“Is this the power of a god?”
Impression
You know, I don’t think I can even call that a battle. It doesn’t qualify as one – rather, it would be more fitting to describe it as a one-sided total annihilation. Tsunade was right when she said they had been tricked all along, but I can’t really blame them – Tobi’s ability to exert that much influence with the name “Uchiha Madara” is due to the kind of power we saw this episode. Madara even noted that their headbands say “shinobi”, and that there was a nation-wide alliance between the Five Nations – yet their power was pretty much useless. It was one guy versus the rest of the world, and he utterly destroyed them.
Apparently this power is even higher than his ability at his peak, and by that I’m going to assume it’s when he battled Hashirama at the Valley of the End. The fire jutsu at the start (on a different scale from Itachi and Sasuke’s) wasn’t even a shred of his power – he can even fully use Mokuton jutsu. I have a feeling Kabuto’s “upgrades” had something to do with Mokuton, considering the fact that he’s cultivating Hashirama’s cells with Tobi through leeching power off Yamato. And if he can make 100,000 Zetsu clones, I’m sure he can implant a few cells into Madara’s dead body. He’s actually pretty resourceful to have gotten all these bodies, of literally everyone important in the Narutoverse (save for Jiraiya).
Putting aside Mokuton, Madara even features the Rinnegan (just how overpowered is this guy gonna get?) And he’s not even fighting seriously at this point – rather, it’s almost like he’s testing out his powers for the fun of it. As the next step in the Sharingan’s evolutionary chain is the Rinnegan, it might be a possible future upgrade for Sasuke, who also has the EMS stage after having implanted in Itachi’s eyes. Having it as a next step makes sense, anyway – the Rikudou Sennin, who was the original user of the Rinnegan, had his descendants branch off into the Senju and the Uchiha. I’m not sure whether the Rinnegan helped Madara to call down that meteorite (it was oddly similar to Chibaku Tensei)…but wow, that thing was colossal. Even Naruto was running away from it. Then the second one came, and everyone had their best “OH SHIT” faces on.
I bet Madara died of old age. Hashirama didn’t seem like much when Orochimaru summoned him way back in the original series, but he must have been a beast if he was able to stand up to this guy. He even had a Susanoo and a Kyuubi summon around. The only thing hindering Madara’s greatness this episode was the derpy animation at some points, especially how his hair is literally just one tone color. The fact he understands how the Edo Tensei should be used (i.e. suicidal tactics when necessary) makes him even more dangerous – to be honest, I think the Five Kage are gonna struggle.
