Naruto vs. Pain

Naruto vs Pain is one of the most beloved fights in the Naruto series. It was highly anticipated and held a lot of weight after Pain killed Jiraya (Narutos master) and destroyed the hidden leaf village. Naruto was going toe to toe with the strongest character we had seen so far.

Pain is pretty broken with many hax abilities. Just his gravitational powers that his rinnegan grants is enough, but add six linked bodies with shared eyesight and field of vision, overpowered summoning's, snatching souls from peoples bodies, absorbing chakra, repairing any damaged bodies, creating mechanical weapons from the asura paths body, bringing people back to life, etc. Oh yeah, he can also create a moon. He is the first rinnegan user introduced, and his large chakra reserves makes him an impossible opponent to use these abilities a lot.

Naruto, after learning that Jiraya was killed, vigoursly trained to learn sage mode, a technique that amplifies his physical and overall strength. Not even Jiraya mastered it, and lost to Pain using it. While away at training, Pain attacked the leaf village, single handedly beating everyone in the village in search for Naruto to capture the 9 tailed fox inside him. After blowing up the village when he concluded that Naruto was not there, Naruto showed up.

The fight starts with Naruto dominating, as he takes advantage of Pain recovering his powers after using a large scale Almighty Push to flatten the leaf. However, once Pain gets his power back, he quickly and easily pins Naruto the ground with a black rod. It looked like it was over, until Hinata, Naruto's friend (future wife) shows up to protect him. Pain brutally kills her. This sets Naruto off, and the 9 tails power is unleashed. Pain spars with the 9 tails controlled Naruto, while fleeing to get closer to his main body. Pain then creates a moon and traps the 9 tails in it. However, before Naruto is completely taken over, a protective seal set by the 4th hokage is activated and reset the 9 tails back into sealing. This sets Naruto free from the planetary devastation with full chakra and strength, and he finishes the fight with a classic rasengan.

Although Naruto won the fight in the end, Pain was stronger, and everything went into Naruto's favor. There definitely was some plot armor in play as well. First, Pain started the fight fatigued from the attack on the leaf, which allowed Naruto to destroy a few of the bodies. It was shown once Tendo pain got his abilities, he has a clear advantage. Naruto also had a lot of intel on Pain and a lot of help from the two sage toads that were there to help Jiraya's fight with Pain. They knew a lot about Pain going into the fight, and Pain knew pretty much nothing about Naruto. Then, Naruto got "saved" by Hinata. She did not directly save him, but her death unleashed the 9 tails and allowed him to escape Pains capture. Pain does a pretty good job against the 9 tails. Considering he got hammered into the ground and flung into mountains and stuff, he still managed to survive and manage the strength to create a planetary devastation and trap it in there. Another detail about the fight is that Nagato, the main "Pain", the one who controls the Pains, was sick and very weak himself. This could be seen from his brittle body shown and him coughing up blood throughout the fight. He also did not have an intent to kill, just capture Naruto. This limits what Pain can do and how he can attack. Lastly, probably the most plot armor part of Naruto, was the seal just so conveniently being fixed by a protection seal by the 4th hokage. By that point and Naruto coming back with full strength and everything, Pain was just too fatigued.

Pain really won two out of the three rounds. The first round was the initial fighting with Naruto and the toads, which he won. The second round being against the 9 tails, which he would have won if Naruto did not get a reset. The third and most crucial round however, he lost. Naruto showed great growth during this fight, meeting his father, and learning about the pains of the shinobi world from Nagato and choosing peace instead of violence. Pain gives one of the most iconic speeches to Naruto during this fight. This fight was a 9.5/10 for me. The only issue being all the second and third chances Naruto gets makes it seem a little cheesy.

With that being said, the Pain arc is the peak of Naruto Shippuden for me, and has great pacing, plot, fights, and emotional distress.