"But Sakura!" Naruto argued as she pulled him through the store. "What about meeting our friends?"

"Most of them will be there!" Sakura shot back without stopping.

"We weren't even invited..." Naruto told her.

"Well, apparently Hinata was planning on inviting you, and I don't care whether I was invited or not, I'm going!" Sakura said bitterly.

"Uh...what exactly do you have against Hinata?" Naruto asked.

Sakura stopped in her tracks and avoided looking at him. "Uh...nothing!" Sakura turned around and gave him a big smile. "I just love parties! Yup, I sure do! Parties, parties, parties!"

Naruto stared at her. "O-kay..."

"Yup!" Sakura continued. "I'm just upset she didn't invite me, that's all!" Sakura gave him another huge smile.

"Oh...that makes sense..." Naruto agreed. Sakura nodded, the smile still plastered on her face, and then spun around and dropped it to an angry frown.

"I don't care whether I'm angry at him or not," Sakura thought. "She should NOT have asked him out why I'm under the influence of this potion, how does she think that'll make me feel?" Sakura asked herself. A small voice in the back of her head started to say that maybe Hinata hadn't known about the potion, but Sakura cut it off. "Or course she knew, I wouldn't date him willingly!" Sakura told herself.

"Uh-huh..." Inner Sakura replied sarcastically. Sakura rolled her eyes and stopped as they reached the women's section, releasing Naruto.

"Okay, over there are the men's tuxes, you go over there while I go get a dress," Sakura told him.

"Sakura, don't you remember? I already have a tux," Naruto said with a smirk. Sakura blushed as she was reminded of their date.

"Fine then, you can go home I guess..." she finally said.

"No way, I'm still worried about you and your memory. I'll help you pick out a dress!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Um...are you sure that's..."

Naruto dashed off before Sakura could finish.

She was looking through some black dresses a few minutes later, when Naruto ran up and threw something at her. She pulled it off her face and looked at the dress.

"You want me to wear this?" she asked. He nodded.

"It's pretty!"

Sakura looked back down at the dress. "Naruto, puke green with frills everywhere is never pretty, especially when you add the fact that it's three sizes too small," Sakura told him.

Naruto looked from her to the dress, blushing in embarrassment. "Sorry, I'll go pick out something else."

Sakura shook her head as he ran off, throwing the dress in a random direction.

"Hey!" a familiar voice cried out. Sakura spun around to see Ino peeling the dress off her face.

"Sorry Ino, what are you doing here?"

"Oh, I'm just picking out a dress for the Hyuuga party," Ino told her.

"WHAT?"

"What's wrong with that? Hinata invited me..." Ino told her. Steam came out of Sakura's ears.

"WHY IS SHE INVITING EVERYONE EXCEPT ME!?" Sakura shouted right in Ino's face.

Ino looked at her in shock. "I...don't...know..." she said meekly.

Sakura gripped Ino's shoulders and said through gritted teeth, "I think I'm losing it Ino. I like Naruto a little more than I did yesterday, I want to completely destroy Hinata, and I'm really really moody right now, and it's not even that time!"

"Calm down, Sakura!" Ino told her. "Maybe the dulling antidote is wearing off. It's no big deal, I'll go ask Tsunade to make a new one for you after we finish here, okay?"

Sakura sighed. "Okay, thanks. I swear I'm losing my mind, though. I feel like I'm gonna explode!"

"Maybe it's that big forehead of yours," Ino poked it.

Sakura glared. "Ino-pig!"

"Billboard-brow!"

Ino stomped off angrily, but they smiled at each other when she turned around. Ino waved goodbye as she disappeared behind another aisle of dresses.

Sakura turned around to see an armload of hideous dresses in her face. "Naruto! Get those out of my face, they're disgusting!"

The dresses fell to the floor to reveal Naruto's tired face. "I thought they looked okay..." he muttered, looking up when Sakura's hand closed around his wrist.

"Here, you follow me. I'll show you what a good dress looks like. I'll try one on, and you tell me how it looks, okay?"

Naruto nodded. "Gotcha!"

Sakura rifled through some dresses, finally picking a few and entering the dressing room. The first one she came out wearing was one of the black ones she had been looking at earlier. She spun around in front of Naruto. "Well?"

"You look like you're going to a funeral," Naruto said bluntly.

"Oh...but I am..." Sakura muttered with an evil laugh.

Naruto stared at her. "O-kay, Sakura's gone crazy..." he thought to himself.

The next dress Sakura came out wearing was a slightly darker shade of pink than her hair, making it almost look red.

"Hmm...better, but it might be too much pink..." Naruto criticized.

"Oh, what do you know? You can't even pick out a decent dress!" Sakura argued.

"So? I can still tell what looks good and what doesn't!" Naruto shot back. Sakura huffed and turned around.

The third dress was green. Naruto's face turned red when he saw it. "Uh...Sakura..." he pointed downwards.

Sakura looked down and saw that it showed A LOT of cleavage. She covered herself, avoiding his eyes, and ran back into the dressing room, leaving Naruto to his daydreams.

When Sakura came out in the fourth dress, drool ran down Naruto's face. "What? Does it show too much?" Sakura looked down at herself in the dark red dress. "No, it doesn't...Naruto, what's wrong with you?"

"You look pretty..." Naruto said dumbly, the expression on his face not changing. Sakura rolled her eyes, and went to change back into her normal clothes, all the same holding back a smile.

"Let's go..." Sakura said when she came out. She dragged him to the cash register and paid for the dress, and they left to go get Naruto's tux from his house.

Meanwhile, Ino had not taken nearly as long to pick out a dress, and was just arriving at Tsunade's office.

She politely knocked on the door, and heard someone say, "Come in!"

Ino entered the office to see Tsunade grinding ingredients together frantically using a mortar and pestle.

"What is it, Ino?" Tsunade asked, not taking her eyes off her work.

"Um, sorry to bother you, but I think the antidote you gave to Sakura is wearing off..." Ino told her.

Tsunade sighed. "This is just what I need. I've got to do all this paperwork, make an antidote so Sakura's memory won't get to chance to be wiped, and now I've got to remake that antidote..."

Ino started to mutter an apology, but Tsunade cut her off. "It's not your fault, thanks for telling me...and if you see Sakura, let her know I'll have it ready but tomorrow afternoon. With all this work, it'll take longer than last time..."

Ino nodded and left.

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Sakura and Naruto arrived at Naruto's house a few minutes later, and they both got changed into their outfits. Naruto came out of his bedroom at the same time Sakura came out of the bathroom across the hall, and they stood face to face.

"You look..." Sakura started, looking him up and down.

"...amazing..." Naruto finished, staring at her. He held out his hand and she took it. Who says friends can't hold hands?

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"Alright, we can stop to rest..." Orochimaru said. He and Sasuke landed next to a lake and sat on separate rocks.

"So...about the potion..." Sasuke started again.

"Boy, if you have all these doubts, why did you want to be the one to give her the potion?" Orochimaru asked.

"I don't have doubts," Sasuke muttered, crossing his arms defiantely. "So...Sakura's Deadline is definitely two days from now. There's nothing that can change that?"

"Five days, give or take a day. That's the Deadline."

"Give or take a day? You didn't mention that earlier. Kabuto could have been back to normal by now, then, so why did we kill him?"

"Eh, I've always hated that kid."

"Whatever. So the Deadline can actually be from four to six days?" Sasuke asked.

"Sure. Whatever." Orochimaru said, obviously bored with the conversation. "Let's go. We have a lot of planning to do for our attack on the Mist Village."

Sasuke nodded, and they both sprung back up into the trees.