Ok now we know for sure that Sakura is still in love with Sasuke, but on the other hand we have seen growing fondness of hers for Naruto, during whole series. She is hard to get, like every other goal that naruto has set for himself (sasuke, end the war, hatred, be with sakura-chan)but she is worth the trouble. If girl you really really like rejects you
dont lower you tail and go away sulking, and if you know she is worth of your love stick to her and show her how much you are a good guy to be with, no nicy nicy but strong firm guy that has his opinions and goals in his life. I think naruto has that and has shown that to sakura many times, she must come to terms of that. This also shows that Kishimoto will not let go of her love for Sasuke without milking ss pairing to the end to keep ratings up, on the other hand if she would to stop loving him emidiately than everyone would be saying oh she is really ficle as the autumn sky she transfered so easily to Naruto, she is a b****. And really in my inner thoughts it wouldev bugged me all the time, was she really in love with Naruto, or she just transfered from sasuke to naruto when there was no hope left for her and sasuke, cause naruto was a nice guy, bringing her safety etc.
If we look in real life when we see onesided crush where one side that was hurted and rejected goes to other party that is safe, and marries that guy, but always fantasys about that cool guy, and wondering what could be if she was with him. We would not want that Sakura to be with Naruto, cause the Naruto would always be her second choice, that is so wrong. It is nice that Kishi is showing how sakura is little by little growing out of love for sasuke, only to fully accept narutos love, and naruto as a person, who is so much better than sasuke. If sakura were to end with sasuke, i wouldnt think that she is great and smart and strong character that i think now of her, the best manga heroin in my opinion, than she would be just shallow and stereotypical.
On the other hand we see on that panel that she is realising bit by bit how this Sasuke is not the old sasuke, but she still loves him, but she knows it is wrong to be in love with that kind of guy, she strugles, and as many people said she tranfered from girl who is defending sasuke to a girl who understands he is a bad guy, that is great for narusaku development. She still isnt fully aware about her love for naruto. You cant judge her, cause many women who are beaten by their boyfriends of even they have been tried to be murdered, they still think they can help that guy, many sad marriages end up like that, where girl is thinking she can save the guy, and in the end that all ends up in tragedy.
Only when others around are hurt (children) than that person understands that she must move and grow out of that (i think naruto in lifethreatning situation will bring her to those terms)and go away from that guy, to finally realise, is her love really love or infatuation, or attachment to what person was once or completely brainwashed by the guy so she thinks he is all there is, and she must love him until they both die, like faraon would carry his young wifes in tomb to die with him. But as we all remember kishi depicting sakura as strong and determined girl so that also means she is strong in her decisions,strong in thinking who she loves otherwise she would be weak if she should sudennly transfer to naruto without SHE HERSELF realising that she really loves naruto. If her love for Sasuke was this strong and ongoing over nothing, than you could imagine how stronger her love will be for naruto when she realises it. Than nothing could happen that could shatter that kind of strong love, that is based on real situation and friendship, selfsacrificing etc.
So i think this is a buildup that Kishi is making, so called "great love" from sakura to sasuke only to be replaced by stronger love,real love for Naruto. And the moment when sakura will realise how much she loves naruto will be the moment he is about to die,(something similar to ova) or she will think he is dead, then she will realise in full how much she loves him, and who was with her all the time, not just saying those words like she said in conffesion but fully realising and understanding them in her heart cause she realised it in her mind already like shown in conffesion but not in heart yet, you dont know what you have until you loose it, maybe that will be a point where she will be more heroin like and do something about her real love naruto and really help him and save him. Problem she doesnt realises it yet is her overconfidence in naruto, she will have to see naruto is wonruble, and needs her, heck that was what drawn her so fanatically to sasuke.
If she would to transfer from sasuke to naruto so suddenly then she would be weak character but she is not, Kishi is simply trying his best to show her growth from sasukes love to naruto. Cause sakura has a curse of being heroin and main character and she must live up to that, and that is not giving up on her love for sasuke, (she would be like those women that make peace with second best choice and when first obstacle appears quits) only greater love can replace that old love, and i think sakura will realise that greater love and friendship is and always has been between her and naruto. She is happy with naruto, she is herself around him, around sasuke she is fake and artificiall fangirling. If sasuke were to come home and she was with him, she would not be free person she is around naruto, she would be in the shadow of the strong person, not allowing her to develop as a person in full.
It is funny we debated not long ago how it is cliche in american movies but it may come to that, when main characters have a quarrel , or one end up being nearly dead, the other character finds out in his/her heart how much he/she cares for that person, and how he/she was stupid to be in love with cool person how much that love was shallow and how now she realises true love and her fellings. Remember how Sakura, when naruto was fighting never was afraid for his safety she had full confidence in his abilities, what if that confidence was taken away, and she was brought up to real circumstances where naruto cant save her or everybody now, and that everything will not be fine,(you came back and saved eveyone, you always come when most needed = that is her thinking of naruto) i thing that kind of her image of naruto has to be shattered, for the sake of her growth. I remember myself when i was dumped by girl, i wanted her back so badly, i knew she was no good for me, i would repeat that sentence to myself over and over again "im better without her, shes no good for me", but i didnt really belived that, it was what i told everyone else, and my thoughts were just for me. I was in pain, only when i snapped out of it, i realised how lucky i was that i didnt end up with that girl cause we had nothing incommon, and only had pain in that relationship. You can see similarity with sakura and sasuke, my experience tells me it will be NaruSaku.
So i am still giving time to sakura to realise the fact she truly loves naruto, not only in mind. I didnt think it would come to this, but it makes sense, cause you cant beat novel type of romances with realism or how it is done in real life (you grow out of love when you see your shallow reasons for being in love, or shallownes of that person or how that person is bad for you) you must beat it with bigger type of story and bigger type of romantic plot, that makes sense.
NaruSaku was buried so many times before, but when Kishimoto smashes SS they will not know what hit them. Kishimoto knows he must put up ratings, he gets the money from the manga he will not abandon other fandoms because of us or his pairing that he is building. But in the end he will smash SS and he will smash them greatly, but it will be in the end of manga when ratings cant sink down, cause it doesnt matter. He is subtle with narusaku, and he is building it from inside slowly how real love and friendship should look like, so in the end ss will wonder how the heck narusaku happened cause "there were no clues" and they will say he is bad writter, but we will know all the fondness and growth naruto and sakura had for each other throughout the series.
WOW
you thought this through huh? Well I agree its only that I want something more shall we say official with NaruSaku soon. I personally am itching to see one, and its true that Masashi wants to keep up ratings but I don't think he did it for that No one can really influence on how the story is going and he really isn't doing it for the fans and even he was its going to upset some people so what those said fans should do is just move on and decide whether or not to follow the story still. Another thing, I don't think its an issue that Sakura moved from Sasuke to Naruto, it wasn't an instant change and she now knows she loved the wrong guy for the wrong reasons
Edited by Phantom_999, 12 June 2011 - 12:15 PM.
I think Homophobia is NOT COOL 
Its who you are 
Well anyways It really seems Kishimoto is pulling a fast one here as usual But now that I think about it, its likely Sakura was only thinking of Sasuke because she turned down that minor character and was thinking how Sasuke used to be the target of her affection and didn't think of Naruto because she didn't think she deserved to love him for hurting him like that, and even it it was Sasuke she meant it could be that she was unsure of her feelings for him right now
but if it was just a memory of her former feelings for Sasuke then okay and If she truly meant Naruto when she said she likes someone else but just remembered Sasuke for some reason EVEN BETTER 
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