Ghost in the Shell
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Outline: In this thread, I'll be doing an in depth ability analysis into one of my more favorite characters and someone who tends to get overlooked even now. By portrayal and feats, Darui is one of the strongest of Kumogakure, the Shinobi Alliance, and was lauded by the Fourth Raikage himself to be his right hand man. Although he doesn't have many feats and his arsenal is somewhat limited, what he did show was actually impressive and deserving to be chosen as one of the top captains in the SA. I'd say that he is much like Kakashi; intelligent, calm, fast, versatile, and formidable. Now, on for the analysis. I'll start by outlining his physical stats.
Speed:
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I think that some people have been confused a lot by the scan where Darui seemingly shunshin'd as fast as V1 Ay [
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]. Let me clear up that misconception right now; Darui is not as fast as V1 Ay nor was Ay even going full speed in that scan. However, that feat was still midly impressive considering that managing to keep up even with at least half of V1 Ay's full speed still puts him up there in speed. Take note of Sasuke's surprise in that scan as well (the exclamation point). Darui also managed to shunshin back to Shee's position and intercept Suigetsu before he could complete his sword slash [
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], even though Suigetsu shunshined there first. Take note of the exclamation points here as well; Suigetsu was also very surprised by Darui's sudden appearance. Pay close attention to this next point.
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we see Darui and Suigetsu in front of each other after Ay Liger Bombed Sasuke into the ground. In the next page, we see that Darui then
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(bottom right panel) after he was temporarily knocked out by genjutsu. Shee was this far away from Darui and Suigetsu's position [
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]. Before Darui shunshined over Shee, he
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(bottom center panel) with his lightning enhanced cleaver sword and left him stuck to a pillar closeby. He did this all in mere moments while Ay used Liger Bomb on Sasuke and the latter activated his MS and Susano'o. During his fight with Kinkaku and Ginkaku, he managed to fire off a large scale attack then
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one of the brothers in a very short amount of time. He was originally
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from the brothers before he threw his sword at them and fired off a large scale Ranton,
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. Considering his feats, I would conclude that Darui is at least slightly slower or perhaps even on par with War Arc Kakashi in footspeed and shunshin speed.
Reactions:
Along with reacting to Suigetsu's shunshin and sword slash rather easily, Darui has also shown to be able to react to quick attacks at short range. He reacted to Ginkaku swinging the Bashousen while Atsui was caught in the fire and Samui, who wasn't even in front of the attack, narrowly escaped [
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]-[
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]. He reacted to Ginkaku's sword blitz and actually nailed the latter with his own cleaver sword before the brother could complete his sword slash [
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]-[
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]. While partially exhausted, he reacted to V2 Kyuubi Kinkaku's chakra tail being hurled at him [
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]. He also displayed good reflexes and evasive skills
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in a kenjutsu fight.Being a kenjutsu specialist with great speed, Darui has the hand-eye coordination, reflexes, and reactions to match.
