Naruto listened quietly until she finished, without answering right away.
The night breeze swept over the rocky summit, stirring their hair.
He fell silent for a moment, shifting his gaze from Sakura's confused, searching face to Konoha below, illuminated by countless lights.
Then he spoke, his voice low.
"Sakura, you know something?"
Rather than directly answering how he had managed it, he began talking about something seemingly unrelated.
"When it rains, if other kids have parents holding umbrellas over them, they can take their time walking. They can even stop to splash in puddles."
He paused and turned back, his blue eyes meeting Sakura's again. Their usual bright, smiling warmth was gone, replaced by a clarity as still as water:
"But a kid without an umbrella... if he doesn't want to get soaked, doesn't want to get sick, doesn't want to be left behind..."
"All he can do is run harder."
"Run with everything he has toward somewhere he can shelter from the rain."
"He doesn't have time to complain about why he has no umbrella, or envy the people who can take their time.
If he stops, he'll only get soaked even worse."
It sounded like a simple truth, yet it clearly reflected his own childhood, when no one had held an umbrella over him and he had struggled desperately through indifference and loneliness.
His "optimism" had never come from being naturally carefree. It was a survival instinct that forced him to look ahead in desperate circumstances, to make himself believe that the rain would stop.
Then Naruto took his words a level deeper:
"Without parents to back you up... when you've been wronged out there, gotten into trouble, or just feel scared and lost... there are no arms you can always return to, no one to stand up