Jadeite vs Zoisite

The first serious villain group in Sailor Moon are the 4 Heavenly Kings. These 4 seemed to be divided internally by Takeuchi into the 2 stronger, emotional warrior Kings; Nephrite and Kunzite, and the two weaker rational schemer Kings; Jadeite and Zoisite. This is going to be my attempt to analysis who would win between Jadeite and Zoisite, manga only. 

Some people might contest that Nephrite might not be stronger then these two, and while he might not be, it does seem like the evidence is most weighted towards him being slightly to significantly stronger then the other two of the first 3 Kings. Nephrite was completely confident in his ability to defeat the Senshi after they literally one-shot Jadeite

and when Nephrite died, Kunzite warned Zoisite he would have to be cautious or face the same fate

whereas in contrast when Jadeite died, Nephrite and Zoisite were only incensed that the Senshi were able to kill someone of their rank

Kunzite I think is pretty well known to be the strongest of the 4 Kings by a wide margin. The same attack that one-shot Nephrite were thrown at Kunzite by Sailor Jupiter while more experienced and stronger, and did nothing 

But whose actually stronger between Jadeite and Zoisite?

There's really not much evidence. There's at best two points for either side, and none of the points are hugely helpful. 

Supporting Jadeite's side is that Jadeite felt comfortable luring the Senshi into engaging him directly while Zoisite avoided direct confrontation with them. 

The other point to make is that Zoisite is described in the artbook as being an effeminate youngest child type of personality, who primarily uses dirty methods of fighting. 

The problem with the first point is that Jadeite was comfortable engaging with Sailor Mercury and Sailor Moon when no Heavenly King had engaged them before and after seeing them struggle with the Youma, not knowing they were being trained by the Sailor V game. Zoisite was facing down 4 Senshi, including Sailor Mars and Sailor Jupiter, after seeing them killing Nephrite and Jadeite and after Kunzite cautioned him. Especially when combined with his personality type, it makes total sense he would be far less confident in facing down the Senshi. 

The second point doesn't really have a problem with it, it's just really sorta shaky evidence based on the expectation that the baby of the family type personality would naturally be less of a fighter then someone like Jadeite who is described as having a "ruthless serious" personality. 

The points for Zoisite, firstly there is the fact that he seemingly survived twice the attack that killed Jadeite despite Sailor Mars getting stronger in between

The second point is that Zoisite, connected to above scan and the statement Nephrite made after Jadeite's death where they weren't scared of the Senshi's power, merely angry that the Senshi could kill someone of their rank.

The problem with the first point is that in neither case was Zoisite hit straight on by Mars attack, the first time he reflected it with his barrier, and the second time Mars wasn't aiming for him but a strange fire illusion Zoisite made that was in front of him and merely the after effect of the attack was able to knock Zoisite back and caused him to pant from the force of the attack and say Sailor Mars was too strong.

The problem with the second point is that Zoisite is not the type to engage in straight up fights, he tries to attack in "underhanded" ways. If he was truly confident in his superiority to Jadeite he wouldn't have tried to isolate and attack Sailor Mars while she was unaware.

Comparing the two in raw power, it's really hard to say. I personally would say that Jadeite would be a bit stronger, just from personality types, but that's arguable, and regardless it's probably not a significant difference. 

The two are also probably fairly comparable in terms of intellect, manga-wise at least. I know in the 90s anime Zoisite was treated like the smartest, however in the manga there isn't much to support that other then his big scheme to manipulate people to get the Silver Crystal which wasn't really a feat of intelligence, just him using an ability that as far as we know the other Heavenly Kings didn't display.

Otherwise the two have very similar tactics including setting ambushes

and taking hostages

All this is to say that Jadeite and Zoisite are fairly similar in terms of raw power and raw intelligence.

So a big thing for this fight is where the two are fighting. If we assume the most likely battlefield, this battlefield is most likely to be in the Dark Kingdom deep underground. 

This is a pretty big deal because down there in the stone buildings, Zoisite wouldn't be able to use his technopathy. This would severely limit Zoisite as it removes his best abilities; his energy-draining and his brainwashing. I'm not sure whether the Heavenly King's brainwashing would work on each other since if they are in the SM-verse rather then a neutral battlefield, their minds would still be enslaved to Beryl across the cycle of reincarnation. 

Without Zoisite's technopathy, both Jadeite and Zoisite have essentially 4 different abilities and things they can do. Let's run over them quickly and how effective they'd be here.

Jadeite has transmutation, his most famous ability. Jadeite could use these to create the youma, but the timeframe is unknown and Nephrite considered the Youma pathetically weak compared to him

Assuming Zoisite is relative to Nephrite, the youma are unlikely to be very relevant, that said Jadeite's transmutation is likely to be highly relevant as a win condition, since if he gets close enough for it to work, which in fairness is pretty close, he could just transmute the blood in Zoisite's body to vapor and one shot him. This would also help counter one of Jadeite's abilities as it does counter weather manipulation, at least on a small scale as it turned Mercury's hail to vapor

Jadeite can also control peoples bodies as he did to Rei 

This is really notable because it can be done at relatively long range for this fight, the longest range ability of Jadeite's and it's Jadeite's best defense against Zoisite's win condition.

