"Just our luck we're stuck with the dream team again." Ren glared at me and Ami, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. "Especially you, Sayo. What are we supposed to do with that wooden paperweight? We're going to get smoked this round."
Ami kept her head down, her fingers twisting the hem of her oversized gray shirt. She looked like she was about to vibrate out of her boots from pure anxiety.
I didn't bother arguing. I was too busy scanning the training field. It was a mess of jagged rocks, uneven pits, and sand-slicked slopes basically a playground for anyone who knew how to set a trap. Across the field, the opposing team was already high-fiving. They had Kuro the biggest kid in our year and two other guys who actually looked like they'd hit a growth spurt.
"Listen," I said, my voice low and steady. I didn't have the lungs to shout, so I made sure they were paying attention. "If we want to win, you have to do exactly what I say. Ren, you've got the best cardio here. I need you to be the loudmouth. Aggro them. Run head-on, talk some trash, but do not let them touch you. Use the rocks to keep them circling."
"And what?" Ren snapped. "You're just gonna sit back and watch us get pummeled?"
"I'm the eye in the sky," I said, pulling the crude wooden "Spider" from my robe. With a flick of my finger, I sent a chakra thread to the receptor on its back. The connection was crisp low latency, high signal. "Ami, go hide in that rock crevice near our flag. If anyone breathes near it, yell. I'll handle the rest."
The whistle shrieked, and the drill was live.
Kuro's team didn't do "tactics." They just charged in a fan formation, looking to steamroll us with raw muscle.
"Go!" I nudged Ren.
He dashed out, yelling insults that would have made a sailor blush. It worked. Kuro's face went red, and he veered off-course to chase the "loudmouth."
I ducked behind a massive boulder and shut my eyes. All my focus funneled into the chakra thread. It was like switching my perspective to a different monitor. My "HUD" was the vibration and sensory feedback from the Spider.
Under my control, the little bot scuttled like a living thing. Its eight wooden legs were silent on the sand, weaving through the stone gaps. Because it was so small and dull-colored, it was basically invisible in the chaos of the terrain.
Got 'em. Through the link, I could "see" the enemy squad's positions.
"Ren, Kuro is chasing you head-on. He's moving fast but he's sloppy," I reported, my eyes still closed. "Watch out you've got another one flanking left for a pincer. The third guy is camping in the right pit, waiting for you to trip."
Hiding in the crevice, Ami gaped at me. She couldn't understand how I was calling out positions I couldn't possibly see. On the front line, Ren heard me through the wind, swerved instantly, and narrowly missed the ambush pit.
"Ren, sprint to the red boulder at two o'clock, then jump right NOW!" I barked.
He jumped on instinct. A split second later, a rock the size of a bowling ball thrown by Kuro smashed into the spot where he'd just been standing.
"How the hell is he doing that?!" Kuro roared, looking around like he was being haunted.
I didn't stop. I had the Spider crawl right up to the guy in the ambush pit. Its slender front legs nudged a few loose pebbles over the edge. Clatter-clank.
The kid in the pit jerked his head toward the sound, exposing himself.
"Right-side ambusher is peeking. One-third of his head is clear of the rock," I called out.
Ren, looking like he was actually starting to have fun, scooped up a rock and chucked it blindly in that direction. Thwack.
"Ow!" The kid yelped, clutching his shoulder. It didn't knock him out, but it broke his rhythm completely.
The momentum shifted. With pinpoint intel, our "weak" team was holding its own. But eventually, Kuro's stamina started to win out. He was closing the gap on Ren, and my teammate was starting to flag.
"Ami, see that vine at your feet? Pull it tight and string it across the gap behind the third rock in front of you!" I shouted.
She was trembling, but she did it.
Meanwhile, I moved the Spider into the middle of Kuro's path. I had it anchor its legs deep into the sand and arch its body like a tiny, wooden trip-wire.
Kuro barreled forward, his eyes fixed on Ren. He never saw the little brown lump in the sand.
The second his foot brushed the Spider, I had the bot spring upward. It didn't have the strength to hurt him, but it was just enough to snag his ankle and foul his stride. He lurched, lost his balance, and stumbled straight into the vine Ami had just pulled taut.
Thud.
Kuro face-planted into the sand, hard.
"Now! Go for the flag!" I snapped, my eyes flashing open.
Ren didn't need a second invitation. He shot forward like a leopard, sprinting past the dazed Kuro and snatching the enemy banner from their base.
"WE WON! WE ACTUALLY WON!" Ren whooped, waving the flag like a maniac.
The drill was over.
I stepped out from behind my rock, my face even paler than usual. Maintaining that many "input signals" on a tiny chakra pool was like running a high-end game on an integrated graphics card my brain was sizzling. I walked over to where Kuro was still groaning and whistled. The Spider scuttled out of the dust and hopped back into my palm.
Kuro sat up, spitting sand. He stared at the unimpressive wooden toy in my hand, his face turning a weird shade of purple. "Was that... was that little piece of junk the reason I tripped?"
I just nodded, carefully checking the Spider's joints for sand damage.
Ami hurried over to us. In her rush to pull the vine, she'd scraped her palm pretty badly on the rough bark. A bead of blood was welling up.
I looked at it, summoned the absolute last wisp of chakra I had left, and felt that faint, cool green shimmer flicker at my fingertip. I held it over her hand.
It was a basic "patch job" slow and weak but it was enough to cool the sting and stop the bleeding. Ami's eyes went wide. "Sayo... you can do Medical Ninjutsu?"
Ren and Kuro just stood there in total silence.
The kid who was always last. The kid who couldn't throw a shuriken to save his life. He'd just built a scouting drone, played the battlefield like a chess grandmaster, and then pulled out medical skills on the side.
In that second, the vibe shifted. The mockery was gone, replaced by a weird, hushed kind of respect.
I pulled my hand back and shrugged. "It's just a basic heal. Good for scratches."
I tucked the Spider back into my robe and walked toward the edge of the field without saying another word.
The sun was hitting my back, and I felt like crap physically, but for the first time, I felt like I belonged here. I was still scrawny, and my chakra was still garbage, but I'd just proven that in a world of ninjas, the guy with the blueprints usually wins.