Strength:
Strength always plays a part in a blunt weapon clash, and
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, Darui managed to match Kinkaku's sword swing while not focusing fully on that clash and concerned for Samui's safety. He also managed to
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just by swinging his cleaver sword. He landed on top of his brother about 10 meters away from Darui [
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]. Kinkaku did have a weak Edo body but the fact that he was able to send him hurdling just by swinging his sword was still a very impressive feat considering the amount of force he generated to be able to push back someone as large as Kinkaku a good distance away.Chakra reserves:
Darui has immense chakra reserves. During his fight with Kinkaku and Ginkaku, he used a
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, two rantons including a large scale one [
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]-[
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], and
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two of the tools of the Sage of the Six Paths for a considerable amount of time while using them to seal Ginkaku away. Note that the tools drain a considerable amount of chakra just by holding them, and actually using them is a different story. For good measure, he held the tools from
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, then sealed Ginkaku away [
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], dropped them a little over a full chapter later [
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], then used another Sage tool, the Kohaku no Jouhei, to
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. Even after all of this, he still had enough chakra to keep on fighting. CQC/Kenjutu/Bukijutsu skills:
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As I already scanned and outlined above, Darui matched Suigetsu in a kenjutsu fight for several sword clashes before overpowering him and pinning him to one of the pillars of the Gokage’s conference building. Suigetsu was hyped up by Kisame as a
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. He was also able to react to Darui’s shunshin and striking speed and Bee's
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on Sasuke, so he is clearly a skilled swordsman with good reactions of his own. Darui was also able to tussle with Kinkaku for a while and actually managed to disarm the latter using his strength, as I outlined above as well. For enhanced piercing capabilities, Darui can imbue ninja weapons with lightning chakra. His lightning chakra is powerful enough to
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; the very same sword matched the Kubikiribocho for a couple of sword clashes. As long as he has his cleaver sword and ninja tools available to him, he will always be a formidable opponent in close quarters combat, especially when we take his speed and reactions into account.Ninjutsu:
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Lightning Release: Black Panther
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This is Darui's trademark technique as well as his strongest. Unfortunately, Kishi decided to say absolutely nothing in regards to the way Black Lightning works and why it looks the way it does (or at least to my knowledge). What we know of this technique comes from the current databook translation as well as what we saw in the manga. Also, I couldn't even find a damn databook translation of the technique. The user "Turrin" from Naruto Forums inexplicably just said that he didn't see anything about the way black lightning works without even providing the translation. If somebody could find it for me (if it is indeed out there), that'd be great. Until then, we still don't know the difference between regular raiton and black lightning.
Anyways, I say that it his strongest technique because it is probably the first lightning technique we've seen in the manga that contains enough electricity incorporated within the technique to literally kill you by electrocution or at the very least incapacitate. If we look at when it was used, it had a wide enough range when amplified by water to take out a crowd of White Zetsu [
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]. Surely it'd be GG for most shinobi without any type of special durability, chakra absorption abilities, or the lightning release affinity who get hit head on by this attack.Storm Release: Laser Circus
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This technique is Darui's quickest and
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attack. He combines lightning and water chakra to emit multiple energy rays. The traveling speed of the beams is very fast as noted by Ginkaku [
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], and the trajectory of the beams can be manipulated by Darui himself; it is a guided attack. He can also
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to increase its lethality and AoE. A full powered Laser Circus was enough to knock down Kinkaku for enough time to give Darui a chance to seal Ginkaku. A full power variaton of this technique would most likely deal a significant amount of damage to a regular shinobi while a normal varition is better used for pinning the opponent down.Water Release: Water Wall/Lightning Release: Wave of Inspiration
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Darui can form a standard water wall without a water source, and flow his own lightning chakra through it to create a combination that hadn't been seen before up until that part of the manga [
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]. Darui can also use his Lightning Release wave as a standalone technique; the way it works makes it similar to Sasuke's Chidori Nagashi when used like
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. He can also flow black lightning through his water wall as well, considering that it only takes one hand seal. These techniques make him an even more formidable opponent in CQC. His lightning wave can render opponents paralyzed or can be used as a decent distraction to provide an opening for a blitz. Obviously, water techniques amplify the lethality of lightning techniques as well.Just how strong is Darui?
Darui is a shinobi who hasn't displayed much, but what he has displayed has been impressive, and he does what he can do extremely well. I'd say that Darui is a low kage level shinobi taking into account his CQC prowess, his speed, reactions, the lethality of Raiton: Kuropansa (Black Panther), and the versatility of Laser Circus. He also has some decent support techniques as I outlined in the ninjutsu section of this thread. I wish that Kishi expanded a bit more on his Ranton, revealed what is so special about black lightning, and/or gave him another decent or better water technique to work with for debates. However, Darui is a strong shinobi, and I could make arguments for him beating the likes of Sasori and Deidara provided that he has full intel.
