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I think that it's time that we had a serious re-evaluation about the speed of the Naruto verse.
I don't bring up this topic lightly and I know that some of what I'll have to see in this OP will be seen as controverisal but certain recent threads have necessitated that this topic be at least brought up for discussion.
To give some background, recently in this revision thread, it was proposed and accepted that the attacks of multiple Kurama-enhanced characters including Gyuki, the Eight-Tails' Biju Bomb, should scale above Mifune's Issen technique which is accepted on the wiki as being lightspeed, which makes these characters' attacks but most importantly the Biju Bomb be treated as FTL.
This has far-reaching consequences with another follow-up revision thread here being made to upgrade a substantial portion of the Naruto cast to having FTL combat speed.
It is my view that for this to be the acceptable, you'd have to ignore a significant number of contradictions.
The Speed of Biju Bombs
Consequently to the previous threads, the speed of the Juubi's own Biju Bombs - being significantly more powerful than Gyuki's Biju Bombs - would also be faster than light, and yet there are scenes that would strongly indicate against that assumption.
In Chapter 613, the Juubi undergoes its evolution into its second form and begins spammning long-range Biju Bombs to rain down in distant locations. The last of these is aimed for the Allied Shinobi Forces' Headquarters located in the vicinity of Kumogakure. We then get an extensive sequence where the sensory shinobi realize the target of the Biju Bomb, relay it to the others, they discuss the situation and then Shikaku has the telepathic ninja relay his plan to beat the Juubi to everyone on the battlefield before the Biju Bomb lands. We can then see the explosion in the distance and Madara remarking "Finally got them."
For reference, the area where the Juubi is - where the alliance is fighting it - is indicated by the red arrow. The Allied Shinobi Forces' Headquarters is highlighted by a purple arrow.
Our currently accepted value approximating that distance is around 700 kilometers, and even with other methods it is at-most around a couple thousand kilometers.
Remember that lightspeed means a projectile could circle the Earth approximately 7.5 times in one second.
But here we have multiple characters conversing each other, being shown in contemplation, coming up with ideas... and then to end it off, Madara remarks that they 'finally' got them after waiting for the Biju Bomb to land. This is not the kind of remark one would make if he was just waiting for a hundredth of a second. There is significant travel time for that amount of distance.
While it's a common convention that "Talking is a Free Action" and characters can execute high-speed maneuvers while still speaking normally, this goes well beyond just a line or two. These are full-blown conversations that don't make any sense if an FTL projectile is crossing so short a distance.
The much stronger Juubi's Biju Bomb being this slow should call into question Gyuki's Biju Bomb being assumed to be so fast.
Mifune's Issen
There is room for doubt as to whether or not Mifune's technique itself is a lightspeed projectile. The only basis for Mifune's technique being as fast as it is comes not from the manga itself, from a secondary source, the databook, which is only applied for the Naruto-verse on a case-by-case basis due to some discrepancies and hyperbolic statements such as Sasuke's power exceeding even that of the Akatsuki.
This has been translated by @Arc7Kuroi as:
What the statement in the databook is saying is that Mifune (who uses Iaido, a high-speed form of swordsmanship that is about drawing one's blade quickly and slashing), is slashing his sword at lightspeed and and releasing a flying slash at his enemy.
Even if we took the statement literally and assumed there was no databook hyperbole going on here, we could say that Mifune's sword stroke was executed at the speed of light, but the projectile sword-slash that is released by him is not necessarily travelling the quickly. The databook makes no actual mention of Mifune's flying slash being what is lightspeed.
Although Mifune's technique Issen, can be translated as Flash, or Beam of Light, this again doesn't mean the projectile has to be lightspeed. It's not a literal beam of light he's releasing, but a projectile of chakra released from his sword-swing. Same as all the other regular samurai who coat their blades in chakra and release slashes of chakra that Sasuke is able to react extremely casually to.
Not to mention that describing someone's attack as a "speed of light sword stroke" can easily be a figurative description rather than an absolutely literal measurement of their speed. It conveys the meaning that Mifune's attack is fast which is all that matters.
