Nostalgia

Overall, ninja villages had one great advantage: although the social status of residents within the village varied, institutional factors made relations between all levels far more harmonious than in the outside world.

Even if the Hokage walked down the street, outside of official business, they still had to haggle with villagers when buying things...

A ninja village was a city, but it was also an organization—one that largely operated under an electoral system. That gave it far greater cohesion than the traditional aristocratic systems outside.

The villagers were the foundation of both the ninja army and the electoral system. Thus, in a ninja village, from individuals to great clans, no one could pound their chest and claim they did not need to win the villagers' favor. Even the proud Uchiha of Konoha still had to build their reputation...

Reputation was a good thing. For ninja, the ways to build it were basically fixed.

Merit and conduct—those were the two main points. As for family background, that did not matter. As long as you had strength, you were good to go. Villagers did not care whose bloodline was supposedly more "noble."

Take Kagetsu Qi. Everyone knew he was the head of Root, and they also knew the Huiyue Clan was a recently risen family. But so what? What did the higher-ups' power struggles have to do with them? Instead of caring about that, they would rather worry about whether vegetables, meat, and whatever else had gone up in price lately...

That was getting off track. In any case, aside from that upper-level crap, ninja villages were generally harmonious places.

After being away for so long, Qi found it comfortable to walk the village streets again, greeting people he knew and people he did not. ==, Only after staying in a hellhole