"I... am Taki Chiba!"
The voice was clear and crisp, without the slightest hesitation or falsehood. Just like that, it echoed through the Sound Village instructor Jonin's mind.
He just... admitted it so readily? What... was this? At that moment, the Sound Village instructor Jonin suddenly found that his mind could no longer keep up.
Looking at the boy before him—identical to that Taki Chiba, seemingly unchanged in the slightest, as though he had stopped growing—the Sound Village instructor Jonin stood frozen on the spot.
Utterly and completely frozen.
Why? Why had he admitted it so readily?
Was this also a test? No! It wasn't a test! This Hada Ichiba was serious. If that expression and those eyes were merely an act put on to test him, then Hada Ichiba was far too formidable.
Formidable enough to completely deceive his eyes!
It had to be true. What Hada Ichiba said had to be sincere, and it had to be true!
But why?
Why tell him?
Why say it now, and why tell him specifically?
If this Hada Ichiba—or rather, if he truly believed himself to be Taki Chiba—then why, why did he deliberately tell him at this moment?
After the Nine-Tails' Rampage, Taki Chiba's death had been announced. Taking advantage of Konoha's devastating losses during the Nine-Tails' Rampage, when the other shinobi villages had no way to obtain precise intelligence, he had turned himself into someone who no longer existed.
There was no doubt that he had wanted to conceal his identity, while incidentally intimidating those around him.
Using news of his own death.
Of course, the intimidation was probably only incidental. He surely had another objective, one that could only be accomplished by becoming someone who did not exist.
So now that he was openly admitting it, could it