Originally posted by SHlKAMARU
Orochimaru is probably stronger than Kakuzu and Hidan, as far as fighting them as a team well orochimaru doesnt do anything with out kabuto so it would probably be an even 2 on 2 battle, but if he fights them head to head on a one on one, he could defeat them both, ... cause none of them presented any good fighting skills other than inmortality, cause hidan will need to cut him and not only cut him take some of his blood to perform the ritual and ive seen orochimaru bleed but technicaly that is not orochimaru's blood that's the blood of a person he took over so i dont really know how that will work... and as far as a fight with kakuzu, other than kakuzu attacking with all five elements i didnt see any impressive jutsus, orochimaru would probably figure out the heart thingy pretty fast and destroy him... to the comments about orochimaru being the weakest akatsuki... he left the organization because he couldnt have itachi's body cause he was weaker than him... but if i were organizing akatsuki in order of the strongest, itachi would be third, right under madara and pein... (cause i dont know how strong the weird half white, half black, plant thingy is or how strong paper girl is) but other than that orochimaru probably is stronger than the rest.
Kakuzu's probably the most experienced and skilled member of Akatsuki.