Although prices and the economy in the Land of Wind had gradually stabilized, the entire country had suffered devastating losses in this horrific catastrophe.
Guardian Ninja wreaked havoc everywhere, slaughtering countless civilians and reducing settlements to ruins in the fighting.
Settlements were difficult enough to establish in the desert; rebuilding them would be all but impossible. Worse still, those deranged Guardian Ninja had deliberately destroyed the vital water sources, extinguishing any hope of reconstruction.
In such desperate circumstances, most surviving refugees could only be sent to Sunagakure.
Yet the refugees were deeply uneasy about this arrangement. Some even fled, preferring to lose themselves in the endless desert rather than enter a shinobi village.
To these people, there was no difference between Guardian Ninja and Sand Shinobi. Both were terrifying shinobi who slaughtered their loved ones and destroyed their homes. They would rather die in the merciless desert than eke out an existence under shinobi rule.
Sunagakure's already unremarkable reputation had now hit rock bottom. In contrast, Konoha's prestige rose by the day.
The reason was that Shingetsu had not acted in Sunagakure's name. Everyone in the Land of Wind knew perfectly well that it was Konoha Ninja who had stepped forward, eliminated the roaming Guardian Ninja who massacred entire towns, beheaded the speculators who inflated prices, and delivered a steady stream of desperately needed supplies.
The more capable Konoha proved itself, the more incompetent Sunagakure looked. After this calamity, public sentiment had firmly swung toward Konoha.
Reto and Shamon had both begun to realize that Konoha had dug a massive pit for them. They bitterly regretted their earlier decisions, especially their failure to seize the Daimyō outright, but no amount of regret could change the facts now.
At least in public, they still had to plaster smiles on their faces