When the first medicine wagon reached the Western Border checkpoint, the wooden barrier across the road remained lowered.
The North Valley migration convoy waited two li outside the barrier.
More than two hundred people huddled beneath a sheltered slope. Strips of cloth in thirteen different colors were tied to the wagon roofs, but there was not a single national flag or Shinobi Village forehead protector.
The Land of Fire's Western Border official pinned the relief documents against the desk.
"Register as temporary subjects of the Land of Fire first. Only then can the medicine wagon pass."
The woman who had come seeking help with a sick child in her arms was named Ling.
She spread out an old piece of cloth covered in names.
"You can register these."
"Registration as subjects also requires you to agree to resettlement, comply with border defense assignments, and refrain from leaving on your own."
"We won't sign."
"Without your signatures, we can't establish who is responsible."
Ling looked at the medicine crates already loaded behind the barrier.
"When a child has a fever, do we need to know who owns the medicine before we can save them?"
The official did not relent.
The North Valley migration convoy came from thirteen settlements.
Some had been destroyed in the war.
Some had been reassigned to neighboring countries that refused to recognize the original inhabitants' land rights.
Several others still existed on maps, but in reality, only ruins remained, along with tax offices that had changed names three times.
The Land of Fire feared that once it allowed relief through, food, public safety, and future arrangements for all two hundred and thirty-seven people would become an open-ended responsibility.
The migrants, meanwhile, had seen far too many cases of "temporary resettlement" end in forced service.
Neither side was