Yes absolutely. He acknowledges her. And we all know what an important theme that was in Naruto (or the first half of it at least!).
I've also thought there were some interesting parallels there too, in that Sakura's biggest fight was against a puppet and Naruto's biggest fight in that arc was also against a puppet (Pain) who then wanted to turn him into a puppet basically. They wanted to control him/control the kyuubi. Basically they saw him as a vessel, an empty shell, a puppet.
It could have been a point that brough Naruto and Sakura closer, that they both fought battles that were so similar. In fact, I thought Sakura's skill against Sasori would come back in the Pain battle, by recognizing that he was essentially a human puppet, not a wooden one. But, alas, no.
It also would have been healthy for Naruto to have seen someone else recognizing Sakura. And it would have been healthy for naruto to have recognized that there are other people better suited to fight against or partner with Sakura. Because a Sakura/Sasori partnership would be a truly fearsome thing. They would be better suited to each others skills than any of Team 7 was. (Sure Team 7 had crazy power, but they never fit together like Shika-Choji-Ino did.)
edit: The Sakura/Sasori fight gets featured in Voice in the Wind in the next chapter. So yeah, I feel ya about them!!
The thing about Sasori/Sakura partnership whether its romantic or just business is that they are in fact different but oddly complimentary. Sasori seems to reflect Sakura--he fights at a distance, she fights up close, she deals mostly in curing ailments while he exists in the realm of inflicting them--but to inflict them he also has to know how to cure them. I mean even in his puppetry and whatever method he used to extract his heart he had to have some extensive knowledge of anatomy and the like. He's basically the Evil genius to Sakura's Good doctor, and I like that dynamic. 
The two of them working together rather than trying to kill one another would have been freighting. Sasori is very two-faced, he can go from being subtle, methodical and almost machiavellian while Sakura is the opposite, but the sort of have this ability to meet in the middle and coalesce.
I mean there is just so much between the two of them in that one battle that it's just hnng. Saosaku is basically the better version of Sasusaku, it has actual developement and even when he was trying to kill her Sasori was nicer than Sauce lmao. 
Also the fact that Sakura got a Sasori reunion yoinked from her in favor of more Kankuro time is always going to bother me. Sakura was the one who reached Sasori originally. She's the one who impressed him, the one first one who planted the "You're wrong!" seed in his head. She is legitimately the only person he has ever even broached the subject of "becoming like him" with as far as we have seen in canon--Like I wrote a drabble about this last night for tumblr, but if you go back and read his last conversation with her...I'll just drop the part of the drabble that pertains to it because I'm lazy lmao:
“Do you want to become like me? Then you could probably understand…” a useless offer considering his state but it hadn’t sounded hypothetical by any means. He was extending a once in a lifetime opportunity a process and state only he had knowledge of.
"I can make as many people as I want out of puppets…” he’d looked her dead in the eyes with that strange smile and added “if I want them.” As though he had wanted her. “But I don’t add just for the sake of quantity.” His gaze seemed to rake across her features, studying her from head to toe. "Quality is important too."
Like he already had plans written in his head.
It had alarmed her at first, how nonchalant he was. He was supposed to be years and years older than her and yet he seemed so young not only in face but mannerism–youthful in his fervor. 'Its possible that removing himself from the aging process slowed his development.’ It would explain his poor decision making. Even a genius brain didn't stop developing until they were at least 25.
The fact of the matter is--as I joked before, the whole thing came off as a creepy marriage proposal. He's intimating that she's worthy to stand as his equal, not a mindless puppet but something exactly like him. Some people make a big deal out of the age gap, but I genuinely believe that him messing around with kitten probably did stunt his development--and also he's kinda crazy to begin with -coughs-
Edited by Tsuki Hoshino, 22 December 2019 - 08:09 PM.
