What’s worse: an OC who does nothing during battles or one who’s shoehorned in??

As a reader, does it bother you when an OC is mostly in the background during major canon battles? Or is it worth finding a more important role for them to make it more entertaining?

For context, I am currently writing chapters for my Naruto/Female OC fic covering the war arc, but am having a hard time figuring out how to fit my OC into most of these canon events without taking away or replacing existing characters’ feats. Most of the fic has consisted of additional arcs and scenes alongside canon events rather than inserting the OC into everything.

This is primarily a romance, so combat hasn’t been the focus of the story but there has been build-up throughout the fic via lots of training scenes and I want to do a good job at delivering payoff for all that. However, there really aren’t a lot of places where she could do anything of importance that isn’t already taken care of, but I also feel like it’d be a letdown to have her do what every other background ninja is doing or just skip over a lot.

For reference, my OC is an interrogator who works for the Intel Division. She is a noncombatant and has even been forced to have a bodyguard (Naruto lol) when she goes out on field missions. Much to her dismay, she hasn’t had the opportunity to fight against enemies yet in this story, but has been training consistently and has demonstrated growth in her combat-related abilities throughout the story in other ways.

I have concrete plans for her role during the White Zetsu infiltration and during the reanimated Shinobi fights that I think make sense and do a decent job at delivering payoff for all the training stuff and her overall character arc. But I’m not sure how to proceed once everyone comes together to fight since so much is happening and there aren’t really places where I can just make up extra scenes to keep the story feeling fresh.

Realistically, she’d just be fighting in the background with everyone else and stressing out about Naruto and everyone potentially dying, which seems like it’d be boring to read since it doesn’t add or change anything. It’s easier to fit in small emotional moments to advance the romance plot between them, but obviously there can’t be a lot of that since they would be in the middle of a war.

Please let me know what you all think. I’m nearing the end of my fic and I really want to finish strong. Any advice helps! :)