I was like, wtf did he done?
Naruto learned jackshit during his training in years..
Dude look how Sasuke come out after the timeskip and how Naruto was after the timeskip.
"LoOk aT mY BiG RaSenGan ehehe"....
Absolutely. Sasuke cleared Naruto so much it wasn't even funny ngl.
Nothing suggests that, Itachi has stronger tools obviously but in a prolonged fight Jiraiya has a clear advantage
Quite the contrary, everything suggests that. Itachi is so much higher in the pecking order than Jiraiya. Jiriya wouldn't fare any better than his superior Orochimaru did in a battle against Itachi. Itachi wouldn't require a prolonged fight to deal with him.
Kisame literally mentions that Jiraiya is in a different league to him lol
Kisame states that he is not sure if he can take him on. Even so, Itachi alone is more than enough.
Itachi says even with backup the outcome wouldn't change, it's hard to interfere with a battle on this level
Obviously the backup would be more Akatsuki members, who can intervene in battles of that magnitude. Not like Itachi needs it though. But even a small scratch from Sasori on Jiraiya would be more than enough to kill him, for instance. Let alone multiple other Akatsuki members going at him.
They don't need to kill Jiraiya, if they had the tools to restrain him, capture Naruto and leave they'd have done that
Yeah they would if Itachi wanted to. He was clearly postponing the capture of the 9 tails as long as possible. Claiming that one of the legendary sannin stood in their way is a plausible explanation, and iirc Kisame even doubted him for it or smth like that.