Naruto was left grumbling as they leapt through the branches outbound from Konoha. Sasuke had won the coin toss to see who would be team lead, meaning he would be stuck with leading last out of all Team 7. He rolled his eyes and huffed out a breath as he swung under a branch, deliberately bringing his mood back to level. There were upsides and downsides to everything; being last meant getting the chance to see everyone else's mistakes before having to try himself.
"Ne, Sensei, how big is the Capital? It's bigger than Konoha, right?"
The answer drifted back on the wind from the nearly invisible Jounin drifting ahead of him through the dappled shadows.
"The Capital is significantly larger than Konoha. We have a population of about 15,000 while the Capital houses a permanent population in excess of 700,000."
He almost missed the next jump, nearly staggered by the number.
"That's… so many people! How do they- what- why- how do they all fit?!"
There was a smile audible in the tone of Hiroki's voice as the team bounced across the surface of a stream for a few miles, tiny flecks of light glittering off the greenish-blue surface as they passed with nary a ripple.
"Konoha is a ninja village. We are always going to be small. They don't call them 'Hidden Villages' for nothing, you know? But more, ninja are very rare, in an absolute sense. The Land of Fire has a population of nearly twenty million; most of those people will never see a real ninja."
Naruto saw Sasuke frown slightly at Sensei's words, and he felt a measure of shared confusion at that observation as well.
"But we fought wars."
Sakura shook her head, carefully bound hair streaming behind her like liquid cherry blossoms as she answered the unspoken question.
"Ninja were a critical part of all three world wars, but not because of numbers. The Country which established ninja superiority would be guaranteed victory, but actually holding territory and pacifying the populace was the job of civilian militias and Samurai."
Hiroki nodded approvingly, briefly floating upside down as he looked back at the Genin between jumps.
"As Sakura says. Shinobi are a key part of National Security, and a major strategic asset for the Land of Fire, but there are very few of us. Our skills are best employed in small battles, surgical strikes, and subterfuge; even the Hokage would eventually fall if forced to fight endless waves of armed civilians stiffened by Samurai."
That was a completely novel though for Naruto, and he spent a long minute pondering over it while they traveled.
Konoha was all about ninja. The ninja of Konoha were the entire point of Konoha. There were probably barely a thousand genuine civilians in the village; most of the non-ninja were still from ninja clans and would be involved at least peripherally with breeding more clan ninja or otherwise supporting the clan's strength. But the world was huge; twenty million was a number he could barely wrap his head around, and that was in Fire Country alone. They might be the most populous nation, but that didn't mean no one lived anywhere else.
His dream was still to be Hokage, and it wasn't as if that goal no longer mattered, but it was an odd shift in perspective. Konoha was his home, and he wanted to be recognized by her people for his strength and determination but… in the grand scheme of things, that wasn't that big. He'd be one of the top ten most powerful individuals in the world, but practically speaking he'd only be in charge of around 15,000 people, where the Daimyo ruled practically the square of that number.
His chuckles attracted a brief moment of interest from Sakura, and he smiled somewhat bemusedly at her inquiring eyebrow.
"I'm going to be Hokage, and that's; well, something hardly anyone will ever see."
He shrugged and gave her another wry smile as he rebounded off the next tree.
"It's just a funny thought, you know? The world is a big place."
Humans have always been self-centered. Your lack of perspective is what caused those wars in the first place.
He rolled his eyes at the Kyuubi's sullen grumbling but he couldn't say the words were untrue, merely deliberately provocative. A bit of smile lingered around the edge of his mouth at the expert use of his broadening vocabulary while he shot back a mental reply.
We can do better Kyu-ji. You know it, I know it, and together we'll make it so.
Pretty words.
The presence in the back of his head receded and he was left pretty sure Otsutsuki-ojisama was unconvinced.
Well, someday.
To his surprise, Sasuke actually voiced a question.
"Even if there aren't as many ninja, we still have enough to maintain a presence over a large area. Endless civilians might bring down a Kage, but they'd have to gather first. Even a single Genin team should be able to hold a modest sized city; why bother with the Daimyo?"
