Verified answer

By what the manga has shown, he is still in love with Sakura and she is growing very, VERY fond of him so NaruSaku takes the win by a mile.

When Hina got her butt handed to her by Pain, that was a straw that broke the camels back moment for Naru. Kishimoto could have literally put any character in her place and the result would have been the same; a friend of Naru's get's taken down by the guy who killed his sensei/godfather and 2/3 of Konoha resulting in too much Kurama chakra coming through Naru's weakening seal.

(The fact his seal had been in a constant state of deterioration prior to his meeting Kushina often goes overlooked by the NH crowd) When we look at the Shukaku fight, Naru not only mentions saving Saku more times than Konoha, he crawls on his chin to make sure she is safe.

The handhold with Hina served two purposes; to transfer chakra (he also holds Shikamaru's hand in the exact same way as Hinata's, then proceeds to give everyone handclaps - again to transfer chakra) and to give her character closure. Hina wanted to hold Naru's hand and stand by his side as an equal. She acomplished that.

And really, if a handhold means THAT much, well, Saku has Hina beat. Many times, Naru would hold Saku's hand and vice versa as they hurried each other through towns and trees. And hugs trump handholds anyway. More personal. Saku has gotten way more hugs than Hina.

The slap to Naru's cheek by Hina is really an epic fail on the part of NH fans. They seem to praise Hina for her physical violance against Naruto yet they bemoan Saku for it (forgetting she is a Tsundere type just like Kushina). That is hypocrisy. Ignoring that, Saku has Hina beat on firsts with this as well. Long before Hina, Saku smacked Naru on the cheek to remind him of who he was.

That's literally about all the "development" between Naruto and Hinata thus far. Now, all Hinata has left to do is make good on her words not to pursue Naruto anymore.

Since there isn't enough room to fit all the NaruSaku development, I'm going to just pick a few examples out of the 600+ chapters worth of their development.

We of course have the parallels that so many NH fans complain about yet use themselves. NaruSaku is a blantant parallel to not only Minato and Kushina but Sakura's parent's as well. Sakura's father is a goofball like Naruto and her mother is more-so serious like Sakura. Of the films done, Kishi had the most creative control of Road to Ninja and he filled the entire movie with obvious examples of the similarities between the couples.

In manga, we have Kushina ask Naruto to stay away from weird girls. Naruto calls Hinata weird. She asks him to not fall for the first girl that comes his way. Hinata is actually the first girl to come his way. All other times, he has gone to Sakura.

Finally, She asks him to find a woman like her to love. (Sorry NH fans but she never said "find a woman like Minato to love" so that whole Naruto=Kushina and Hinata=Minato thing you rant about is really invalid)

Saku and Kush both have the same fiery, caring, hates to lose attitudes. They both use verbal expressive when excited (Dattebane/Shannaro) as well as identical phycial expressions such as the bicep flex. Both fit the scarey mom troups used heavily in the series (Anko, Ayame, Ino, Ino's mom, Sakura's mom, Tsunade, Kurenai, Shika's mom, and so on) Both had physical aspects they were picked on over. The first boy to compliment Kushina's hair was Minato, the first to compliment Sakura's forehead was Naruto. Both womean started out not liking their blondes. Kushina admits to treating Minato exactly as Sakura treated Naruto. She also says he grew on her and she eventually came to love him.

The Iron Country confession shows that Naruto wasn't upset about Sakura saying she cared about him, it was because of what she said about Sasuke. When she tries to kill the Uchiha, she is saved by Naruto paralleling how Minato saved Kushina from the Uchiha trying to kill her.

Other characters have noted the closesness of NaruSaku. Iruka, Tsunade, Jiraiya, Yamato, Sai, and even Sasuke have all made remarks. The most telling though was Minato who asked if Sakura was Naruto's GF. He agreed she was and she didn't deny it. Minato then notes how similar Sakura is to Kushina. Now, Minato knows about medic nins. He also states he knows all of what Naruto has gone through. There is only one reson why he would ask if Sakura is his GF and not just a friend or medic nin. And since Naruto hates liars and those who joke about love, there is no reason he;d lie or joke to his father.

Sakura has been shown growing and maturing. Hinata is still an obsessive fangirl. Naruto's heart still belongs to Sakura. Hinata is just a friend.

Naruto has used his love for Sakura to save a village. Hinata used her obsession of Naruto to get Neji killed.

I are not able to consider that that is nonetheless an open query but I just wish to say that I consider TheSage is on anything and i'm not just announcing that for what not too long ago is going down within the manga both. I might argue about NaruHina vs NaruSaku for hours however I rather desired to deal with the one reason I even clicked on this hyperlink after I googled to see what episode used to be out now. NaruHina fans are fascinated with the slap given that it used to be HINATA that did it. We don't reward the slap we reward the fact that SHE was once the one to do it. The least doubtless personality to clearly need to damage Naruto actually did and it was once for a good reason too. She did it considering the fact that she saw Naruto's beliefs wavering and knocked some experience into him earlier than he did anything stupid and set him straight in contrast to Sakura beats on Naruto all the time for stupid reasons! Also if he'll talk about firsts, who was once the one who said they cherished Naruto first (rather then his moms and dads)? And Hinata absolutely supposed it unlike Sakura who handiest said that so Naruto wouldn't go after Sasuke. And who the f*** is he to claim that the handholding is for closure? It means a quantity of things, some of which I agree with him about but closure is the unsuitable phrase to make use of. I've soooo rather more i might like to assert but to be honest i might as an alternative now not turn your question into a shipping struggle thread. I definitely do not think we will even recognize the answer to that question to be perfectly sincere. I feel all we will turn out to be seeing is Naruto and Sasuke kicking *** after which we see peace between the entire villages and Naruto becoming Hokage and that's it.

Ino Sakura And Hinata

At the beginning of the Naruto series, Naruto had a crush on Sakura, which gradually dissipated towards the end of the series, and formed into more of a strong friendship (though Naruto still, at times, flirted with Sakura). When Shippuden began, Naruto's relationship was still the same with Sakura, but when Nagato (a.k.a Pain) attacked Konoha, and Hinata gave her life for Naruto, his relationship with Sakura stayed the same, but his relationship with Hinata started to grow into love.

Recently, in the manga, it is evident that Naruto cares about Hinata. He even held her hand when sharing the Kyuubi's chakra with her. So it's fair to say that Naruto loves Hinata more than he does Sakura.

It should also be noted that Sakura's love for Sasuke has always been expressed far more than her "love" for Naruto (she loves Naruto, but more so in a friendly way), and with Sasuke recently turning back into a "good guy" and helping the Shinobi Alliance fight Obito, Madara, and the Ten Tails, there is more of a chance of Sakura ending up with Sasuke than it is that she will end up with Naruto. To add on to that, Sasuke has obviously warmed up to Sakura as well, as he actually laughed at her with she displayed her earth-shattering strength, and in Sasuke's twisted mind, that was a way of him acknowledging her abilities for once.

Though a small mention, when Sasuke and Naruto were fighting together and were attacked, Sakura only asked if Sasuke okay... completely forgetting about Naruto.