Boomstick: Obito Uchiha, secret leader of the Akatsuki.
Wiz: Prime examples of how you could die a hero, or live long enough to become a villain.
DEATH BATTLE Season 10 continues with a truly somber duel to the death, as the Sith Lord returns to take on the renegade shinobi. Beneath their masks lies the remains of a once idealistic hero, haunted by regrets and corrupted by hate who see no other way forward but darkness and servitude. While the Dark Side and the Curse of Hatred have taken them this far, only one of these fallen messiahs has the force necessary to continue down their path in a death battle.
[This recap is a work in progress]
In the Land of Lightning, Obito stands alone on a beach at night. Suddenly, he hears the robotic voice of Darth Vader descending in his TIE Advanced x1 telling him that he senses Obito's fear and anger as well as a power that he wishes to take from him. Obito replies, in Madara's voice, that the power that Vader is looking to claim will save the world that he lives in and that he'll have to kill him before he can take it. Vader jumps off his TIE Advanced and activates his lightsaber with the accompanying statement that Obito will die.
FIGHT!
Obito rushes towards Darth Vader in an attempt to kick him, only for Vader to catch him mid-attack using the force. Puzzled by this, Obito tries to punch Vader a few more times, only to be pushed away every time. Vader then impales Obito as he tries to maneuver around him before remarking how easy this fight was and that he expected more, but Obito laughs and looks Vader in the face before telling him that he won't disappoint him and then sinking into the ground.
Vader searches for Obito, only to be knocked backwards by Obito's gunbai. Vader retaliates by throwing his lightsaber at him through the cloud of dust that he was engulfed in. Obito tries to deflect the lightsaber using his gunbai, but it ends up slicing through his weapon, prompting Obito to turn intangible again. The Lightsaber phases harmlessly through him before returning to Vader's hand.
As Vader advances on Obito, he uses the force to lift him into the air before pushing him backwards. Obito sends out some black receivers towards Vader who parries the weapons away at the cost of having to drop Obito onto the ground. Obito performs a jutsu technique that causes the Uchiha Flame Formation to emerge from the ground and engulf Vader. Suddenly, Obito is pulled towards Vader who grabs his mask and crushes it in his hand.
Vader is shocked to see the face of Padme underneath the mask. Taking advantage of Vader's distraction, the now maskless Obito activates his Kamui, only for Vader to crush it using the force. As Obito reels in pain, Vader leaps backwards, thus angering Obito who punches Vader from multiple directions, resulting in one of his eyes being uncovered. Vader then realizes that Obito is coming up behind him and impales him on his lightsaber.
Both fighters use their powers of gravity to cause a shockwave that pushes them away from each other. Obito notices that the shockwave has exposed Vader's robotic leg, making him realize that, just like him, Vader has lost his humanity. As Vader states that the loss of one's humanity is inevitable on the Dark Side, Obito performs the Summoning Jutsu to call forth the visage of the Ten-Tails.
The Ten-Tails charges up a Tailed-Beast Bomb and fires it, only for the impressed Vader to catch it and use the force to contain the explosion, all while the God Tree rises from the ground. Once the explosion has subsided, Obito emerges from the smoke in his Ten-Tails Jinchūriki form, with one of his Truth-Seeking Orbs transforming into a staff.
Obito rushes towards Vader and the 2 clash their weapons against each other's. Obito then backs up and then charges again while launching his Truth-Seeking Orbs at Vader who manages to deflect most of them, but one of them flies behind him before reversing course back towards him. Vader tries to use the Force to redirect the orb, but it flies into his hand and disintegrates it, allowing Obito to strike Vader's mask with his staff.
Vader is knocked backwards by the blow, but manages to skid to a halt. With his mask destroyed, Vader uses the Force to sense Obito's next move and throw him into the God Tree before using the force to make his TIE Advanced x1 fire on it. He then uses the Force to bring Obito back into his grasp, telling him to accept the gift and die. Unfortunately, Obito says that it is too late.
The God Tree finally blooms to reveal the Rinne Sharingan inside it. As it reflects off the moon, Vader's eyes widen as his mind soon becomes caught in the Infinite Tsukuyomi. In his vision, Vader finds himself standing in the Jedi Temple as Anakin Skywalker before he became Darth Vader. His wife, Padme, is standing before him. As Anakin lovingly reaches out towards Padme's face, Obito ascends to prepare his final attack: The Sword of Nunoboko.
In the Infinite Tsukuyomi, Padme leans towards Vader's hand and tells him, in Obito's voice, that he is liberated from Hell. As he prepares his final strike, Obito tells Vader to find peace in the next life before swinging his enormous weapon towards Vader who just stands there with a look of tranquility. As soon as the Sword of Nunoboko makes contact with Vader, the Dark Lord of the Sith is disintegrated into a pile of ashes. Looking at the resulting blaze, Obito flies away.
KO!
With the duel finished, the hosts note that it was a fairly complex matchup. While Vader and Obito were both roughly even in power and speed, it ultimately came down to their skills and their arsenals, from which they both had similar tricks for fighting each other such as fending off mental attacks, moving things around with their minds and instantly killing each other. While Vader could simply use the Force to crush Obito's body, Obito could just as easily rip out Vader's soul. Unfortunately for Vader, Obito had more options available to him, which gave him just enough of an edge to emerge victorious.
