By cocacolaman 4 Comments
Salamander
It's no secret that Natsu Dragneel has grown immensely since the beginning of the series. Where he once needed help to defeat the Books of Zeref he now kills Dragon Gods on his own. But how much exactly has he grown? Well, it's easiest to separate it by the three timeskips of the series, which are his most notable periods of growth, though it should be noted that even between timeskips he trains every day to grow stronger.
A great example of this is Natsu's two fights with Erigor. Erigor was once the main antagonist of a whole arc, and Natsu struggled notably with taking him down. Yet in the Oracion Seis arc, when Natsu and Erigor fought again, Natsu defeated him without nearly as much struggle.
Sadly the video I used to have of the rematch is deleted and I can't find it elsewhere, but the fight takes place in episode 55 of the anime, which is canon to the series. If you need other examples of this, you can see Natsu's fights with the Twin Dragons and the Dark Dragon Slayer Knight, Suzaku.
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- Sting takes on Natsu and Gajeel at the same time in Chapter 295 and holds superiority over them but in Chapter 296 Natsu takes on both Sting and Rogue at the same time
- Suzaku one shots Natsu with a blitz in Chapter 80 of the sequel without any effort at all but in Chapter 100 his strongest attack can be reacted to and defended against by Natsu.
Now let us look at how Natsu grew across the timeskips.
The Seven Year Timeskip: Second Origin
Natsu's growth for the Seven Year Timeskip comes in the form of unlocking his Second Origin. When Natsu returns, the seven years that have passed left Natsu completely and totally irrelevant in the power scale; it's stated that only the stronger S Class Wizards like Laxus and Gildarts are still notably powerful. This is seen as Natsu, who used to be the top contender for S Class Wizard, is no longer capable of defeating the likes of Max:
This is notable because Fairy Tail, over the seven years of Team Tenrou's absence, became one of the weakest guilds in the nation, as is made painfully obvious by a reading of Chapter 254 of the original series. The guild can't even hope to compete in the Grand Magic Games, which is to decide who the strongest guild in the nation is. Wanting the guild's reputation to come back up, they try to train, but due to some Celestial Spirit idiocy the team can't train at all. So they have to resort to the alternative of Second Origin.
Second Origin is explained a bit weirdly, not as a power up. Ultear says that each wizard has a limit on how much magic they can store in their "vessel" at a time. But there's a totally separate "vessel" from the main one, the Second Origin. Ultear's Arc of Time can make that vessel develop faster, which allows a wizard to use magic longer or use stronger magics.
Of course this is all just a very complicated way of saying what it practically is: A power-up. Once Natsu gets his Second Origin unlocked, we see how Natsu does in the Grand Magic Games. Dobengal, one of the strongest wizards in Sabertooth (which itself is one of the strongest guilds in Fiore) who should be vastly stronger than Max, was treated like a child by Natsu (Chapter 283).
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It's only about ten chapters later that Natsu shows his absolute superiority over the Twin Dragons, who even in their Base forms are stronger than Dobengal.
Conclusion
Natsu after unlocking his Second Origin was able to effortlessly defeat Dobengal. Though he seemed weak, Dobengal was one of the strongest wizards in one of the strongest guilds in the nation. Max, a wizard in one of the weakest guilds in the nation, was superior to Natsu before he unlocked his Second Origin. Based on the evidence at hand, it seems that Natsu grew several times stronger, without many hard numbers to see.
During the One Year Timeskip
This doesn't do an awful lot in proving how much Natsu grew between the Tartaros and Avatar arcs but I think it's fun to include as a whole, since the whole point of the scene is to prove Natsu's growth. (Chapter 417)
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When Natsu and Gildarts fought, Natsu hit Gildarts so hard he sent him skidding across the floor several meters, which is a direct, massive improvement over the Tenrou Island Arc where Natsu needed his Secret Art to make Gildarts (presumably having grown stronger) move a notably smaller distance back in the same way. Since Natsu was in training at this point and the point of reference happened before the first timeskip it's impractical for determining specifics but it's good in the grand scheme of things.
The One Year Timeskip: Training For Zeref
After the events of Tartaros, where Igneel died at the hands of Acnologia, Natsu trained for a year to grow much stronger. One could possibly argue that the growth Natsu faced across this year of training was even greater the amplification he got from unlocking his Second Origin. When Natsu returned, he used little effort to begin to melt the entire Grand Magic Games stadium, Domus Flau, which previously supported an entire fight between Natsu and others.