Assuming we disregard all that though and still insist that it is Mifune's flying slash that is lightspeed, the original argument depends on the assumption that all of the attacks were launched at the exact same time. There is no chance that the shinobi and Gyuki were able to coordinate their moves that precisely; even a microsecond of time between the different jutsu starting to move would be relevant when we're talking about matters of lightspeed. It seems far more likely to me that Kishimoto just wanted a scene of several characters through ranged attacks together and didn't put any serious thought into it of them all having to be exactly the same speed, and that the minimum speed they'd need to travel is lightspeed.
Sasuke's Kirin and Lightning Jutsu
There's more to take into consideration for the verse as a whole than just the Biju Bombs. A very important technique in Sasuke's arsenal is Kirin.
Kirin has been gone over enough times in this wiki's history that I'm sure almost all Naruto fans here will be familiar with it but I'll provide an overview of it just to illustrate my point at how the speed ratings we've introduced contradict the narrative.
After exhausting his chakra on Orochimaru's substitution technique and several fireballs he fired into the sky, Sasuke reveals that he has one last technique up his sleeve despite his lack of chakra. He used the fireballs to create stormclouds above, and he's going to use them to create a technique that 'lasts an instant' and 'cannot be blocked or evaded'. Sasuke doesn't supply his own chakra to power or speed up the technique (he can't; he's out of it as confirmed by Itachi); he just takes advantage of the enormous ambigent atmospheric energy to launch a Lightning Style jutsu by harnessing natural lightning. As Sasuke himself explains, the jutsu guides the lightning striking down from the clouds at a target of Sasuke's choice; he merely directs natural lightning towards Itachi.
This is the reason why Kirin cannot be evaded, according to Zetsu. It's speed enabling it to cross the distance in 0.001 seconds.The currently accepted calculation for Kirin's speed is Mach 8089, using that timeframe from the manga.
If a Massively Hypersonic+ attack (several hundred Mach off of being Sub-Relativistic) travelling across hundreds of meters is considered to be nigh-undodgeable by not just one but two sources commenting on the speed of the technique making it impossible to evade then a few things about the way we rank speed ratings on the wiki don't make sense and directly contradict the information presented to us in the primary source of the series.
Characters like the Sannin (who Sasuke and Zetsu are more than familiar with) aren't going around fighting at FTL speed. Jutsu like the Biju Bomb (which multiple characters have blocked or evaded) doesn't make sense being FTL if an MHS+ technique is considered impossible to evade.
While it is true that Sasuke's knowledge is limited; for example he was unaware that Itachi possessed the Susano'o that he could use to block the Kirin, and he is unaware of the speed of the upper echelons like Minato who could use the Flying Thunder God technique to teleport out of the way, the statement still remains a strong barrier for the vast majority of shinobi.
Lightning speed jutsu is never considered to be a joke in the series. The databook for Kakuzu's False Darkness jutsu states "It is exceedingly difficult to dodge a lightning bolt flying at high speed." Even in the final arc of the series Madara employs realistic lightning bolts created through Yin Release to attack Naruto and Sasuke. Whilst though both Naruto and Sasuke quite capably react to it without issue, it shows that it is still a potential threat.
This is why it is very hard to accept that most characters are regularly fighting at FTL speeds, or that someone like Kakashi is over twice as fast as Kirin is. By Hidan scaling to Kakashi, and Shikamaru scaling to Hidan, we end up in a scenario where Shikamaru is actually 6.3 times faster than the attack that blitzes him. If we go with the current FTL proposals then we end up in a situation where Kakuzu is "FTL, with MHS+ attack speed", and an FTL Shikamaru was helpless as an MHS+ attack crossed dozens of meters to reach him. It is too contradictory.
Mabui's Ethereal Transmission Jutsu and the Raikage
One thing to remember is that in the general shinobi world, not counting freaks of the past like Madara and the Hashirama, the Raikage is the fastest ninja alive. Even in his base form he's regarded as super-fast, and in Lightning Chakra Mode Version 1 and Version 2, he becomes even faster. When using the Shunshin (Body Flicker Technique) in this state, he can even accomplish the nigh-impossible feat of evading Sasuke's Mangekyo Sharingan visual prowess and escaping being ignited with the Amaterasu technique which ignites at whatever Sasuke is looking at.
