"Te... Teacher?"
The teacher's words were firm and sharp, like iron cleaving jade, yet the three teenagers stood frozen on the spot.
For that instant, the cries of battle, the blood, and the screams all seemed to fade away.
All they could see was their teacher's face, stern in a way they had never seen before.
And in their ears echoed his words about staying behind to cover their retreat.
W... Was he kidding? This was... their... teacher?
Their hearts were filled with disbelief.
Honestly, at that moment, they wondered whether someone had disguised themselves as their teacher. How could someone so decisive, serious, and even somewhat cool possibly be their teacher?
Their teacher was supposed to be timid, plagued by such intense inferiority that it had somehow twisted into inexplicable arrogance.
He was all talk. It was not that they looked down on him, nor that he had ever done anything unforgivable, nor even that they disliked him. But when it came to real blades and real fighting, their teacher simply was not the kind of person who would step up.
He only knew how to talk a good game.
He merely made it sound convincing.
Just like how he had always claimed to be an elite ninja, saying that he had only become a team-leading teacher because he had been framed. He even claimed that the one who framed him was Taki Chiba, Konoha's Guardian God Taki Chiba. He said that when they had once carried out a mission together and later returned to the village, Taki Chiba had framed him.
That was why he had fallen from the position of an elite ninja and ultimately become a penniless teacher.
Look at that.
How outrageous was that? He was not even bothering to make his lies believable anymore.