Intro: Oh man, this is... this is odd. Once again, like a few previous chapters, I do not actually ship this. I am merely discussing this ship. Thought about making a SasuSaku chapter first, but decided against it, as my feelings on that ship are not remotely clear, even to me. Might as well make a chapter on a Naruto ship I have clear feelings about. So behold, what this ship's fans consider to be the Ichiruki of the Naruto franchise.

Proof: Well, Naruto had a crush on Sakura for a long time when they were kids, though she really didn't care about him, too enamored with Sasuke Uchiha to even bother. It wasn't until the three of them formed Team 7 when she was forced to truly acknowledge him. Naruto's crush still remained, but Sakura was either oblivious to it, or just flat out ignorant of it. And that's about all I know from what little of the show I've seen, but I'll continue on, so forgive me if I make mistakes.

When Sasuke decided to be the Edgelord we know him to be and abandon the village, from my understanding, this is where the ship began to blossom (pun not intended). But unfortunately, I believe that was its downfall. The ship became way too popular for its own good, and people just took things way too seriously. Even Naruto's crush on her seemed to fade. There was a point in the show where Sakura actually told him she loved him, but Naruto brushed it off, knowing that it wasn't genuine. Kid Naruto would've jumped at the chance, but not now.

In the end, the ship died with so many regrets, wondering what the heck went wrong.

What I think: God, searching through so much fan art trying to find the right photo for this ship felt so blasphemous... But anyway, my feelings for NaruSaku are complicated, to say the least. But I'll try to simplify it for you.

Do I think Sakura is an absolute moron for not falling in love with Naruto? Yes, absolutely.

Do I ship them? Definitely not.

I know it sounds like a paradox, but hear me out. When I first started watching Naruto, I knew what the ending was. I knew who got together with who, so I tried walking in with little expectations for the ships (I've learned from Bleach, I'm not going through that again). I knew there was a good chance I wouldn't like the ending couples, so I jumped in with no expectations. There was actually some part of me that thought I might ship NaruSaku. But, to my utter shock, I actually adored Hinata, and thus shipped NaruHina wholeheartedly. I knew NaruSaku was a thing in the fandom, but I didn't actually know too much until I got curious and looked it up.

To my utter disbelief, Naruto fans were claiming that NaruSaku is Naruto's equivalent to Bleach's Ichiruki. Aka, the couple that should've gotten together at the end. At that, I had to say to myself, "How dare they completely disrespect Ichiruki like that?!" I know I'm a complete noob for the show, but, as I've witnessed, Naruto and Sakura do not hold a candle to the bond Ichigo and Rukia share. And imagine my rage when people dared to compare Hinata to Orihime. Yeah, they have a lot in common, but correlation is irrelevant in this case. Hinata's crush on Naruto is more established than Orihime's crush on Ichigo could ever dream of being. How petty do you have to be to make claims like that?

I suppose that's part of the reason I don't ship NaruSaku, but as an Ichiruki fan myself, I could at least understand where they were coming from, even if I don't approve of the comparison. But I jumped on that NaruHina train a long time ago. Good luck trying to get me off of it.