After a moment of reflection, Neji's pointed question pierced like a precisely aimed needle, instantly puncturing Teacher Chen's seemingly irreverent exterior-the shell of numbness beneath it.
"You became weak because you lost something, didn't you?"
Those words froze the expression on Chen Baojun's face. Behind his small, dark glasses, his eyes flickered with shock and pain he could not conceal.
He opened his mouth to argue, but something seemed to block his throat. He could not utter a word.
Because Neji had guessed correctly.
Chen Baojun had indeed once taken a personal disciple, a boy with no talent for ninjutsu or genjutsu who poured all his passion and sweat into taijutsu.
That boy had been just like him in his youth-even more driven, even more convinced of the dream that "taijutsu can make you the strongest, too."
Yet the brutality of the Third Shinobi World War had mercilessly crushed that dream.
In a devastating encounter, his disciple, who knew only taijutsu, had fallen under a barrage of enemy ninjutsu while protecting his comrades.
Chen Baojun had been powerless to save him.
From then on, guilt and helplessness had clung to him like a disease burrowing into his bones, tormenting him day and night.
He began to doubt the path he had held to, to question whether "taijutsu alone" could truly protect the people who mattered.
In the end, he chose to run away. With a carefully staged "death," he freed himself from his identity and responsibilities as a ninja, burying his former self along with them.
Then, after the Chunin Ninja Exams, he happened to meet Rock Lee, another boy who knew only taijutsu, whose stubborn determination was painful to watch.
In Rock Lee, he saw far too much of his disciple.
Those eyes that refused to surrender, that willingness