Disclaimer: The characters are the property of Masashi Kishimoto and the Naruto franchise

Author's Note: Readers of the manga, we've all come to the end of a long hard road. I wasn't going to publish this, but sentimentality won out in the end - I wanted to publish at least something on the day we saw the last chapter, so here we are, short and sweet. It's more of a poem than a one shot, I guess.

Title comes from Maya Angelou's 'Caged Bird'. It's a beautiful poem. It always strikes me as angry, but if you're a caged bird singing of freedom, who wouldn't be?

Anyhow, here's to the end of Naruto! Best, Zen :D

There was a road ahead of him.

It had started at the gates, passed beneath his feet, and it extended on and on. To where, who could say?

Where was he going? He didn't know, and he didn't need to know, and for the first time he didn't need to care. The wind was on his back and tugging at his hair. It dipped under his cloak as though readying to sweep him up and soaring away.

Perhaps it really could happen. The wind really could take him away. He felt light enough for it to be possible.

He had no more ghosts on his shoulders, no vengeful hands pawing at his ankles. Leaden hatred that had sat so long in his chest, stoppering and soothing a wound with its sullen weight, had softly melted away. He could turn his eyes to the sky, without brutal purpose forcing his head to the road.

Gravel crunched under his boots. Dust kicked up between his toes.

The wind at his back was playful. It riffled through the grass on the roadside, brought the smells from the town he was leaving - the fresh-cut wood and smoke, the meat grease, the sweetness of fruit – and filled his ears with the humming that was the heartbeat of a living town.

He closed his eyes. It was much too soon to tie himself to that steadily beating rhythm.

The town behind him had its walls. It was rooted to the dreams it was built on and bound up in bonds too tight to be broken, even by death, whereas before him was a world of endless skies. When the hawk wheeling over the woods ahead had screeched, its voice had had no echo.

He could still feel their eyes on his back, watching him walk on, and nobody was trying to stop him.

There was a road ahead of him.

It wasn't a road that lost itself on in its winding course through darkness. Neither was it weighed by the past or traced in the lingering outlines of old dried blood.

No promises paved it. No graves stood as its milestones. No red-eyed shadow waited patiently on a throne at a crossroad to point him on his way.

It was a wild track, an unbeaten trail he would be treading down for himself. His own footsteps were his markers and the wind and his whim his signposts.

Perhaps some might think he would be lonely, that there would come a time when the wind under his wings would give way and he would be stranded on his own in silence, but he had plenty to do and see, and the world was much too loud. If all that still wasn't enough, he had plenty of his own thoughts for company, now that they were merely his thoughts and not his most insidious of enemies.

The metal plate in his hand was warm. That idiot had been gripping it so tightly in his fist he had imprinted the slashed through mark into his palm. The old blue cloth felt stiff between his fingers. He wondered if it still had the kinks and creases from where he used to tie it into its knot.

Hinges the size of his forearms squealed. The gates behind him had closed.

The road invited him onwards.

His eyes were open. The skies were clear. They were a bowl of cloudless, boundless, blue.

One day, this road would bring him back.

The road was a circle, a loop, which, as he gripped his forehead protector, he realised suited him fine. If his road was a circle then every step forwards was also a step towards those he would return to, and, without a beginning or an end, this road was neverending.

The road of freedom went on forever.

And so a young man set out on a road. To where, who could say?

Perhaps that is a tale for another time?

Thanks for reading.

Best, Zen :D