Firstly, Konoha started reinforcing this part of the country, wasting their war potential on fighting what was, in reality, poorly managed and very random, which made it frustrating to deal with attacks of various pirate crews the Mizukage hired. These men should not pose a problem to ninjas but their raids were so spread out and random that Konoha had no other way to counter them than to keep their ninjas stationed in the coastal cities. The villages however were left to their own devices... Most of them were already razed to the ground, women raped and enslaved, and men, elderly, and children used for amusement as the pirates stole and plundered to their hearts' contents. Simply put, the Konoha forces abandoned them to protect rich merchants in the cities. For now, Kiri was winning this faux invasion while its forces were secretly amassing themselves at Nagori Base. And yet... not one Kiri shinobi set even one foot on the Land of Fire territory during this invasion. It was all the job of hired scum who couldn't even use chakra. Rei really had to applaud the Mizukage for this as the man was single-handedly screwing with two nations of the Great Five by just spending some pocket money on expendable pirates simply by using the situation he found himself in.