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The current profiles and keys for the Sasuke Retrieval Arc could be spruced up a little, stat-wise. So I read through the arc, compiled relevant feats, and now I’m here to revise them.
The Sound Four
We’ll start with them, because they should be fairly simple.
CS2 Kidomaru is stated twice to be the strongest person that Neji has ever fought, which would put him above KN0 Naruto during the Chūnin Exams. This would put him at ‘At least Low 7-C+,’ and it scales to CS2 Tayuya and CS2 Sakon, as both are stated by Kabuto and Orochimaru to be superior to Kidomaru. Jirobo doesn’t scale because he is stated to be the weakest member of the Sound Four, and there is stated to be a large gap between his and Kidomaru’s power. Jirobo’s tiers can stay the same, but with some revised justifications.
The Sound Four were also able to defeat a fatigued Genma and Raido (not match, as the profiles incorrectly state) in CS2, so those two should be ‘At least Low 7-C+’ as well. This would be pretty consistent with the statement that two Sound Four members working together would be able to kill Kakashi, while any individual one would struggle or lose. Kakashi may or may not have been at 100% at this point, as he was stated earlier in the arc to still be recovering. As such, Kakashi should be able to upscale from the Sound Four and keep his 7-C rating, albeit now at baseline.
Retrieval Squad
The squad’s rating at this point... are kinda weird, so let’s fix that.
Chōji is mostly fine, but his base justification (“Comparable to Kiba and Neji”) is not. Chōji is directly stated to have more destructive power than Kiba, and I’ll explain why he shouldn’t scale to Neji in just a moment.
Neji needs a bit of an overhaul. The first thing I’ll address is Neji’s own statements of CS2 Kidomaru being stronger than him. These statements were only made while Neji was wounded and nearly out of chakra, and Kidomaru states at the end of the fight that the only person that’s pushed him as hard as Neji was Kimimaro. Neji was also able to draw blood from Kidomaru, deflect his arrow, and harm him with a small amount of chakra. As such, the statements of Kidomaru being superior should only apply to this weakened and low-on-chakra Neji, and not Neji at full power, who should scale to Kimimaro. Neji should therefore upscale to 7-C, since he can still damage CS2 Kidomaru while heavily weakened, and is compared to Kimimaro, who has his own reasons for upscaling.
Now, as for the Chōji and Neji scaling. Neji is stated by Kidomaru to be the strongest of the Retrieval Squad. Chōji is also stated to be the strongest, and these statements are made on more than one occasion, but there’s problems with this. Base Chōji was overpowered by base Jirobo, and as the section above shows, Jirobo is the weakest of the Sound Four. So Chōji’s statements are clearly inaccurate unless we assume that they apply to Butterfly Chōji.
Kiba shouldn’t scale to CS2 Sakon. Well, he actually should, but only with his Two-Headed Wolf technique, as he was able to slice Sakon in two while using it. Base Kiba was outmatched by a casual base Sakon, and should just scale above his Chūnin Exams self. So Kiba would be ‘At least 8-B, Low 7-C via Two-Headed Wolf.’
Shikamaru’s Shadow Possession Jutsu doesn’t scale to CS2 Tayuya, as she was able to break free from it. However, his Shadow-Neck Binding Jutsu (which is stated to be distinctly different), can scale to CS2 Tayuya for restraining her, albeit with difficulty.
Naruto should go back down to Low 7-C+ with Kyuubi chakra, for two reasons. One, he has rarely, if ever used as much of the Kyuubi’s chakra as he did against Haku. Two, Haku is pretty inconsistent and shouldn’t be scaled from at all (a note about this would be added to Naruto’s profile to explain). This would drop KN1 down to 7-C+. Naruto’s Rasengan should also be Low 7-C+, for clashing with Sasuke’s full power Chidori. Speaking of Sasuke, I’ll discuss him next.
