Just as the others finished off their opponents, Jiraiya slowly emerged from the shadows.
He tossed them some bandages and medicine to stop the bleeding, then shook his head with a sigh. "Your performance... well."
Seeing Jiraiya's expression—like he had plenty to criticize but didn't know where to start—Yahiko and the others lowered their heads in shame.
Even they felt they had performed terribly.
Jiraiya looked over their injuries and the surrounding area, then shook his head again.
"Forget it. We'll talk when we get back."
Half a day later, they returned to their little cabin.
After resting briefly, Jiraiya took out his small blackboard again and began the lesson.
Chiba and the other three obediently sat side by side, watching Jiraiya attentively.
"You made so many mistakes this time I can hardly count them. To give you a clear idea of just how poorly you performed, I can put it like this."
As he spoke, Jiraiya began writing on the blackboard.
"You had four times the strength of your opponent, yet it took you at least twenty times as much chakra to defeat him—and you nearly let him turn the tables on you several times."
Hearing this, Chiba and the others felt even more ashamed and lowered their heads in silence.
Looking at their embarrassed faces, Jiraiya suddenly laughed.
"All right. Your performance wasn't beyond what I expected."
"Huh? Teacher Jiraiya, you already knew we'd do this badly?"
"Well, in fact, I could have taught you more about combat before the fight. You would probably have done much better. But I wanted you to learn some of it through actual experience first. That way, the lessons might sink in more deeply."
Jiraiya began to analyze things for them in earnest.
"First, let's talk about how you pursued your opponent."
"Generally speaking, in the Ninja World, unless the person being chased has an overwhelming speed advantage, they won't be able to escape—even if they can run faster than every pursuer."
"Hm?"
Chiba looked at Jiraiya in confusion. "Why is that? Wouldn't you escape as long as you ran faster than each of the people chasing you?"
Jiraiya laughed. "That has to do with the special formations and rotation tactics shinobi use when pursuing someone."
"Hmm, how should I put it..."
"I've got it."
Jiraiya thought for a moment, then suddenly seemed to hit on an idea.
"For example, if Yahiko ran at full speed, he could probably go a thousand meters before running out of stamina and having to stop or slow down to rest."
"But if Yahiko ran at a moderate pace, he could cover three or five thousand meters—or even more—with no trouble."
"So over a long distance, moving at a moderate pace is actually more effective than going all out."
While Yahiko and the others were still puzzling over this, Chiba had already figured it out.
It's just like running a marathon. Anyone who goes all out at the start will run out of stamina later, slow down, and might not even finish.
"Teacher Jiraiya, does that mean that when two people are chasing someone, one pursuer can run at full speed and force the target to do the same, while the other keeps a moderate pace and eventually overtakes them both, cutting the target off?"
Jiraiya nodded approvingly.
"Exactly."
"When you all sprinted at full speed together, you wasted a tremendous amount of energy. When your opponent ran out of stamina and had to slow down, you were just as exhausted and had to slow down too. And since he could set obstacles in your path, normally you never would have caught up with him."
"In fact, if you hadn't had so much more chakra than he did, he could have easily worn down your chakra and stamina during the chase, then killed you without any trouble."
"If you'd split into two or even three groups and taken turns sprinting, you could have worn him down during the pursuit without doing anything else. Or you could have surrounded him before long, avoiding such a drawn-out chase altogether."
Jiraiya laid it out so clearly that Chiba and the others finally understood how a seemingly simple pursuit could involve such tactics.
Chiba, in particular, had never thought about it that way when he watched the anime in his previous life. He had simply thought it made no sense that, after kidnapping hostages, the enemy was so easily caught both when Hinata was taken and when Sasuke was. It had seemed like a contrivance to move the plot along.
But now he understood why. To maintain a steady pace over a long distance, those pursuers couldn't start off by going all out.
"Then, Teacher Jiraiya, is there really no way to escape once the smaller group is being chased?"
"Good question. There usually is a way, but it's a bit... hmm."
Jiraiya furrowed his brow slightly.
"The method is to leave a few people behind to hold off the enemy. That gives everyone else a chance to escape."
"So... that's really the method?"
At the thought of that scenario, Chiba, Yahiko, and the others clearly found it hard to accept.
There was no way they would abandon any of their comrades.
Jiraiya just laughed. "You probably won't need to use that method under normal circumstances. With the amount of chakra you have, there's a chance you could wear down the pursuers instead."
As he spoke, Jiraiya stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"Maybe you could even develop a whole tactic around that. Keep luring the enemy into chasing you by making them think you're out of chakra, then wear down their stamina and chakra as you flee."
"You can really do that?"
"Haha. For shinobi, no tactic is off the table. If it works, that's what matters."
After discussing the details of how to put the plan into practice, Jiraiya continued instructing Chiba and the others.
"Next, I have to point out some serious mistakes you made while performing your techniques."
Jiraiya's expression grew serious as he spoke.
Before you continue