The true growth we see Natsu have, however, is when we see Natsu fight the Spriggan 12. The Spriggan 12 are the elite guard of Zeref, each and every one of whom are stronger than any previous villains, including Mard Geer. Neinhart, one of the weaker Spriggans, found himself fortunate enough to be enchanted by Irene Belserion, the strongest female, into being vastly stronger, so much so that Brandish couldn't even use her magic effectively on him. In response, Natsu took him out with ease:
Solidly placing Natsu within the upper ranks of the Spriggan. This is consistent with Natsu being able to hurt Ajeel at an earlier point to a far lesser extent (which just provides consistency for how Natsu grows even when there's no timeskip,) and match Zeref in a fight to an extent, Zeref scaling vastly above anything the Spriggan 12 could offer.
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- Natsu hurting Ajeel (Chapter 447)
- Natsu fighting with Zeref (Chapter 529)
Now since Natsu is capable of taking out an amplified Spriggan with a single hit, that means that Natsu could do the same with other Spriggan. And the Spriggan, being superior to all previous threats, should logically be tougher than Mard Geer, who in the Tartaros arc was able to tank, among many other previous things, a beating from Natsu in his Dragon Force. (Chapter 411)
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As I will detail in the latter portion of this blog, Natsu's Dragon Force by this point should far surpass a mere 3x amplification of power. If this is true, then the difference in strength between Natsu before and after his one year of training vastly surpasses a 3x multiplier.
Conclusion
Natsu after a year of training was strong enough to take out Spriggan with single shots. The Spriggan should be way tougher than Mard Geer was. Mard Geer was able to tank a beating from Natsu in Dragon Force, which is over 3x stronger than his Base form. Thus, the training Natsu got that year made him well over 3x stronger than he used to be.
The Third Timeskip: The 100 Year Quest
Natsu in the sequel series has not been given as much attention on the growth he obtained. In fact, Natsu rarely uses his Base form to fight in this sequel, and there's not much connection between the original series and sequel in power levels. As such, I admit that the little we have to go off of for Natsu's growth is not as concrete as what we saw in the previous sections, and some of the assertions I'll make here will be a bit more controversial, but I think that my assertions will be consistent and accurate for the most part anyway.
There is one very notable connection between the two series: The Dragon Gods and Acnologia.
Now there's a couple of ways to interpret this and it's been a controversial topic but I personally believe that this statement, along with other statements we've gotten, means that the Dragon Gods are on the same general level, which is at least equal to the level Acnologia stood at prior to eating the Ravines of Time. This is very consistent given that Selene and Ignia have both performed feats on or above the level that Acnologia would operate on based on what we knew beforehand. Acnologia was on a separate tier of power from everything else we saw in the Alvarez arc, so any scaling to the Dragon Gods period is incredibly.
In the first arc of the sequel, Natsu fought with Mercuphobia, the Water Dragon God, and tanked a direct attack from him. (Chapter 19)
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Let's be clear here. Mercuphobia was not at his best, at all. Faris drained Mercuphobia of his magic power, which left him so weak that Mercuphobia implied that his general power in that state was inferior to Selene's, despite her being in her Human form, which is vastly weaker than the Dragon form, and not even using her full power in that form in the first place. (Chapter 82) Further than this, Mercuphobia wasn't even going all in, as Ignia stated that he wasn't even using half effort in the fight anyway. (Chapter 20)
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I understand that one would wonder how this is even relevant, then, if the power that Mercuphobia held wasn't even close to the full power of Acnologia. Certainly Natsu just tanking a hit from him can't be solidly proven to be more impressive than what he's previously done? But it's the consistency it adds for what I'm about to show, and what I showed far earlier, that makes it worth mentioning.
I have already shown all of the following:
- Confirmation that the Dragon Gods are equal to or better than Acnologia
- Natsu tanking a hit from a very weakened, casual Mercuphobia
- Suzaku taking out Natsu in a single casual hit (at the beginning of this blog)
- What I believe to be confirmation that Selene in her Human form is much superior to the weakened Mercuphobia
Now let's put this together with a new piece of information: Suzaku matched Selene and even heavily damaged her. Before dissecting that, let's understand that Suzaku has one shot Natsu without effort, which the weakened Mercuphobia failed to do so with what seems to be a similar or greater amount of effort against Natsu some arcs earlier. I think this is solid proof that Suzaku scale above the weakened Mercuphobia.
