Healthy Nagato beats Healthy Itachi
But considering that he was so nerfed when they were alive, I actually consider these two characters to be equal in a sense, it just looked like Kishimoto was trying to portray that.
-He had to shinra tensei amaterasu and it did hurt him. But then again Kabuto was controlling him at the time, so Nagato can definitely handle it.
-Neither Yata nor Totsuka can be absorbed, considering that they are spiritual entities not made of chakra. Only susanno can be absorbed, but we also know that these weapons don't even have to be attached to susanno to be used, hence why Orochimaru desired them for himself. Kabuto also knew this, that's why he didn't bother having Nagato absorb Totsuka when it pierced him. It would do nothing.
-No. Nagato is still susceptible to Izanami (he thought he was a god), Kotoamatsukami, and Tsukiyomi, all of which are more potent than frog song. The claim that rinnegan is immuned to any genjutsu from sharingan users is completely baseless. In fact, having a higher dojoutsu does not make you immuned to genjutsu from lower dojutsu, this was even proven by Zetsu when he stated that Sasuke (3-tomoe) would have a slim chance at genjutsuing Itachi (Mangekyo sharingan). Those 3 genjutsu are harming Nagato if Itachi manages to pull them off.
-It doesn't matter if the animal summons' turn invisible, considering that Itachi has the sharingan and can see chakra. Nagato is crippled which is a huge disadvantage, the animal summons' are not very fast and Itachi even blinded all of them using a simple shuriken jutsu.
-Shukaku Nara also stated that Itachi is the only shinobi capable of manipulating people w/ genjutsu out of a sensor's range, which renders the fact that Nagato is a sensor useless.
-Apparently he cannot just bansho tenin Itachi's eyes out, considering that Kabuto didn't have Nagato do this back when they were Edos.
-Shinra tensei and the rest of Nagato's attacks also have a time limit which is 5 minutes. If he uses a large scale attack he's vulnerable for that amount of time. Also, Itachi can deflect all of Nagato's attacks with Yata Mirror, so why would you even state this?
-Yata Mirror>Asura rockets and laser beams
Nagato stated that someone who is in the top 20 like Jiraiya would have defeated him if he knew his secret. Why? Because Nagato is in no condition to fight by himself when he was alive. At the Leaf, Konan had to be his bodyguard and that is why the paths do the work for him. He is crippled and can hardly move due to the strain the rinnegan put on his body. If Jiraiya knew his secret, when he held up the paths with that Frog Song genjutsu, he would have gone directly to where the real Nagato was and easily killed him. Also, the paths have shared vision, so if Itachi used Tsukiyomi, Kotoamatsukami, or Izanami on them, wouldn't they all be affected? lol. Itachi even knew Nagato's secret and would defeat Nagato w/ that intel.
Alive Itachi and Alive Nagato as we saw them were equal according to Kishi's portrayal(Nagato was seriously nerfed. Couldn't even fight on his own and had to use the paths. In a fight though, Itachi has a good chance of winning due to knowing his secret, but it could go either way. Nagato said that Jiraiya would have won if he knew his secret so I would give this to Itachi, extremely high diff)
Edo Itachi>Edo Nagato because Edo Nagato has no sealing techs for Edo Tenseis
Healthy Alive Nagato>>>>Healthy Alive Itachi for very obvious reasons.
