The streets seemed oddly silent as Sakura walked their lengths, heading away from the strange events in the training grounds. Stupid Naruto… She thought angrily as her sandals stomped the ground. And what was with Kakashi-Sensei?

Up ahead, she saw Ino and her team. Shikamaru and Chouji seemed to have just finished a team meal and lingered behind, while Asuma and Ino had ditched them, Ino to find Sasuke (Good luck, Inopig!) and Asuma to do… whatever it was Asuma did.

Shikamaru spotted her and, strangely, he waved enthusiastically.

"Hey, Sakura-Chan!"

"Hi," she said cautiously as she passed. Shikamaru had an unusual amount of energy, it seemed. Oh well…. Maybe they'd unloaded a bunch of sugar on him. "Have either of you seen Sasuke?"

Shikamaru shook his head.

"Don't waste your time on that loser," said Chouji. He was just finishing off a bag of chips. He held out the bag. "Want a chip?"

"Uh…. No thanks." That's really, really weird. Chouji looked sad.

"I know it's troublesome, but," began Shikamaru, "You wanna do something later?"

What. The. Hell? "No… I have plans." She began to back away. What's going on with these two?

"Hey, I was gonna ask her out!" Said Chouji, angrily.

"Aww, she'd never date you. You're too fat."

"I AM NOT FAT! I'M PLEASANTLY PLUMP!"

Sakura backed away, afraid. Where did that come from?

Not taking her eyes off of the pair, she kept backing away until she was in an alley way. Suddenly, she collided with something. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a green jumpsuit.

She sighed. "Hi, Lee-san." As weird as he is, him hitting on me is normal.

"Wrong," came the manly reply. She turned around to find Maito Gai behind her, grinning. "But of course, it is easy to mistake my youthful self for my lovable youthful student!"

"Uh…. Right…." Just going to pretend that I didn't hear that… She began to walk around her, but he stopped her.

"Say…. Speaking of youth… There's enough room in this jumpsuit for tw-"

"NO!" roared inner Sakura and Sakura at the same time as she punched Gai out and ran. That was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too scary. The thought was almost worse than that time when she'd walked into the men's side at the hot springs during a "senior's hour". Just the thought of that makes my soul shrivel up and die…

At the other end of the alleyway was the ninja school. Maybe I can hide out there for a while… The academy students are cute, anyway.

She walked through the gate where Iruka was making some of the older ones run a small obstacle course.

"Good morning, Iruka-sensei."

"Good morning." He said with his usual smile, not taking his eyes off his students. Sakura sighed. Everything seemed to be in order here.

A moment or two went by.

"So… Do you have any plans for later today?"

Sakura's left eye began to twitch. Not him, too! "Yes…" Maybe I can just avoid this…

"Oh…? With who?"

"Sasuke," she said, without thinking.

"You're wasting your time. Umino Iruka is the genuine article!" He grinned. "Just ask anyone!"

Sakura left in a cloud of dust. She was running so fast and not paying attention that she bumped into someone. She fell to the ground.

"Sorry!" She said, dusting the dirt from her butt as she got up.

"No, that was my fault," came his voice. She looked up and saw the bluish-lavender eyes of Byakugan.

"Oh… Hello, Neji-san."

She began to walk away when she heard him call her. "Wait."

"Hm?" She turned around cautiously.

"Sakura-Chan, our destinies were written in the stars to be interwoven. You will go out with me on a date."

Eeep! "Uh, I'd rather not. I have to go find Sasuke now…. Bye."

She began to walk away, avoiding this as much as possible. From behind her, she could hear him yelling.

"But we're destined to be together! Why is Sasuke so great, anyway? I CAN BE EMO TOO, YOU KNOW!"

She finally got far enough away to drown him out and ducked in behind some bushes.

"Phwew…. I gotta figure this out. Why is everyone hitting on me-"

And then it hit her.

The love potion.

Something had gone horribly wrong.

--------------------------------

Well, there you have it! The next chapter. Longer and better written, too.

More to come. There's plenty more characters, after all.