This is important because when it comes to Mabui's Ethereal Transmission jutsu - which can transport objects across vast distances at the speed of light - the main drawback for trying to use it on living human beings is that their bodies cannot cope with the the immense speed and they become torn apart. Only freaks like the 3rd Raikage who have unique extra-tough physiques can endure it, and Tsunade who has the ability to heal herself after travelling. This weakness is reiterated in the databook which mentions the movement being too fast unless the target has a sturdy body.
Why is this important? Because if shinobi regularly fought and moved at faster-than-light speeds, then the speed of Mabui's technique would be trivial to them. Even for the 4th Raikage, the fastest shinobi alive, Mabui states that it may be possible for the 4th Raikage to successfully travel by this technique but only because he's the 3rd Raikage's son. As his secretary, Mabui would know the 4th Raikage's abilities better than most and even she only conjectures that it may be possible for him, rather than acknowledging that he regularly moves beyond lightspeed anyway.
Pain's Shinra Tensei
An important drawback to Pain's Shinra Tensei (Almighty Push) is that it has a minimum cooldown of 5 seconds between every usage of it.
The characters do not treat this as a huge amount of time within which to act:
Choza: "And if his recharging period is really brief... we can't afford to get close."
Random Shinobi: "Only five seconds, huh..."
Katsuyu: "The minimum interval between his jutsu is about five seconds. So you must target and strike during that window."
Naruto: "Five seconds, huh...."
Fukasaku: "Our only hope is to trap 'em within Genjutsu."
It's pretty telling a "brief" recharging period of five seconds poses difficulties for these characters. Kakashi, with Choji and Choza, have to execute a pretty elaborate strategy to have to get around Pains' brief period of vulnerability, and Fukasaku doesn't see much hope for Naruto without defeating Pain indirectly through Genjutsu.
All of this is to say that it seems extraordinarily inconsistent for us to treat these characters as being able to move, fight and react at FTL levels of speed if a timeframe like this in combat poses difficulties for them.
Other Anti-Feats
This is less important than the other feats and anti-feats brought up above, but early on in Shippuden, Chapter 277 - 278, there is a scene of several characters being depicted as slower than an explosion created by Deidara. Might Guy is on par with Kakashi and yet Neji was certain that they wouldn't be able to escape the blast wave before it hit them, with them only actually being saved by Kakashi using the risky Kamui jutsu to warp away the explosion. While this scene would show that Kakashi has the reactions to activate his jutsu before the explosion could hit him, the speed of the characters at risk of being hit by the explosion certainly shouldn't be in the Sub-Relativistic to FTL range.
Another thing to bear in mind is that blinding opponents with bright flashes of light is a legit strategy throughout the series with nobody reacting until after they've already been blinded. Such as;
People should really read the full text above if they want to get involved in the thread, but here's the points above summarized;
My proposals that follow from the observations I've made above are this:
I don't bring up this topic lightly and I know that some of what I'll have to see in this OP will be seen as controverisal but certain recent threads have necessitated that this topic be at least brought up for discussion.
To give some background, recently in this revision thread, it was proposed and accepted that the attacks of multiple Kurama-enhanced characters including Gyuki, the Eight-Tails' Biju Bomb, should scale above Mifune's Issen technique which is accepted on the wiki as being lightspeed, which makes these characters' attacks but most importantly the Biju Bomb be treated as FTL.
This has far-reaching consequences with another follow-up revision thread here being made to upgrade a substantial portion of the Naruto cast to having FTL combat speed.
It is my view that for this to be the acceptable, you'd have to ignore a significant number of contradictions.
The Speed of Biju Bombs
Consequently to the previous threads, the speed of the Juubi's own Biju Bombs - being significantly more powerful than Gyuki's Biju Bombs - would also be faster than light, and yet there are scenes that would strongly indicate against that assumption.