Sasuke
Sasuke definitively scales above KN0 Naruto. Before anyone says that Naruto could harm CS1 and base Sasuke, this was while Sasuke was most likely holding back, as he stated after Naruto went KN0 that he would now fight him as an equal. Immediately after saying this, he knocked Naruto out of KN0 with two hits. Plus, even while Sasuke was holding back, he held the advantage for most of the fight. It only became a stalemate with the Rasengan-Chidori clash, which can be chalked up to the Rasengan just being stronger than Naruto’s base stats and Jiraiya stating that it was more powerful than the Chidori. Overall, base Sasuke is ‘At least Low 7-C+, 7-C with CS1, 7-C+ with CS2.”
Rock Lee
No, I’m not gonna advocate for Lee scaling to Kimimaro. In fact, I’m suggesting that a note should be added to explain why he doesn’t scale, which should be worded something like;
During the Sasuke Retrieval Arc, Lee is stated to be weaker than he was in the Chūnin Exams, which Gaara later reiterates even after he’s had surgery. As such, his feats against Kimimaro are considered to be outliers.
Kimimaro
Kimimaro should be baseline 7-C on the basis of being stronger than the Sound Four, and he implied that he could kill Tayuya. She appears to be visibly unsettled by this threat, which should give it some legitimacy. And of course, there’s his feats of one-shotting KN0 Naruto clones. All three of his keys would be 7-C, although CS2 would be 7-C+. He shouldn’t scale to Gaara’s 7-C calc, and even if he did, it wouldn’t change his rating.
The Sand Siblings
Temari keeps her current justifications, with the tiers themselves changing to ‘At least Low 7-C+, 7-C via Kiriki Mai.’ Kankurō’s tier with his puppets should change to Low 7-C+ for badly wounding CS2 Sakon, his physical stats would stay at ‘At least 8-B.’ Gaara’s AP stays the same, but his durability would get an extra rating via the Shield of Shukaku, since he was able to block an attack from CS2 Kimimaro and even break his bones.
Jōnin
I’ll admit, this could be saved for the Part II revisions, but the jōnin need to have the faulty 7-C calc/scaling from Chōji removed from their justifications. This would include Kurenai, Asuma, Might Guy, Anko, and Hanabi. And I won’t particularly push for this, but Kurenai, Anko and Hanabi shouldn’t even have their 8-B ratings and should just be 7-C imo.
Summary
This sandbox contains scans from the Retrieval Arc, and shows what the new profile stats would look like (apart from the jōnin changes).
The Sound Four
We’ll start with them, because they should be fairly simple.
CS2 Kidomaru is stated twice to be the strongest person that Neji has ever fought, which would put him above KN0 Naruto during the Chūnin Exams. This would put him at ‘At least Low 7-C+,’ and it scales to CS2 Tayuya and CS2 Sakon, as both are stated by Kabuto and Orochimaru to be superior to Kidomaru. Jirobo doesn’t scale because he is stated to be the weakest member of the Sound Four, and there is stated to be a large gap between his and Kidomaru’s power. Jirobo’s tiers can stay the same, but with some revised justifications.
The Sound Four were also able to defeat a fatigued Genma and Raido (not match, as the profiles incorrectly state) in CS2, so those two should be ‘At least Low 7-C+’ as well. This would be pretty consistent with the statement that two Sound Four members working together would be able to kill Kakashi, while any individual one would struggle or lose. Kakashi may or may not have been at 100% at this point, as he was stated earlier in the arc to still be recovering. As such, Kakashi should be able to upscale from the Sound Four and keep his 7-C rating, albeit now at baseline.
Retrieval Squad
The squad’s rating at this point... are kinda weird, so let’s fix that.
Chōji is mostly fine, but his base justification (“Comparable to Kiba and Neji”) is not. Chōji is directly stated to have more destructive power than Kiba, and I’ll explain why he shouldn’t scale to Neji in just a moment.
Neji needs a bit of an overhaul. The first thing I’ll address is Neji’s own statements of CS2 Kidomaru being stronger than him. These statements were only made while Neji was wounded and nearly out of chakra, and Kidomaru states at the end of the fight that the only person that’s pushed him as hard as Neji was Kimimaro. Neji was also able to draw blood from Kidomaru, deflect his arrow, and harm him with a small amount of chakra. As such, the statements of Kidomaru being superior should only apply to this weakened and low-on-chakra Neji, and not Neji at full power, who should scale to Kimimaro. Neji should therefore upscale to 7-C, since he can still damage CS2 Kidomaru while heavily weakened, and is compared to Kimimaro, who has his own reasons for upscaling.