To begin with, Obito's Kamui made him very hard to injure. On top of that, his Jinchūriki state could allow him to regenerate half of his body if it got destroyed, something the Dark Side, while allowing Vader to survive extreme conditions, cannot do. Obito also had a wider array of options with his various jutsus that he could use to overwhelm Vader. While Chakra may normally be a limited source of energy unlike the Force, which would have been an advantage in Vader's favor, Obito had an unlimited supply of Chakra thanks to the Ten Tails, which allowed him to fight on indefinitely due to Chakra being both physical and spiritual energy.
Finally, Vader's preferred method of using his lightsaber to fight his enemies forced him to be up close and personal to Obito which left him vulnerable to being destroyed by one of the Truth-Seeking Orbs or, even worse for Vader, sucked into the Kamui Dimension, from which Vader has no chance to escape or even use the Force.
Wiz: The winner is Obito Uchiha!
"Darth Vader VS Obito Uchiha" contains examples of:
- Ambiguous Situation: The cover art for this battle's soundtrack
shows Obito and Anakin's hands near Obito's goggles and Anakin's blue lightsaber, items that represent their formerly heroic natures. The hands could be read as casting them away in favor of the dark side or reaching out to them on the path to redemption. - A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: The primary connection of the episode.
- Back for the Dead: Though Vader puts up a better fight here than he did against Doctor Doom back in Season 2, it still isn't enough for him to take the win.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Death Battle ends with Obito killing Vader while the latter is trapped in the Infinite Tsukiyomi, though Vader dies while "reunited" with Padme. Even Obito considers it a Mercy Kill.
- Call-Back:
- Taking a page out of his former mentor's fight with his opponent's former teammate, Vader uses the Force to crush Obito's Sharingan eye. Unlike last time, this doesn't stick.
- The first pun of the post-fight analysis is an inversion of the first post-analysis pun of Obi-Wan VS Kakashi, referring to Obi-Wan as Obi-One and Obito as Obi-Two.note
- Darker and Edgier: To Obi-Wan vs. Kakashi, for obvious reasons. The previous Star Wars vs. Naruto fight was chock full of memey humor and only had one brief moment where it turned dead serious, fittingly involving an illusion of Darth Vader himself, but this battle between tragic villains is played entirely straight with a dark, dramatic atmosphere and no moments of levity involved, and it even ends on a bittersweet note, which is a rarity for a Death Battle. Ironically, the ending of this fight is less explicitly gory than that of Obi-Wan vs. Kakashi.
- Flesh Versus Steel: Obito is the flesh, being the more outwardly emotional combatant whose broken body has been replaced with vegetation. Vader is the steel, being the more cold-blooded combatant whose broken body has been replaced with machinery.
- Let Them Die Happy: After realizing what Vader's been through, the killing blow involves Obito casting the Infinite Tsukuyomi, letting Vader's last vision be of becoming Anakin again, and being able to caress his Lost Lenore Padme's face as she tells him the worst has passed.
- Mythology Gag:
- Two to the second half of Star Wars Rebels' second season finale: Vader arrives on the scene via riding atop his TIE Fighter, then tells Obito "Then you will die." when the latter refuses to surrender his power, echoing what he told Ahsoka during their climactic duel.
- Just like how Obito imitated Madara's voice in canon while disguised as him, Nicholas Andrew Louie reprises the voice he used for Madara during his fight with Aizen before Vader destroys Obito's mask.
- "Not So Different" Remark: After getting a good look at Vader's cybernetics, Obito realizes just how similar he and the Sith Lord are before noting that they've both lost their humanity.
- Shout-Out: Wiz's opening narration states how both combatants are examples of how one can die a hero or live long enough to become a villain.
- Spiritual Antithesis: Again, to Obi-Wan vs. Kakashi, to list the differences:
- In Obi-Wan vs. Kakashi, the fight was started by Kakashi after Obi-Wan tried to send him away with the Jedi Mind Trick. Here, Obito states that Vader would have to kill him if he wants Obito's power, which the Sith accepts.
- In Obi-Wan vs. Kakashi, Kakashi gets his Sharingan crushed near the end of the fight before the killing blow. Here, Obito gets his crushed at the beginning and keeps going.
- In Obi-Wan vs. Kakashi, Obi-Wan finishes Kakashi off with his lightsaber by slicing him in half. Here, Obito gets impaled by Vader's own and survives.
- In Obi-Wan vs. Kakashi, Kakashi is impressed by Obi-Wan's use of the Force before using his Sharingan to level the playing field. Here, Vader is impressed by the Ten-Tails' power before catching and nullifying its Tailed Beast Bomb with the Force.
- In Obi-Wan vs. Kakashi, Kakashi hits Obi-Wan with a Genjutsu that shows him Vader before the Jedi just manages to break free of. Here, Obito hits Vader with the Infinite Tsukuyomi which shows him as Anakin reunited with Padme that he fails to escape before Obito finishes him off.
- Even Boomstick's start-of-results joke is reversed.
Boomstick in Obi-Wan vs. Kakashi: Kakashi may have been able to defeat Obi-Two but he just couldn't handle Obi-One.
Boomstick in Darth Vader vs. Obito: Welp, Vader may have been able to beat Obi-One, but he just couldn't handle Obi-Two. - Victory by Endurance: Thanks to being able to either turn intangible or regenerate from half his body being vaporized depending on his form, Obito could outlast Vader in the survivability department, since the Sith Lord lacked means to counter or match these areas.
- Wrecked Weapon: The first clash of weapons between Vader's lightsaber and Obito's gunbai results in the war fan being easily bisected. Obito is more annoyed by the loss than anything else, though.
