The Yamato line.
What happens in this scene? After the events at the Heaven & Earth bridge, Sakura is healing Naruto. Her wound is shown to still be hurting her. Then the unconscious Naruto is shown to still be in pain and Sakura expresses a desire to learn Yamato's jutsu to restrain a bijuu. However, it requires the Wood Release, so she can't. Sakura remarks that she can only do the dumbest of things for Naruto. Yamato says that it's not about what she can do for Naruto, it's about how strongly she feels about him. He then smiles knowingly and begins to tell Sakura something that is apparent to him about her feelings for Naruto. But Naruto wakes up and he is interrupted.
What was the significance of this supposed to be? Sakura wants to help Naruto. In fact, at this point, Sakura would do anything to help Naruto. This is obvious to Yamato. He eyes the claw marks on her arm before making his statement. Everything that I said in the post about the bridge scene also applies here. Sakura got herself injured solely because she couldn't bear to watch Naruto suffer because she cared about him so much that it hurt.
What was Yamato going to say? Canonically, there's nothing he could have said that makes any sense in retrospect. "The truth is, you really view Naruto as an important friend?" That would be stating the obvious considering she just expressed a desire to learn a technique to help him. So Yamato was about to reveal something about Sakura's feelings that she had yet to acknowledge. The fact that Naruto was a close friend of hers was in the open. The fact that she cared about Naruto was also made extremely clear. What else is there other than that she has romantic feelings towards Naruto?
Did Naruto love Sakura at this point? Yes.
Did Sakura love Naruto at this point? Yamato thinks she does. At this point, do we have any reason to doubt him? No.
So what does this mean for NaruSaku? Sakura is starting to return the feelings that Naruto has for her. This is great. Basically everything in this arc is about Sakura's care for Naruto and desire to help Naruto. The bridge scene had connotations that I talked about in the earlier post. This scene is a continuation. In case anyone didn't understand that Sakura getting herself hurt over her own heartache could be interpreted as romantic.
Rating: 4. On its own, this scene is not as bad as the bridge scene overall. However, Yamato's line, and as a consequence this whole scene means nothing now. Sakura did not love Naruto.
Just ignore the fact that that wound on her arm, a scar that she would still have on her body today, is a testament to how much she cared about Naruto and needed him to be alright. It's fine if he's just not a part of her life anymore. What does Sakura even think about when she looks at that arm?
I challenge anyone to explain her abandonment of Naruto in a way that makes any sense. It's even worse than Sasuke's abandonment of Karin with no explanation. You don't just forget about someone who was the most important person to you and just move on to live a mediocre life. Especially not in a god damn shonen about BONDS.
I like how after posing this question, she doesn't even look up at Yamato. She continues to gaze down at Naruto, sweating, with profound emotion on her face.
Sakura's heart couldn't deal with this. It was too much for her. But she has no problem pushing Naruto towards Hinata in the Last, sentencing herself to a life with someone who tried to kill her and who will never be around. We don't see any such emotion from Sakura in regard to this. She's totally fine with it, and is totally fine with the terrible consequences of this decision.
These character moments of deep inner turmoil are not reconcilable with the ending. Is losing Naruto to death really so much different than losing him because of your own indifference and nonsensical obsession? Not really. She still lost him and is way worse off for it.
Another 5, no explanation needed because I'm pretty sure it is self explanatory