Many fans, when arguing for the likelihood of their favourite pairing, do a very strange thing. They simultaneously remember and forget that they are discussing characters in a story rather than real people. I don't mean that they are under any illusions about the story being real, but that they argue about things like whether so-and-so's comment on who loves who is valid if he hasn't know the other characters very long, rather than what the author or mangaka's purpose is in having so-and-so make that comment. The first would be a valid question if they were real people, the second is what you ask about characters in a story. So this is an attempt to take a clear look at what Masashi Kishimoto intends for the relationship between Naruto and Sakura.