Gaara and Ren reached Karigawa town, situated just a few kilometers away from the border between the Land of Wind and the Land of Fangs. Walking inside, everything seemed normal. The streets were bustling with people. Street merchants were trying to sell their wares, shouting advertisements at the crowd. Children played on the street. But if one looked deeper, there was a faint, bleak undertone in the atmosphere of the town.
"There are far more people than usual." Gaara said with a frown as he looked around while they headed toward a restaurant.
He passed through this town several times when his team had a mission in the countries north of the Land of Wind, so he was vaguely familiar with how the streets here were supposed to look.
"It's probably refugees." Ren hummed, scanning the crowd with his eyes for any hidden Iwa ninja.
Both he and Gaara changed their attire to look more civilian and put their forehead protectors in their pockets to fit in better. This close to war, the town was practically an enemy zone, and Iwa scouts were no doubt already all over the place.
"Refugees?" Gaara's eyebrows furrowed as he threw Ren a questioning look.
Hearing the confusion in his voice, Ren let out an awkward laugh. Right. It was easy to forget how young and inexperienced this Gaara was, despite already looking like a proper teenager. At this age, his counterpart was already the Fifth Kazekage.
Ren nodded at him. He reckoned that Gaara more or less understood the realities of the war from the ninja's perspective. But he probably never contemplated how it looked from a civilian one.
"Yeah. In a ninja war, towns are rarely targeted. Ninjas never attack them outright. That would piss the Daimyos off. But small border villages? Nobody cares about those. They are very likely to be raided." Ren explained.
Honestly, if Ren had to compare the ninja wars to something from his previous life, he would probably say they resembled a conflict between two ridiculously overgrown mafia families.
They were not like wars between countries, where conquered territories belonged to the victor. If Iwa pushed Suna ninjas back and won a territory with a town in the Land of Wind, the land would still belong to the Wind Daimyo. Life for civilians would still go on in the same way as before. Just like if a mafia took a territory, it would still belong to the country's government.
Instead, what the ninja villages did was to issue a protection fee for merchants, and if truly desperate for funds, even normal civilians. Not too much, but also not too little. Just enough that the local economy could bear it, so the Daimyo would not need to worry about having one of his towns go destitute.
As for the invaders' reputation? Those people were living in foreign lands, and truth to be told, the likelihood that a Land of Wind merchant would issue a mission to Iwa was small. Thus, their reputation was safe with minimal hits despite these tactics of earning money like bandits.
For those merchants who did travel to their lands and did request missions from them? Well, they certainly had a list of those and could give them a leeway, no? That was just basic connection-building.
Those who refused to pay the protection fee might suffer an accident, or they might find members of their family or even themselves dragged to the Land of Earth, where slavery was very much legal and very much in use. After all, how else could they get their countless mines working, right?
As for merchants, not paying meant that their cargo might go mysteriously missing while going through the captured territory, so most would rather pay a fee than lose all their goods. It did not seem like much, but the money stacked up. During wars, the villages bled ninjas, but they did not suffer financially. Ridiculously enough, it was one of those times when the villages financially flourished the most.
It was why Rasa's solution to Suna's financial crisis was war. It sounded counterproductive. It should have been counterproductive. But alas, it was not so.
Economy was not how you won ninja conflicts. That was also why those wars could last for years. There would be an initial push, and then, unless one side gained a massive advantage, the conflict was going to enter a slow-burning phase that would last between a few bigger clashes.
Not that this phase would be any less bloody than the bigger clashes of armies. No. It would be even bloodier. It's just that the bloodshed would happen in the shadows, throughout several smaller skirmishes, instead of being focused on one battlefield.
Unfortunately, the wars ended only when one side started to run really low on ninjas and capitulated.
"Ah, I see." Gaara muttered, becoming contemplative while exuding a displeased air.
Ren glanced at him before inwardly shaking his head. He decided he would leave the boy to his thoughts. There was nothing he could tell him that wouldn't be just an empty platitude. This was the reality of this world.
