Chapter 78: Never Underestimate the Students
Chapter 78: Never Underestimate the Students
What is it like to teach a class of over three hundred people?
To have the gazes of more than two hundred people upon you, their eyes filled with curiosity, anticipation, and doubt.
Mu Yue had reason to believe that a more introverted person would likely find it difficult to speak under the weight of so many stares.
But Mu Yue was no ordinary person; the more students, the happier and more excited he became.
"Hello everyone, I am Yu Sheng Mu Yue, and I will be your instructor for this summer's special training session." Mu Yue introduced himself with a gentle smile.
While he was fairly well-known in the school, and some of the students here had been in his classes before, Mu Yue didn't assume that everyone knew him, so he felt it necessary to introduce himself.
"Teacher Mu Yue!" some of the students who were more familiar with Mu Yue greeted him enthusiastically.
Mu Yue smiled and nodded in response before continuing,
"I know you all must have a lot of questions, wondering why we are organizing this summer training camp after the holidays, and what the purpose of this training is."
"I can assure you that there is only one goal for this training, and that is to improve the strength and abilities of all participating students so that you may become even more qualified ninjas in the future!"
Mu Yue refrained from mentioning the more brutal truth—that they needed to prepare for the looming threat of war.
After all, the war had not officially broken out yet, and even the most vigilant Leaf ninjas were unlikely to foresee that Konoha would gradually become the center of the war, besieged by the four great ninja villages.
"How will the training be conducted? Surely you're not going to have us genin and students train in the same way as fully-fledged ninjas? Our strength is on a completely different level from that of the students," Hizuido asked.
He was a teammate of Asuma, who had been brought along by him.
Hizuido felt like he had been tricked. How could a jonin teacher possibly be as amazing as Asuma had made him out to be?
"I have made arrangements for that, but don't underestimate the students of the Ninja Academy," Mu Yue said, not directly answering Hizuido's question. Instead, he called out to a student, "His name is Uchiha Itachi, and he is a student in the class that I teach. He's currently in the first grade, and you can spar with him to get a sense of the level of the Ninja Academy students." Mu Yue smiled.
Mu Yue had anticipated that something like this would happen.
The genin, having had more exposure to the outside world and guidance from jonin, would naturally have a different mindset when facing students and jonin teachers from the Ninja Academy.
In the ninja world, strength was revered, and so Mu Yue's solution was straightforward and perhaps a little brutal—if you think the Ninja Academy students are inferior, then step up and fight one of them to see if you can win.
As Asuma watched Itachi walk out calmly, his eyelids twitched uncontrollably as he recalled the humiliating defeat he had suffered two months prior at the hands of this very student.
That scene was forever etched in his memory—a freshly graduated genin like himself being defeated by a first-year student.
"I couldn't bear it if it were me," Asuma whispered to Hizuido.
He couldn't wait to see the look of disbelief on Hizuido's face when he lost. He didn't want to suffer this humiliation alone.
"This doesn't seem quite right, he's just a first-year student," Kurenai Yuhi said softly, feeling that it wasn't very ethical.
"Then, as a graduating senior, I'll see if the standards of the Ninja Academy students have dropped," Hizuido said as he stepped forward.
Mu Yue had called out a fourth-year student, which was already surprising, but now he was bringing out a first-year? Hizuido felt belittled, and Asuma's goading only added fuel to the fire.
The students moved back to give the two enough space for their match.
"If you can't hold on, just admit defeat. And don't blame me if you get hurt," Hizuido said as he took out a kunai from his ninja tool pouch.
"Thank you for the reminder, senior. I won't push myself beyond my limits," Itachi politely thanked him.
Seeing that Itachi was respectful and understood the concept of respecting his seniors, Hizuido decided to let Itachi lose gracefully and not make the match too one-sided.
Komoro was someone even he might not be able to defeat at this point, so how could he possibly be a match for Tobirama?
The outcome of this battle was a foregone conclusion, but the one being crushed wasn't the first-year Tobirama; it was the already graduated Komoro.
"Go, Tobirama! Beat that guy who looks down on students!" Anko Mitarashi pushed her way to the front of the crowd, cheering on Tobirama.
Inari and Izumo Kamizuki followed suit, joining Anko in their enthusiastic support.
"Uchiha Tobirama, isn't he that super-genius in the first grade? I heard he got perfect scores in everything," remarked a fourth-grade student who had heard of Tobirama's reputation.
"But how could a first-grader possibly defeat a fully-fledged genin, no matter how genius he is?"
Although the students wanted Tobirama to win, most of them didn't hold out much hope, as it would be truly astonishing for a first-year student to beat a fully-fledged genin.
"Begin!" Mu Yue, acting as the temporary referee, called out after the two had finished preparing.
"Here I come!" Komoro shouted as he charged towards Tobirama with a kunai in hand.
Tobirama calmly drew his own kunai from his ninja tool pouch and parried Komoro's attacks with ease.
The clanging of kunai rang out as Komoro's relentless assaults were effortlessly blocked by Tobirama.
Komoro felt something was amiss. This strength, this speed, this reaction time—was this really a first-year student?
Komoro leaped backwards, quickly forming the necessary hand seals to perform the Clone Technique, creating five clones to distract Tobirama.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" Tobirama calmly formed the necessary hand seals and spat out a three-meter-tall fireball, matching Komoro's technique.
"Which one of us is the real ninja school student here?" Komoro muttered, his eyes darting between the rapidly approaching massive fireball and his own intangible clones. His brain froze at the realization.
Fortunately, the fireball wasn't moving too fast, and Komoro, having snapped out of his stupor, sprinted out of the attack's range.
Just as Komoro was congratulating himself on escaping the fireball's path, a kunai pressed against his throat from behind.
Feeling the cold, sharp edge of the kunai, Komoro realized that Tobirama had somehow appeared silently by his side.
"I concede. I shouldn't have underestimated a student from the Ninja School," Komoro admitted his defeat. If Tobirama had been an enemy, he would have been dead.
"My apologies, senior," Tobirama sheathed his kunai humbly.
He could have easily taken Komoro out in an instant, but Komoro had put up a decent fight, and Tobirama suspected that his earlier comment had been made without malice. He didn't want to embarrass him too badly, so he had held back.
"He even held back there. That fireball wasn't as strong as the one he used on me before," Asuma thought to himself.
"Senior, do you have a grudge against him? Why are you smiling so happily?" Inari turned to the person next to him, who was grinning from ear to ear. He had assumed it was a fellow student from the Ninja School, but then he noticed the forehead protector and became confused.
"No, I was just reminded of something pleasant," Asuma denied, a wide smile still plastered on his face.
(End of Chapter)
Chapter end
Report
