Minato spreads some Kunai
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, and tags Itachi and gives him 5 Hiraishin Kunai to start things off.
Countering Nagato's basic moveset.
Nagato's moveset is pretty much just the Rinnegan techniques, at least the only parts of his moveset that actually matter. And they are easily countered by a combination of a healthy Itachi and Minato.
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Asura Path's explosives and lasers are useless since not only will Minato effortlessly evade them via Hiraishin, if they get too large for him to simply dodge, S/T Barrier would suck it up. Or Itachi just summons Susanoo and tanks it. If Minato is ever in a position where this attack or any other attack would strike him and Itachi isn't close enough, he'd just teleport right to Itachi,
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(which is possible if the user wills it, to receive protection from the incoming attack.
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Preta Path is only useful against Itachi since Itachi's main force of offense is a giant manifestation of chakra. But if Nagato tries to absorb Susanoo, he'll have to be still during that time. That allows Minato to easily teleport to him via Hiraishin and cut him down with a Kunai blitz since Itachi carries Minato's marking and his Kunai from the start. If Nagato isn't close enough to Itachi, which is unlikely given that Itachi's Susanoo isn't too large, Itachi just tosses the Kunai at him and Minato strikes. If he uses ST, they rinse and repeat during the 5 second cooldown. Using Preta Path as a counter for their offensive attacks isn't going to help much since Nagato is going to die to a Kunai, not any chakra based attack.
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Naraka Path is only useful for healing, but if either get the opportunity to strike Nagato, he'll die then and there, so this path is useless.
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Human Path is useless for obvious reasons and I hope I don't have to counter it.
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Animal Path was already made useless in canon by
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Offensively they become useless since they can't damage Susanoo nor can they take it's attacks, nor can they fight while blinded by Itachi's Kunai.
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Deva Path is the main and only major issue here.
-Bansho Tennin is completely useless due to Susanoo. Even if Nagato reels them in, Susanoo protects them from any immediate follow up attack, or Minato can just teleport away from Nagato along with Itachi. Kakashi
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, so either Itachi or Minato would toss a Kunai at Nagato and then Minato would blitz during the cooldown. If Itachi were to do it, he'd be able to direct the weapons into Nagato's blindspot like he did in canon as stated above by Kabuto, thus allowing Minato to blitz before Nagato can do anything about the Kunai.
-Shinra Tensei at it's basic level isn't helping much here either. Susanoo would tank all basic versions of Shinra Tensei with little damage, and if Itachi has a V3 or V4 up, Yata Mirror would reflect it and just put Nagato on his arse allowing Minato to finish him off with a Hiraishin blitz. If Minato himself gets hit, he simply teleports to Itachi, who will be inside Susanoo. Thus he never hits the ground, meaning he never takes any serious damage. It's best usage is to deflect Hiraishin Kunai and deflect Minato if he tries a blitz, but:
1. Obito couldn't react to Minato's blitz in canon. Nagato doesn't have the feats to let him react to a Hiraishin blitz either.
2. Even if he reacted and deflected Minato, Minato would teleport to Itachi, not take damage and then they'd strike again during his cooldown. The same thing happens if he wastes Shinra Tensei to deflect Kunai.
Countering Nagato's trump cards.
Chibaku Tensei and Chou Shinra Tensei are Nagato's trump cards, and unfortunately for him they are both completely useless here.
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Chou Shinra Tensei's counter is rather simple. Minato takes Itachi and teleports away before the force can flatten them. Either Minato goes out of his way to set a marking far away enough at the beginning of the battle,
or he uses one of the markings he's placed around NV to escape. Once he comes back, they obliterate Nagato during the long cooldown.
The thing is, if Nagato makes it a single direction attack to increase the focus, thus the power. Minato only needs to use one of the
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of the battle to dodge it. If he wants to make sure Minato can't escape no matter what, and uses it widespread, Itachi's Susanoo would tank it just like the far inferior Katsuyu and Tsunade did, and even reflect the force that hits them via Yata Mirror. At that moment Nagato dies.
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Chibaku Tensei's counter is just as simple. Minato places a marking out of range from the beginning of the fight, and then once him and Itachi get sucked into the orb, Itachi keeps Susanoo up to prevent them from being crushed and then they teleport outside.
Finishing Nagato
Eventually Nagato dies to a Hiraishin blitz during his cooldown since ST will be frequently used here, or he dies after the usage of CT or CST, which will leave him vulnerable for a counter attack due to him not possessing Deva's powers. Alternatively Minato can use the help of a clone to teleport his clone and a marked Itachi (?) to Nagato. Itachi gets teleported right into Nagato's face, and when Nagato uses Shinra Tensei to deflect and destroy Minato's clone and Itachi, what's revealed to be Itachi's crow clone explodes into crows like
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, with one of them still carrying the marking, allowing Minato to either teleport the real Itachi to land a mind crushing Tsukuyomi, or teleport there himself to land a Kunai strike to the neck.
Minato and Itachi win with no more than mid difficulty.
