The Land of Water lay isolated overseas, and its closed-off geography made the people living there hostile to outsiders. As a result, the Land of Water gradually became isolated by the other nations. Especially since the Fourth Mizukage took office, he had dispatched a great number of ninja to drive out foreigners, and fewer and fewer merchants traveled to the Land of Water.
The Land of Water was practically cut off from the world to the point that it had Kirigakure's ANBU spying on the food, clothing, housing, and daily lives of the Land of Fire... Of course, that was only incidental while gathering intelligence on Konoha.
But there was simply too much of that kind of intelligence...
From the end of the Third Shinobi World War until now, Konoha had paid no small price to obtain from Kirigakure ninja such things as the daily routines of ordinary citizens in the Land of Fire...
Everyone in Konoha believed this was the Kirigakure ninja's way of concealing the whereabouts of truly important intelligence. What if vital information slipped through the net? Therefore, subordinate outposts were ordered not to overlook any intelligence, no matter how insignificant. This made the ninja stationed at the border miserable.
After all, the coast was practically a natural battlefield for Kirigakure ninja. It was already impressive enough if they could send out a request for reinforcements in time after Kirigakure infiltration... Over the years, Konoha and Kirigakure had fallen into a strange state: neither at war nor at peace.
Kirigakure neither launched a large-scale war nor sent envoys to Konoha for talks and negotiations. Instead, it periodically sent Kirigakure ninja into the Land of Fire to raid and plunder. While Konoha's ninja were tormented badly, Kirigakure's ninja lived like hyenas as well.
At dusk, the sunset clouds