itachi's mission from Kohona was to destroy the whole uchiha clan. Being double agent is really hard when he loves peace so much, but when considering the best option, ending the record book of his own clan was the only choice he could chose. Poor Sasuke. He is going to regret for hating his own brother so much after he was told the truth by Madara.

However, it's been a question on who actually won in the battle between the brothers? Well, the battle started on with two in genjutsu world, then they fought with ninjutsu in real world. It was unquestionable that Itachi did have problem in defeating Sasuke when his health condition had deteriorate due to excessive use of his Mangekyo Sharingan before. However, after reading volume 400, I am pretty sure that Itachi had no intention of taking his own brother's eyes. Maybe he was planning to plant his eyes to Sasuke during the battle, but Sasuke was too good for him at the moment and defensed it.

Nevertheless, after a hard and intense defence by Sasuke, Itachi still managed to control the battle with his Amaterasu and the final jutsu.

Therefore, from my abstract thought, Itachi won the battle against Sasuke but just right before he died, he planted all my eye techniques to Sasuke and fall in order to protect Sasuke from Madara. If Itachi has the intention to kill Sasuke from the beginning, then he surely has the opportunity to do just right before he fall. Sasuke was out of chakra and can't fend off Itachi's final jutsu. It's so obvious that Sasuke going to lose at the time.