"Where are we going?" Sakura asked, stumbling along the rocky trail that led up the mountain. Naruto led the way, scrambling over the loose gravel and dust with practiced ease.

In each of his hands, he held a teammate captive, boldly dragging her and Sasuke behind him.

"You'll see," the blond said, flashing an enormous, blinding smile at his prisoners. Sasuke grunted his displeasure, but followed easily enough, in the same quiet, distant way he had been following Naruto around ever since the boys came back from their short trip out of the village. Sakura still didn't know just what had happened out there, but she hoped that they would tell her someday. Whatever it was, it was very obviously still a raw wound for Sasuke, and Sakura was not going to poke that beast. She knew how wounded animals reacted, and she had only just started to make any progress with him.

As the three genin rounded one last bend, all thoughts flew from her head. They were on top of a cliff, and the entirety of Konohagakure was spread out beneath them. She could see the hokage tower just below, and the academy in the center of the city. She could see team seven's training ground, and the bridge where they always met, and Ichiraku ramen where Naruto liked to eat, and the central marketplace. She could see the people, and from this high up, they all looked the same, just tiny dots and specks drifting through the village.

"Oh, Naruto," she breathed, quieter even than a whisper. "It's beautiful!"

He beamed even wider, but the smile seemed different now. Calmer, softer. Less mischievous and mindlessly happy and more peaceful and content. It was an odd sight on the rambunctious boy.

"It's the top of the Hokage monument. The fourth's head. Not many people ever come up here, but I like to sit up here sometimes. It's quiet, and private, and sometimes when I sit real still and just breathe, I can feel Konoha."

This caught Sasuke's attention. "Feel Konoha? The village? How?" Naruto dropped to the ground near the very edge of the ledge, patting the ground on both sides of him, and the other two hesitantly joined him.

"Back down in the village, crowds can get pretty hard. Everyone feels like something, all at once, and it would be pretty overwhelming anyway, but most of them also have negative feelings towards me, so that taints what I pick up from them. It's bad. But when I come up here, they're too far away to really read. But…everybody in Konoha looks at this place, every day, and most of them are feeling the same things, very strongly. They look up here and feel faith, and love, and safety, and devotion. Hundreds of people, all linked and united by the same thing - the village. When I sit up here, I can feel it. All of them, as one instead of many. The distance helps some, but this place also feels like some kind of focus point, and it's…really beautiful." There was a long moment of silence, and then Naruto spoke again. This time, he sounded hesitant, unsure. It was weird. "I wanted to show you this, but it isn't the only reason I brought you up here. I…I need to tell you something. Something really important, and it's a really big secret, like I know that Iruka-sensei and Tsunade-baa-chan and Sensei and lots of other adults know, but no one our age does, or anyone outside of the village, and you can't tell anybody ever, okay? But I think you need to know. Because – because it's important."

Sakura squeezed his hand and smiled. "It's okay, Naruto. You don't have to be nervous. Just tell us." She wouldn't hold it against him, no matter what it was. Just a few weeks ago, maybe, but so much had happened since then, and she felt a kind of togetherness with them that hadn't been there before. They used to be Sasuke-kun and Stupid Naruto. Now they were her boys. She knew that Sasuke wouldn't hold anything against him, either. At this point, she didn't even know if he could. They had both fallen into Naruto's orbit, and it felt vaguely inevitable.

Naruto, instead of talking, opened and closed his mouth several times, then took in a deep breath and held it, squeezing his eyes closed, trying to get up the courage to speak. Sasuke and Sakura stared at him for a moment, watching as he quickly turned red, then purple. Sakura tilted her head, concerned. Sasuke twitched.

"Just spit it out already!", he finally cried, startling Naruto into blinking his eyes open and gasping in a breath.

"I'mthekyuubijinchuuriki!" Naruto blurted. When his friends just blinked at him, he heaved a deep sigh, ran his hands through his hair, and began again, staring determinedly out over the village. "I was born on the day that the Kyuubi attacked the village. And demons are made of pure chakra, so they can't be killed, so the fourth hokage had no option but to seal it away, but only people can hold a demon seal, and apparently most adults go crazy or die if you put that kind of seal on them, or the seal breaks again right after. But that doesn't happen with little kids. So because I was there, they chose me. The empathy is a side effect of having the fox sealed in you. That's why I heal so fast and why most of the village doesn't like me." Naruto turned to look at his teammates instead of the village, peering through his lashes. "Please don't hate me?"

He could practically feel the fear radiating from Sakura. He could feel her becoming more withdrawn, her aura dimming and going distant. But Sasuke was on his other side, glowing away just like always, steady and firm and with less decay around the edges than there had been a month ago, even a day ago. Sakura looked over his shoulder at Sasuke, looked down at the village below them, looked at their still-linked hands. And then she took a deep breath, looked him dead in the eye, and said, "Thank you for trusting us with this, Naruto. It must be really hard." And then she hugged him. On his other side, Sasuke tightened his grip on his hand and leaned into his shoulder. The three of them sat together, not saying anything, not needing to. Just three children, three ninja, holding each other up when they couldn't hold themselves.

It was more than Naruto had ever expected to have. It was everything he had ever dreamed of. The future might be hard, there were many mysteries that still needed solving and many enemies that were still a threat. But right now, watching the sun slowly set with a teammate – no, a friend – on each side, nothing seemed insurmountable. No matter what happened next, they were changing, in irreversible ways. They were growing into themselves, together. As long as they kept going, everything would turn out all right.