Sensei hummed musingly, head cocked and hood ruffling in the wind.
"Well, I suppose because it would be a bother, and unlikely to work. During the Warring Clans Era there were occasional partnerships, some which even lasted a long time like the alliance between the Akimichi, Nara, and Yamanaka. Some of those alliances tried to hold and maintain territory, but the civilians didn't respect their authority, so eventually all the farms they controlled were either abandoned or depopulated. Ninja still need to eat, and you can't eat gold."
The air whistled past them, the heat and humidity dampened by the trees and shade to make it tolerable when combined with the speed of their passage.
"There is a very important difference between 'power' and 'authority' and while shinobi hold quite a bit of the former we don't have very much of the latter. So the Daimyo exists to control the civilians, who grow the food to feed the ninja, who ensure the Daimyo stays in control."
Naruto chewed on his cheek thoughtfully, considering Sensei's words. He frowned a tad in confusion as he bounced off the rough bark of the next tree.
"Does the Hokage decide who gets to be Daimyo then?"
"Not precisely. It is something of a balancing act. The Daimyo is the largest single purchaser of Missions from Konoha; he makes up almost 60% of all of our revenue with missions to patrol the borders and maintain order inside the Land of Fire and so on. So it is in the Hokage's best interest to avoid making him angry, or he might stop giving us as much money. This is actually a large problem for Suna at the moment; the Kazekage and Wind Daimyo are on the outs. However, the Daimyo knows that, in principle, the Hokage could have him assassinated. It would be tricky, to be sure, since he has ninja guardians loyal to him personally, but it would be doable. So it is in his best interests to keep giving us money so we have no reason to quarrel with him."
His frown of confusion deepened slightly, which Sakura noticed and tried to alleviate with a bit more explanation.
"The Daimyo doesn't choose the Hokage, and the Hokage doesn't choose the Daimyo, but both of their opinions matter to the other. The Village wouldn't support a Hokage the Daimyo wouldn't deal with, and the Hokage wouldn't protect a Daimyo who lost the Village lots of money."
The blond's mouth formed a silent o of comprehension.
"I get it! So, it's like, 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine'? We both be nice and everybody wins?"
The Jounin at the head of the formation nodded approvingly.
"Just so."
The younger Uchiha grunted in acknowledgment but didn't seem quite satisfied.
"Why doesn't the Hokage simply puppet the Daimyo? Then we wouldn't have to worry about keeping him happy."
"That isn't really the point of a ninja village Sasuke. Konoha was founded to bring an end to the Warring Clans Era, not to run a country, and not to make ninja fabulously wealthy. We could do that, but why bother if our current arrangement works so well? And, of course, there would be the matter of maintaining that control despite Samurai trained in chakra techniques and ninja who might be loyal to the Daimyo before the Hokage."
Hiroki paused for a moment before nodding his head in a grudging sort of way.
"Too, some believe that the Daimyo was chosen by the gods to rule. And he has more practice."
Naruto sighed heavily and rolled his eyes, chuckling under his breath.
"Who needs the hassle of ruling the world?"
. . .
A/N: So, off we go on our second C-rank. Fun times will be had by all!
Kyu-ji is an affectionate and highly informal mode of address, and Naruto probably wouldn't be so flippant while in Kurama's presence. Ojisan means uncle, or more generally 'old man' (approximately equivalent to 'mister' in english but with definite connotations of age), and in a case like this the 'san' would be dropped. Kyu-ji thus means simply 'Uncle Nine'.
Konoha is a military dictatorship. Not of the entirety of the Land of Fire though, obviously. The Hokage rules the Village and the Village is a commercial entity which is primarily employed by the State. But the Hokage is not part of the Land of Fire's line of succession or hierarchy; she is not the Daimyo's subordinate as he is not hers. The Daimyo did not build the ninja villages to be his army, the ninja villages are not truly dependent on his sufferance for their existence, and the ninja villages are not solely employed by their home countries.