In Chapter 613, the Juubi undergoes its evolution into its second form and begins spammning long-range Biju Bombs to rain down in distant locations. The last of these is aimed for the Allied Shinobi Forces' Headquarters located in the vicinity of Kumogakure. We then get an extensive sequence where the sensory shinobi realize the target of the Biju Bomb, relay it to the others, they discuss the situation and then Shikaku has the telepathic ninja relay his plan to beat the Juubi to everyone on the battlefield before the Biju Bomb lands. We can then see the explosion in the distance and Madara remarking "Finally got them."
For reference, the area where the Juubi is - where the alliance is fighting it - is indicated by the red arrow. The Allied Shinobi Forces' Headquarters is highlighted by a purple arrow.
Our currently accepted value approximating that distance is around 700 kilometers, and even with other methods it is at-most around a couple thousand kilometers.
Remember that lightspeed means a projectile could circle the Earth approximately 7.5 times in one second.
But here we have multiple characters conversing each other, being shown in contemplation, coming up with ideas... and then to end it off, Madara remarks that they 'finally' got them after waiting for the Biju Bomb to land. This is not the kind of remark one would make if he was just waiting for a hundredth of a second. There is significant travel time for that amount of distance.
While it's a common convention that "Talking is a Free Action" and characters can execute high-speed maneuvers while still speaking normally, this goes well beyond just a line or two. These are full-blown conversations that don't make any sense if an FTL projectile is crossing so short a distance.
The much stronger Juubi's Biju Bomb being this slow should call into question Gyuki's Biju Bomb being assumed to be so fast.
Mifune's Issen
There is room for doubt as to whether or not Mifune's technique itself is a lightspeed projectile. The only basis for Mifune's technique being as fast as it is comes not from the manga itself, from a secondary source, the databook, which is only applied for the Naruto-verse on a case-by-case basis due to some discrepancies and hyperbolic statements such as Sasuke's power exceeding even that of the Akatsuki.
This has been translated by @Arc7Kuroi as:
What the statement in the databook is saying is that Mifune (who uses Iaido, a high-speed form of swordsmanship that is about drawing one's blade quickly and slashing), is slashing his sword at lightspeed and and releasing a flying slash at his enemy.
Even if we took the statement literally and assumed there was no databook hyperbole going on here, we could say that Mifune's sword stroke was executed at the speed of light, but the projectile sword-slash that is released by him is not necessarily travelling the quickly. The databook makes no actual mention of Mifune's flying slash being what is lightspeed.
Although Mifune's technique Issen, can be translated as Flash, or Beam of Light, this again doesn't mean the projectile has to be lightspeed. It's not a literal beam of light he's releasing, but a projectile of chakra released from his sword-swing. Same as all the other regular samurai who coat their blades in chakra and release slashes of chakra that Sasuke is able to react extremely casually to.
Not to mention that describing someone's attack as a "speed of light sword stroke" can easily be a figurative description rather than an absolutely literal measurement of their speed. It conveys the meaning that Mifune's attack is fast which is all that matters.
Assuming we disregard all that though and still insist that it is Mifune's flying slash that is lightspeed, the original argument depends on the assumption that all of the attacks were launched at the exact same time. There is no chance that the shinobi and Gyuki were able to coordinate their moves that precisely; even a microsecond of time between the different jutsu starting to move would be relevant when we're talking about matters of lightspeed. It seems far more likely to me that Kishimoto just wanted a scene of several characters through ranged attacks together and didn't put any serious thought into it of them all having to be exactly the same speed, and that the minimum speed they'd need to travel is lightspeed.
Sasuke's Kirin and Lightning Jutsu
There's more to take into consideration for the verse as a whole than just the Biju Bombs. A very important technique in Sasuke's arsenal is Kirin.
Kirin has been gone over enough times in this wiki's history that I'm sure almost all Naruto fans here will be familiar with it but I'll provide an overview of it just to illustrate my point at how the speed ratings we've introduced contradict the narrative.
