About to jump into this discussion, sorry I'm a bit late.
Firstly - what's this about Hiruzen getting blitzed? The starting distance is 60 meters, I thought that was a good enough distance to prevent blitzing. Hiruzen is by no means getting stomped by Gai, imo. He has ways to protect himself from Gai's powerful attacks, for example the
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.
Hiruzen and Enma as a tag team is deadly and effective against Gai, since Enma in pole form is durable enough to withstand most of Gai's punches and kicks, with possible exception of Hirudora. Should Hiruzen and Gai come into a
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(with Gai using nunchuks) Enma can
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Second, what's stopping Danzo from using
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? Yes, it kills Danzo in the process but that doesn't matter since he has izanagi, and will just rewrite history so he takes no damage. Since the Enma pole can extend at will , Hiruzen will escape the AoE of the blast by "pole vaulting" himself out of the way. A combo of Danzo and Hiruzen is for Danzo to begin to use his suicide technique, and Hiruzen using the Enma pole to push Danzo at the opponent so Danzo is at point-blank range and either Gai or Kakashi will certainly be caught in the blast. Enma can also push Baku at the opponent or into an advantageous position so that Kakashi and Gai get sucked in.
Hiruzen and Danzo have another combo attack that could very well be useful in this battle. Danzo uses his shunshin
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to quickly get close to an opponent and lock them in close combat (Danzo is deadly in close combat with his speed, sharingan precog, and can use kenjutsu with his fuuton chakra blade). This achieves two things: it distracts the opponent and prevents them from weaving hand seals since they are locked in close combat with Danzo (though this second one only applies to Kakashi since Gai doesn't use hand seals.) While they are distracted, Hiruzen wipes both Danzo and his opponent out with a large-scale elemental attack, maybe a fire or a lightning one. Danzo will simply respawn due to izanagi, whereas Gai or Kakashi will die for real.
Hiruzen and Danzo naturally have the advantage in this battle since they have their individual powerful summons which can be used as distractions or in combo attacks, increasing the number of teammates. I personally would give it to them high difficulty.
Exactly why I have that restriction in the first place. Don't want Danzo to neg them or else this matchup isn't debatable. Same reason KA is restricted. Whoops, just saw that I didn't restrict Reaper Death Seal. Otherwise Hiruzen sacrifices himself to kill Gai and then Danzo stomps Kakashi. Better edit that.
@EjBlack, Kakashi somehow spat out a suiton in that scan despite wearing a mask over his mouth...dat Kishi logic...