Suzaku began his fight with Selene (Chapter 81) on the losing end. So Suzaku, who should scale above Mercuphobia because of their performances against Natsu, struggled with a very casual Selene, proving that Selene should be better than the weakened Mercuphobia, which is consistent with the implication that her Human form once she got a little bit serious was better than Mercuphobia (Chapter 82,) and Suzaku was still keeping up with that once he went full in. See how it all builds upon itself?I
In the end, Suzaku was able to block some hits, tank some hits and eventually hit her with an attack that drew great amounts of blood from her. Even considering the influence of Suzaku's Dragon Slaying Magic on how well he was able to hurt her, that means nothing in relation to the fact that Suzaku was tanking/blocking hits from her, and Selene is of such an insanely high level of durability anyway that it doesn't matter, since we know that Dragon Slaying Magic means little unless you scale reasonably close to the Dragon you're fighting, i.e. how Team Natsu couldn't hurt Mercuphobia with Wendy's Dragon Slaying Enchantments or how Gajeel couldn't put down Aldron despite being grown relative to Aldron's size.
Everything, from Suzaku's superiority over the weakened DG, to the fight itself, to a statement from Selene that she stood no chance against Suzaku is evidence that Suzaku is on the same level as Selene's Human form, meaning that Suzaku, by extension, is on the same level as Human Acnologia.
Now Natsu and Suzaku fought recently, and if Natsu was even remotely close to his Alvarez counterpart, he'd be one shot just the same as he was when he first met Suzaku. Yet Suzaku's attacks were tanked repeatedly by Natsu, and Natsu hurt Suzaku, making Suzaku remark that Natsu is powerful. In other words, Natsu is now able to, without using Dragon Force, properly fight a combatant that is at least on the same level as Acnologia was. Does this mean that Natsu is equal to Suzaku in FDKM? No. He was losing and he apparently didn't do as much damage to Suzaku as Selene did. But it does mean that Natsu is good enough to push Suzaku to a high difficulty fight, which in my sight is the same as being "comparable" to Suzaku. Which means that Current Natsu, in his Fire Dragon King Mode, is comparable to Human Acnologia as well. Keeping in mind that Natsu wasn't even remotely comparable to someone who should be far weaker than Human Acnologia back at the beginning of the sequel, the growth Natsu has shown just from the beginning of the series alone to now should already be at least a match for the growth he displayed across the other timeskips. Personally, I'd say that his growth from the Alvarez arc to now is far greater than the growth Natsu displayed from Tartaros to Alvarez just based on the fact that Natsu without DF can act at this level, despite DF Natsu in the Alvarez arc arguably not being on this level even when stacking the FDKM amplification.
Just to be clear, the fact that Natsu's general combative capabilities compare to Acnologia stat-wise does not necessarily mean he could defeat Acnologia in a fight, just as how Base Natsu being able to fight Zeref doesn't at all mean that Base Natsu was outright equal to Zeref or anything like that. Hax is still an important factor in battles. But Acnologia's magic resistance doesn't change physicals scaling.
Conclusion
Natsu can now operate on the same level as Human Acnologia without Dragon Force. This makes him many, many times stronger than he used to be, though just like the first timeskip I don't have an exact number.
Let's have a bit of a recap before we get into the second portion of the blog:
- The Second Origin Natsu unlocked made him strong enough to one shot those far superior to his pre-timeskip self
- The One Year Timeskip allowed Natsu to one shot those tougher than Mard Geer, who could tank his DF beating pre-1YTS
- The Third Timeskip up until now has made Natsu a Human Acnologia level threat where he used to be nowhere remotely near that tier
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Now that we've gone through my analysis of Natsu's growth across timeskips, it's now time to look at another form of power enhancement: power ups.
The three major power ups Natsu retains throughout the franchise are:
- Lightning Flame Dragon Mode
- Fire Dragon King Mode
- Dragon Force
Listed from worst to best, and Natsu can also stack his Fire Dragon King Mode on top of his Dragon Force. Now let's look at these amps and how they serve Natsu.