As bad as the civilians of the Land of Fangs, which was always caught between any Suna-Iwa conflict, had it, the Land of Rain had it several times worse because they were both geographically in the middle of four freaking ninja villages, and thanks to Hanzo the Salamander, they no longer had a Daimyo who could stop these villages from going wild all over their territory.
'Then again, Pein is there.' Ren mentally hummed. He really wondered how that was going to look. There was zero chance Iwa would not try to go straight through that country in their conflict with Konoha. It was, after all, the shortest route.
But would Pein respond? And how? Ren didn't think the man would suffer Iwa's impudence on his territory. 'This whole war... it might get quite interesting once the ball gets rolling.' Ren realized as they reached the restaurant and took their seats.
Ren secretly put an anti-eavesdropping seal on the underside of their table, one that would just muffle their sounds as if they just blended with the ambient noise and became incoherent in a very unobvious way.
"The civilian-looking man and woman sitting in the corner are Iwa ninjas." He informed Gaara, who subtly stiffened, and deliberately did not look their way. Ren nodded, pleased that the boy knew not to overreact. "As is the girl sweeping in front of the store across the street."
One of the reasons why villages cherished sensor ninjas was exactly this. One of them walks into a town, and all your hidden agents that can't sufficiently mask their chakra might as well wear their forehead protectors, for all the good disguises would do them.
The only situation where sensors couldn't do much in counterintelligence work was when a village was using civilian agents. And they did. Ren was absolutely sure Iwa had a few in this town, considering it was a border town across a territory under Suna's protection. But civilian agents had a very limited use in ninja warfare.
"Are we going to take care of them?" Gaara whispered with a genuine curiosity in his tone despite the frown that appeared on his lips as he slightly leaned forward.
Ren, however, just shook his head in small amusement. "There is no point. My clone already relayed the information about them to a Suna ANBU team nearby."
"The war had already started, hadn't it?" Gaara realized, and Ren nodded.
"Iwa is setting up their invasion, and Suna ANBU runs interference to delay their efforts right now. While you were putting down the seals, I had my clones scout a bit. Iwa ninjas are already scouting the lay of the land. I had discovered sixteen locations where they were preparing hidden supply camps deeper in the Land of Fangs." Ren casually said.
Not that sixteen camps were a big number. Ren wouldn't be surprised if Iwa set up over a hundred of those because it was just common sense that at least fifty would be discovered and raided sooner or later.
Funnily enough, this was one of the very few times when bandits were actually properly dealt with by ninjas. On one hand, they were a competition, and on the other, Iwa needed their lairs for their supply camps.
"There is even one right here, in this town." Ren chuckled, making Gaara curious.
"Where?"
"In the brothel." Ren dryly said, causing Gaara's eyes to widen.
"Er..." He coughed, but didn't look away despite his embarrassment.
The corners of Ren's lips twitched as he shrugged, "Who would look for it there, no?"
Gaara opened his mouth, but quickly closed it as Ren suddenly gave him a warning look. Then, he deactivated the privacy seal because the waitress approached them with their order.
They received their meals, and Ren received a small slip of paper alongside his cutlery before the waitress left, and he reactivated the privacy seals.
Looking at the slip of paper, he hummed before sliding it toward Gaara, showing him the small dot in the middle of the paper. "It's a seal. Once we open it, there should be a report scroll that the ANBU requested us to bring to the village. My guess? They are requesting reinforcements because of all the intel I passed to them."
"Is that why you wanted to have lunch in this town?" Gaara dryly asked, and Ren smirked.
"I have no idea what you are talking about. This is but a coincidence."
"Right. So, you didn't just slack off while I worked. Good to know." Gaara said with an even drier tone than before, and Ren had a feeling the boy mentally rolled his eyes at him.
Ren gave the boy an exasperated huff, and their talk lulled into silence as they enjoyed their food while observing the civilians going about their business through the window.
It was a delightfully peaceful view.
But in the shadows...