Jadeite also can drain energy

This gives him an alternate win condition and will be a good counter to one of Zoisite's abilities. Finally Jadeite has the ability to create bus-sized portals to alternate dimensions

This is kind of neat but not quite as helpful as might be expected due to one of Zoisite's abilities. 

Also while it's not really an ability or something Jadeite can do, he does have resistance to matter manipulation as shown when Usagi's tiara did not turn him to dust

However that's completely irrelevant in this fight as Zoisite doesn't use matter manipulation. It would only be relevant if Jadeite was fighting Nephrite or if it was a three way fight since Nephrite actually does have transmutation that Jadeite could potentially resist.

Going over Zoisite's abilities, while he wouldn't have his technopathy abilites he would still have some abilities that are pretty notable. Zoisite was able to create an energy field Tuxedo Kamen couldn't even get near

which reflected attacks

The attack reflection is irrelevant here, Jadeite doesn't use projectiles at all, however the actual energy field is very relevant as it's force is Zoisite's win condition since it's able to knock Jadeite back and keep him at distance so he can't transmute Zoisite.

Zoisite can create minor illusions 

I'm not sure how well this would work on Jadeite since Jadeite would know Zoisite's identity and what's an illusion, plus if Zoisite tries to create an illusory copy of him for instance, Jadeite can simply drain energy from both (since he's done it to several people before) which will naturally reveal the illusion which wouldn't have energy.

Zoisite also has teleportation, including inter-dimensional teleportation.

What's especially notable about this is that he doesn't have to move his body to use it, it seems to be thought based. This means hypothetically even if Jadeite was controlling his body, Zoisite could teleport away. This is also an easy way around the battlefield past Jadeite's portals giving Zoisite a lot more potential mobility. However Zoisite has not shown the ability to teleport other people mean he can't BFR Jadeite. 

Finally Zoisite has weather manipulation, able to create an intense rainfall across Japan

I don't know if he would use this deep underground where the Dark Kingdom is. If he can it would likely be a major distraction for Jadeite and obscure the battlefield a lot. Jadeite could maybe partially avoid it with his transmutation but it's still gonna be a nuisance. 

In terms of the actual battle, Zoisite would probably try to teleport around Jadeite, knocking him with his energy field while Jadeite is gonna try and paralyze him with his body control and get in close to transmute him. Zoisite can avoid being held in place by body control via teleporting away that said Jadeite can drain Zoisite's energy, so if Zoisite can't win quickly he's probably doing to run out of stamina, as he needs to use his energy to project his energy barrier.

Zoisite has a number of ways to distract Jadeite and maybe prolong the battle, by creating illusions and possibly creating weather effects but if the fight goes on a while Zoisite would tire faster then Jadeite as Jadeite can drain Zoisite's energy. This means that in a fight Zoisite would try to knock Jadeite back and teleport around but would slowly be losing his energy, such that if he doesn't do signifigant damage to Jadeite, he's gonna get tired quickly and Jadeite controlling his body will wear him down further making it harder to energy field + teleport. Zoisite can prolong this but that's probably not gonna help much. While neither really has any stamina feats, I imagine that Zoisite teleporting around and exuding an energy field would probably be more draining then Jadeite using his abilities by waving his hands around, particularly if he's being drained.

I don't know if Jadeite can summon the youma fast enough for it to be combat applicable but they're too weak to do anything really, outside maybe distract Zoisite for a bit to let Jadeite get in close. Beyond that, let's say Zoisite tries to slam Jadeite against a cavern wall with his energy field. Jadeite could then open a portal behind him to transport himself behind Zoisite, acting as a pseudo teleport.

I think Jadeite probably outlasts Zoisite if the two were to just stay in one location however this isn't bringing up Zoisite's probably best tactic, and something he is likely to try, namely that Zoisite would try to tempt Jadeite to follow him outside the Dark Kingdom somewhere with technological screens. While it's possible Beryl's curse would keep Zoisite from brainwashing Jadeite, Zoisite would gain access to city wide energy-draining, which would be a one-shot against Jadeite. If Zoisite tricks Jadeite to following him there, I think he probably secures the kill. 

However my best guess is that Jadeite wouldn't be tricked into following him. Jadeite is described as a serious ruthless personality and has decent tactical feats. I think so long as Jadeite can avoid being tricked by Zoisite into entering an area with technology for Zoisite to exploit, Jadeite probably wins this. 

Jadeite's powerset is probably the most tame and humble of the Heavenly Kings. He doesn't have large scale effects like Kunzite and Zoisite, doesn't have mind hax and other non-physical hax like Zoisite and Nephrite, lacks a lot of flashiness, his energy-draining is by feats probably one of the weakest in the series, he's the only one without teleportation feats etc. That said Zoisite's abilities while a lot more potent hypothetically are more conditionally; relying on being near technology for his brainwashing and energy-draining, possibly relying on being outside to use his weather manipulation, requires his opponents to use projectiles and not direct abilities for his attack reflection and his energy field. Jadeite's more humble abilities would win here because even if they aren't instant-win buttons, they're a lot more reliable and applicable universally.