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"Just our luck—teamed up with you two again!" Zhuo Si glared at the scrawny Sayo and the trembling Zhinai, his frustration boiling over. "Especially you, Sayo. What good is that raggedy wooden toy? We're going to be the laughingstock of the class!"
Zhinai kept her head down, her fingers twisting the hem of her oversized gray tunic, too paralyzed by anxiety to defend herself.
Sayo ignored the outburst. His obsidian eyes were already scanning the training ground—a jagged landscape of sandstone pillars, uneven pits, and wind-scoured trenches. To a brawler, it was an obstacle; to an engineer, it was a data set of blind spots and tactical bottlenecks.
"Listen," Sayo said, his voice quiet but carrying a weight of absolute certainty. "If you want to win, follow my lead. Zhuo Si, you have the highest stamina rating. Feint a head-on charge to draw their attention, but do not engage. Circle back through the pillar shadows. Zhinai, hide in that rock crevice and guard our flag. If anyone enters your five-meter radius, shout."
"And you?" Zhuo Si snapped. "You can't even throw a punch!"
"I provide the eyes." Sayo drew the crude wooden Spider from his sleeve. With a nearly invisible flick of his wrist, a Chakra Thread snapped into place, linking his nervous system to the puppet's core.
The whistle shrieked.
Black Ant's squad, banking on their overwhelming physical advantage, charged in a wide fan formation. They moved with the aggressive confidence of predators who knew their prey was weak.
"Here they come!" Zhuo Si dashed out, weaving behind boulders and shouting taunts to keep the enemy's focus anchored on him.
Sayo ducked behind a massive sandstone slab and closed his eyes. He funneled his entire consciousness into the thread. Under his masterful control, the Spider scuttled through the grit, its eight legs moving in a silent, fluid blur. Its dull, weathered body was a masterpiece of low-observable design, blending perfectly with the desert shadows.
Through the shared sensory feedback of the thread, the battlefield opened up in Sayo's mind.
"Black Ant is chasing Zhuo Si head-on. High velocity," Sayo reported, his eyes still shut. "The second member is flanking left through the trench for a pincer. The third... is lying in ambush in the sandpit to your right, waiting for the flush."
Hiding in her crevice, Zhinai gaped. The intel was impossible—Sayo couldn't see the pit from where he sat. On the front line, Zhuo Si heard the command and swerved instantly, narrowly avoiding the hidden trap.
"Zhuo Si, sprint to the red boulder ahead, then jump right—now!"
Zhuo Si obeyed on instinct. The millisecond he leapt, a heavy rock thrown by Black Ant smashed into the earth where he had just been standing.
"How?!" Black Ant roared, skidding to a halt. It was as if the scrawny kid was reading his thoughts.
Without missing a beat, Sayo commanded the Spider to crawl toward the ambusher. It reached a precarious pile of pebbles above the boy's head and gave a sharp, mechanical nudge. The clatter made the ambusher flinch and look up, exposing his position.
"Right-side ambusher exposed. One-third of his silhouette is visible past the ridge," Sayo called.
Zhuo Si, exhausted but inspired, scooped a stone and hurled it with everything he had. Thack! The stone clipped the ambusher's shoulder. It didn't take him out, but it shattered the enemy's coordination.
The tide had turned. Pinpoint scouting was neutralizing brute force. However, Black Ant's superior Taijutsu was a relentless engine; with a roar of frustration, he surged again, and Zhuo Si was forced back, his lungs burning.
"Zhinai! Pull the vine at your feet and string it across the ground behind the third rock in front of you!" Sayo commanded.
Trembling, Zhinai did as she was told.
Meanwhile, the Spider had crept into Black Ant's primary charge path. It anchored its legs deep into the sand behind a jagged stone, its body arched like a microscopic tripwire. Black Ant, focused entirely on Zhuo Si, never saw the tiny wooden lump.
The moment his foot brushed the puppet, Sayo triggered a mechanical lock in the Spider's joints. It didn't have the strength to stop him, but it was enough to snag his stride. Black Ant lurched, his balance compromised, and he stumbled blindly toward the rock where Zhinai's vine was waiting.
Thud. The strongest boy in the class face-planted into the sand, tripped clean.
"Now—take the flag!" Sayo's eyes snapped open.
Zhuo Si shot forward like a desert leopard, sprinting for the undefended enemy banner. The remaining two foes watched in stunned silence as Zhuo Si yanked the flag free and held it high.
"WE WON!" Zhuo Si whooped, waving the silk in disbelief.
As the drill ended, Sayo stepped out from the shadows. His face was paler than usual—the constant high-fidelity control had drained his meager Chakra to the dregs—but his expression remained an icy calm. He walked over to the groaning Black Ant and whistled softly. The Spider scuttled back into his palm.
Black Ant sat up, spitting sand. He looked at the unimpressive wooden toy, then back at Sayo. "That... that little thing. You did that?"
Sayo nodded, carefully inspecting the Spider's leg joints for stress fractures.
Zhinai hurried over, her hand stinging from where the coarse vine had scraped her palm. Sayo glanced at the bead of blood, summoned the final wisp of his energy, and a faint, emerald-green shimmer flickered at his fingertip. He hovered it over the cut.
The basic Healing Technique—slow and weak—was just enough to cool the inflammation and stanch the bleeding. Zhinai's eyes went wide. "Sayo... you know Medical Ninjutsu?"
Zhuo Si, Black Ant, and the gathered students stood in a stunned, heavy silence. The "Dead Last," the kid who couldn't throw a shuriken, had just masterminded a victory using a custom-built drone and displayed the rarest skill in the village.
"Just the basics," Sayo said flatly, retracting his hand as the green glow faded. "Good enough for a scratch."
He pocketed his Spider and walked toward the edge of the field without a second glance. The sunlight caught his thin frame, casting a shadow that, for the first time, looked like that of a giant. He had proven that in a world of monsters, the most dangerous thing was a mind that knew how to build its own strength.
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