After exhausting his chakra on Orochimaru's substitution technique and several fireballs he fired into the sky, Sasuke reveals that he has one last technique up his sleeve despite his lack of chakra. He used the fireballs to create stormclouds above, and he's going to use them to create a technique that 'lasts an instant' and 'cannot be blocked or evaded'. Sasuke doesn't supply his own chakra to power or speed up the technique (he can't; he's out of it as confirmed by Itachi); he just takes advantage of the enormous ambigent atmospheric energy to launch a Lightning Style jutsu by harnessing natural lightning. As Sasuke himself explains, the jutsu guides the lightning striking down from the clouds at a target of Sasuke's choice; he merely directs natural lightning towards Itachi.
This is the reason why Kirin cannot be evaded, according to Zetsu. It's speed enabling it to cross the distance in 0.001 seconds.The currently accepted calculation for Kirin's speed is Mach 8089, using that timeframe from the manga.
If a Massively Hypersonic+ attack (several hundred Mach off of being Sub-Relativistic) travelling across hundreds of meters is considered to be nigh-undodgeable by not just one but two sources commenting on the speed of the technique making it impossible to evade then a few things about the way we rank speed ratings on the wiki don't make sense and directly contradict the information presented to us in the primary source of the series.
Characters like the Sannin (who Sasuke and Zetsu are more than familiar with) aren't going around fighting at FTL speed. Jutsu like the Biju Bomb (which multiple characters have blocked or evaded) doesn't make sense being FTL if an MHS+ technique is considered impossible to evade.
While it is true that Sasuke's knowledge is limited; for example he was unaware that Itachi possessed the Susano'o that he could use to block the Kirin, and he is unaware of the speed of the upper echelons like Minato who could use the Flying Thunder God technique to teleport out of the way, the statement still remains a strong barrier for the vast majority of shinobi.
Lightning speed jutsu is never considered to be a joke in the series. The databook for Kakuzu's False Darkness jutsu states "It is exceedingly difficult to dodge a lightning bolt flying at high speed." Even in the final arc of the series Madara employs realistic lightning bolts created through Yin Release to attack Naruto and Sasuke. Whilst though both Naruto and Sasuke quite capably react to it without issue, it shows that it is still a potential threat.
This is why it is very hard to accept that most characters are regularly fighting at FTL speeds, or that someone like Kakashi is over twice as fast as Kirin is. By Hidan scaling to Kakashi, and Shikamaru scaling to Hidan, we end up in a scenario where Shikamaru is actually 6.3 times faster than the attack that blitzes him. If we go with the current FTL proposals then we end up in a situation where Kakuzu is "FTL, with MHS+ attack speed", and an FTL Shikamaru was helpless as an MHS+ attack crossed dozens of meters to reach him. It is too contradictory.
Mabui's Ethereal Transmission Jutsu and the Raikage
One thing to remember is that in the general shinobi world, not counting freaks of the past like Madara and the Hashirama, the Raikage is the fastest ninja alive. Even in his base form he's regarded as super-fast, and in Lightning Chakra Mode Version 1 and Version 2, he becomes even faster. When using the Shunshin (Body Flicker Technique) in this state, he can even accomplish the nigh-impossible feat of evading Sasuke's Mangekyo Sharingan visual prowess and escaping being ignited with the Amaterasu technique which ignites at whatever Sasuke is looking at.
This is important because when it comes to Mabui's Ethereal Transmission jutsu - which can transport objects across vast distances at the speed of light - the main drawback for trying to use it on living human beings is that their bodies cannot cope with the the immense speed and they become torn apart. Only freaks like the 3rd Raikage who have unique extra-tough physiques can endure it, and Tsunade who has the ability to heal herself after travelling. This weakness is reiterated in the databook which mentions the movement being too fast unless the target has a sturdy body.