Now, as for the Chōji and Neji scaling. Neji is stated by Kidomaru to be the strongest of the Retrieval Squad. Chōji is also stated to be the strongest, and these statements are made on more than one occasion, but there’s problems with this. Base Chōji was overpowered by base Jirobo, and as the section above shows, Jirobo is the weakest of the Sound Four. So Chōji’s statements are clearly inaccurate unless we assume that they apply to Butterfly Chōji.
Kiba shouldn’t scale to CS2 Sakon. Well, he actually should, but only with his Two-Headed Wolf technique, as he was able to slice Sakon in two while using it. Base Kiba was outmatched by a casual base Sakon, and should just scale above his Chūnin Exams self. So Kiba would be ‘At least 8-B, Low 7-C via Two-Headed Wolf.’
Shikamaru’s Shadow Possession Jutsu doesn’t scale to CS2 Tayuya, as she was able to break free from it. However, his Shadow-Neck Binding Jutsu (which is stated to be distinctly different), can scale to CS2 Tayuya for restraining her, albeit with difficulty.
Naruto should go back down to Low 7-C+ with Kyuubi chakra, for two reasons. One, he has rarely, if ever used as much of the Kyuubi’s chakra as he did against Haku. Two, Haku is pretty inconsistent and shouldn’t be scaled from at all (a note about this would be added to Naruto’s profile to explain). This would drop KN1 down to 7-C+. Naruto’s Rasengan should also be Low 7-C+, for clashing with Sasuke’s full power Chidori. Speaking of Sasuke, I’ll discuss him next.
Sasuke
Sasuke definitively scales above KN0 Naruto. Before anyone says that Naruto could harm CS1 and base Sasuke, this was while Sasuke was most likely holding back, as he stated after Naruto went KN0 that he would now fight him as an equal. Immediately after saying this, he knocked Naruto out of KN0 with two hits. Plus, even while Sasuke was holding back, he held the advantage for most of the fight. It only became a stalemate with the Rasengan-Chidori clash, which can be chalked up to the Rasengan just being stronger than Naruto’s base stats and Jiraiya stating that it was more powerful than the Chidori. Overall, base Sasuke is ‘At least Low 7-C+, 7-C with CS1, 7-C+ with CS2.”
Rock Lee
No, I’m not gonna advocate for Lee scaling to Kimimaro. In fact, I’m suggesting that a note should be added to explain why he doesn’t scale, which should be worded something like;
During the Sasuke Retrieval Arc, Lee is stated to be weaker than he was in the Chūnin Exams, which Gaara later reiterates even after he’s had surgery. As such, his feats against Kimimaro are considered to be outliers.
Kimimaro
Kimimaro should be baseline 7-C on the basis of being stronger than the Sound Four, and he implied that he could kill Tayuya. She appears to be visibly unsettled by this threat, which should give it some legitimacy. And of course, there’s his feats of one-shotting KN0 Naruto clones. All three of his keys would be 7-C, although CS2 would be 7-C+. He shouldn’t scale to Gaara’s 7-C calc, and even if he did, it wouldn’t change his rating.
The Sand Siblings
Temari keeps her current justifications, with the tiers themselves changing to ‘At least Low 7-C+, 7-C via Kiriki Mai.’ Kankurō’s tier with his puppets should change to Low 7-C+ for badly wounding CS2 Sakon, his physical stats would stay at ‘At least 8-B.’ Gaara’s AP stays the same, but his durability would get an extra rating via the Shield of Shukaku, since he was able to block an attack from CS2 Kimimaro and even break his bones.
Jōnin
I’ll admit, this could be saved for the Part II revisions, but the jōnin need to have the faulty 7-C calc/scaling from Chōji removed from their justifications. This would include Kurenai, Asuma, Might Guy, Anko, and Hanabi. And I won’t particularly push for this, but Kurenai, Anko and Hanabi shouldn’t even have their 8-B ratings and should just be 7-C imo.
Summary
This sandbox contains scans from the Retrieval Arc, and shows what the new profile stats would look like (apart from the jōnin changes).
