I don't know if I'm interpreting this wrong, but I keep reading panicky fans going back to roughly chapter ~470ish and referencing something that Naruto said. When Naruto last encountered Sasuke, he said that the next time they both fought they would both die. And call me crazy but...
Technically they DID both fight-- and they both technically died. Of course, the more in-depth interpretation of that statement is that "the next time they fought EACH OTHER", but that was never explicitly stated as "the next time we fight EACH OTHER" or "the next time we face off" etc.
To be quite honest, I'm just rambling a bit here and trying to understand what the final outcome would be. Personally it wouldn't make sense for both Naruto and Sasuke to die-- it would defeat the purpose of the new generation surpassing the old, and while it would I GUESS end the "cycle" of hatred, it wouldn't result in Naruto's dreams being fulfilled. Essentially, the story would kind of just…collapse within itself and have a sort of deceptive conclusion. Also everyone would be stuck inside the tree forever and that would suck. But I guess KakaSaku fans would be happy (LOL) since they'd have the world to themselves >:)
When it comes to the entire NaruSaku pairing, I don't really see any true conclusion coming until the very end of the manga. As a mostly objective reader (mostly…;) ), I feel like it has an 85-90% chance of being endgame and canon, as, once again, the manga is about the new generation surpassing the old. Naruto should ideally succeed where his predecessors failed, and the parallels (while other fandoms deem them irrelevant, I've yet to see a successful story without the use of it) are very strong. In regards to Sakura's feelings, while I don't believe that there are panels that blatantly say "Sakura ROMANTICALLY reciprocates Naruto's feelings", I believe there are ambiguous and very important hints throughout the manga. Of course, I believe Kishi leaves them ambiguous on purpose for more impact (and also to be a demon and fuel the shipping wars LOL jk). I don't really count her confession because of the Sasuke implications of it, but there's no doubt that Naruto's become one of, if not THE most, important people in her life at the moment. While I doubt that Kishi will have Sakura intervene in the upcoming Naruto vs. Sasuke battle, I do believe she may realize just who it is she has been shown to truly care for.
Anyway, these are just some of my late night thoughts about the progression of the story etc. Let me know what you think :>