Why is this important? Because if shinobi regularly fought and moved at faster-than-light speeds, then the speed of Mabui's technique would be trivial to them. Even for the 4th Raikage, the fastest shinobi alive, Mabui states that it may be possible for the 4th Raikage to successfully travel by this technique but only because he's the 3rd Raikage's son. As his secretary, Mabui would know the 4th Raikage's abilities better than most and even she only conjectures that it may be possible for him, rather than acknowledging that he regularly moves beyond lightspeed anyway.
Pain's Shinra Tensei
An important drawback to Pain's Shinra Tensei (Almighty Push) is that it has a minimum cooldown of 5 seconds between every usage of it.
The characters do not treat this as a huge amount of time within which to act:
Choza: "And if his recharging period is really brief... we can't afford to get close."
Random Shinobi: "Only five seconds, huh..."
Katsuyu: "The minimum interval between his jutsu is about five seconds. So you must target and strike during that window."
Naruto: "Five seconds, huh...."
Fukasaku: "Our only hope is to trap 'em within Genjutsu."
It's pretty telling a "brief" recharging period of five seconds poses difficulties for these characters. Kakashi, with Choji and Choza, have to execute a pretty elaborate strategy to have to get around Pains' brief period of vulnerability, and Fukasaku doesn't see much hope for Naruto without defeating Pain indirectly through Genjutsu.
All of this is to say that it seems extraordinarily inconsistent for us to treat these characters as being able to move, fight and react at FTL levels of speed if a timeframe like this in combat poses difficulties for them.
Other Anti-Feats
This is less important than the other feats and anti-feats brought up above, but early on in Shippuden, Chapter 277 - 278, there is a scene of several characters being depicted as slower than an explosion created by Deidara. Might Guy is on par with Kakashi and yet Neji was certain that they wouldn't be able to escape the blast wave before it hit them, with them only actually being saved by Kakashi using the risky Kamui jutsu to warp away the explosion. While this scene would show that Kakashi has the reactions to activate his jutsu before the explosion could hit him, the speed of the characters at risk of being hit by the explosion certainly shouldn't be in the Sub-Relativistic to FTL range.
Another thing to bear in mind is that blinding opponents with bright flashes of light is a legit strategy throughout the series with nobody reacting until after they've already been blinded. Such as;
- C using his Flash Pillar technique to blind Jugo and Sasuke, following it up with a Genjutsu.
- Kabuto using Sage Technique: White Extreme Attack to create a flash of light blinding Itachi and Sasuke. Both of them were incapacitated by the attack, but they made no move to stop the light before it hit them? It shouldn't have taken them so off-guard if they were faster than the light it emitted.
- C and several other Shinobi using the Flash Pillar technique to blind Obito, Madara and the Juubi with a bright flash of light. Madara and Obito are shown casually reacting to and commenting on the movements of hundreds of attacking shinobi including Sage Made Naruto and 5th Gates Guy and Rock Lee, but a flash of light from much further distance was able to blind and surprise them? If everyone was FTL, the blinding attack would've taken relatively much longer to reach them. Even more tellingly, the Juubi could casually react to and flick away Gyuki's Biju Bomb at point-blank range earlier, yet it gets caught out by a flash of light from much further away?
People should really read the full text above if they want to get involved in the thread, but here's the points above summarized;
- Faster Biju Bombs than Gyuki's are depicted to be significantly slower than FTL.
- Mifune's flying slash is probably not lightspeed to begin with.
- Multiple scaling inconsistencies arise if we try to make as many characters as possible FTL.
- Sasuke's MHS+ Kirin is a hard cap for a good portion of the verse.
- The Raikage, one of the world's fastest shinobi, is implied to be slower than lightspeed, which also hard caps a good portion of the verse.
- The 5 second cooldown of Pain's technique is shown to be a brief window of opportunity for the characters to work around.
- Several characters struggled to outpace an explosion created by Deidara.
- Several characters are regularly caught off guard by blinding flashes of light.
My proposals that follow from the observations I've made above are this:
- Remove the scaling that is based upon the assumption of a lightspeed flying slash, and Killer B's attack being comparable to it.
- Remove Kakashi's Sub-Rel calc of intercepting Kakuzu's False Darkness jutsu, for contradicting the information around Kirin.
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