Lightning Flame Dragon Mode
We fortunately have an (in)direct number for it. Lightning Flame Dragon is compared to the Dragon Force Natsu used against Jellal (Chapter 246) which is comparable to the Dragon Force that Natsu entered against Zero. Natsu says that he feels 2-3x stronger. (Chapter 160) Therefore, Natsu gets 2-3x stronger when he uses Lightning Flame Dragon Mode.
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Conclusion
Lightning Flame Dragon Mode makes Natsu 2-3x stronger than he already is in Base Form.
Fire Dragon King Mode
Not given a direct number like LFDM, FDKM is still visibly much greater than the LFDM amp. Against Ikusatsunagi, Natsu's Base punch was completely incapable of even laying a single visible scratch mark on the War God's forehead, all it did was stagger it a bit. A Demolition Fist ripped through the entire mountain-sized monster like nothing. I don't want to put a number on this for risk of overdoing it but this is very clearly far greater than the LFDM amp. (Chapter 434)
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Conclusion
The Fire Nation King Mode allows Natsu to absolutely destroy hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tons worth of the same material that can go completely unscathed from his Base attacks.
Dragon Force (Natural)
Natsu's Dragon Force has had a bit of a journey itself. It used to be relative to the LFDM amp, then it was much greater than the LFDM amp in the Tartaros arc, and then you look at where it stands now. It's kind of incredible.
Natsu's Natural Dragon Force is relatively unknown at this point, since on all the occasions he's used Dragon Force since the second timeskip he's combined it with his Fire Dragon King Mode. However, by the narrative, Dragon Force is the trump card of a Dragon Slayer in all cases unless they can turn into an actual Dragon, so it's very likely that Dragon Force is a superior amplification to the Fire Dragon King Mode.
As I promised, the reason that Tartaros DF is so much above a 2-3x amp is because even though Mard did tank the assault, a weaker form of Mard Geer completely no sold an LFDM attack. (Chapter 406) So there you go.
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Conclusion
Dragon Force is all but directly confirmed as a superior amplification of power to Fire Dragon King Mode.
Dragon Force + Fire Dragon King Mode
Now this is where it gets fun, because the combination of Natsu's Fire Dragon King Mode and Dragon Force so far has been absolutely ludicrous, almost hilariously so. The first time we see it, Natsu vaporizes Fairy Heart Zeref; the second time we see it, the weakened Mercuphobia going all out got absolutely manhandled by Natsu; and the third time we see it, Natsu killed Aldron, who was previously tanking hits from a Giant Gajeel, Zeref's Death Curse and it was even stated that Natsu would need many dozens of millions of Demolition Fists to kill Aldron.
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1-2. Natsu turning Zeref into nothing
3. Natsu overpowering Mercuphobia's roar
4. Natsu killing Aldron
This kind of treatment is rather consistent, by the way, with Natsu's DF being > his FDKM. Natsu's Base mode did practically no damage to Ikusatsunagi (but staggered him), yet FDKM obliterated his mountain sized body in one hit; Natsu's FDKM did, objectively, 1/100,000,000 damage points to Aldron without effecting him at all, yet stacking DF on top of FDKM allowed Natsu to obliterate Aldron's body that dwarfed mountains hundreds of times over with his Purgatory Fire attack.
Conclusion
The stacking of Dragon Force and Fire Dragon King Mode allows Natsu to, sometimes in one shot, kill those who would otherwise be indestructible to just Fire Dragon Kind Mode Natsu.
Overall Conclusion
Based on what we've seen here, I think that it's more than reasonable to suggest that Natsu, currently, in his Fire Dragon King Mode is at the level of Human Dragon Gods/Acnologia. Natsu's Dragon Force stacked on top of that would make him one of the strongest characters in the series, short only of the strongest Dragons in the series.
TLDR
Natsu grows so strong after each timeskip he could one shot his previous self. Natsu's Lighting Flame Dragon Mode makes him 2-3x stronger, his Fire Dragon King Mode can destroy those who can no sell his Base hits, Dragon Force is even greater than that, and Dragon Force stacked with Fire Dragon King Mode can destroy those who can no sell his Fire Dragon King Mode hits.
Thank you for reading this blog!
