It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing- only to be promptly shot down for target practice. It was eleven am and Naruto had already dragged Shikamaru to the dome. He was jittering from excitement, waiting eagerly for his first battle since…since a while really.

"Na..ruto!" Shikamaru groaned sleepily. "Did you have to drag me all the way here?" He rubbed his temples and shut his eyes to keep the sunlight out.

Naruto jumped up. "C'mon Shikamaru! This is my big battle 'Tebayo!" He cackled evily. He could picture it now…

Ichigo would charge at him, with large bloody gashes all over him. "Impossible!" He shrieked. "I can't lose!" Naruto would generate a rasengan and slam it into him, sending him crashing into the wall. The screen would read: WINNER NARUTO!! And at that moment, Kugox would appear. He would then be forced to give up his position to the amazing Uzumaki.

Yep. That would totally be how the battle turned out. After all, This 'Ichigo' person didn't have his own manga named after him now did he? Nooooo!

After several minutes, Naruto couldn't take it anymore and left Shikamaru to get some sleep. The anime stadium was oddly empty, with no fights taking place at all. There was great deal of noise coming from the stadium one over though…

It was the literary stadium, and Naruto was shocked at the amount of people in the stadiums. All to watch to old geezers wave sticks at each other. After a couple seconds of watching the fight, he was located by Kakuzu.

"Hey!! If it isn't the Kyuubi again! Rumor has it you managed to get a challenge out of the Ichigo Kurosaki!" Kakuzu said cheerfully in his weird voice.

Naruto nodded. "Yup in an hour. I'm gonna kick his ass Dattebayo!"

Kakuzu just nodded vaguely, keeping a look out for a very cranky orange haired girl.

"So, whose the two old geezers Tebayo?" Naruto asked curiously.

If Kakuzus green eyes could bulge out anymore, they would have. "That's Gandalf and Dumbledore! This battle has been a decade in the making!"

Naruto blinked in confusion. "Ok…"

Kakuzu sighed. "They are two wizards from rival series. Like… the kages…sort of." Kakuzu just shook his head in annoyance. Leave it to Naruto to miss out on one of the biggest phenomenon's in book history.

Kakuzu gulped nervously as he saw Nami out of the corner of his eye. If she saw him chatting with a customer, she would skin him alive.

"Hey Uzumaki! Place your bet!" He said, a bit louder than normal, retrieving his notebook which held all the bets.

"huh..?" Naruto asked confused.

"Bet!" Kakuzu hissed. Crap..she was coming this way, he was so dead…

Naruto sweat dropped. "Fine..fine…uhhh….just put uhh…."

"Kakuzu?" Came a very scary voice from behind the two. She had her hands on her hips, and was tapping her foot in annoyance.

Kakuzu visually paled. "Y-yes Nami-san?"

"You are utterly useless!" Nami cried out, shoving him aside. "Watch and learn." She spat at him. Nami turned to Naruto with a huge grin on her face.

"Hello there, I'm sure you must be interested in betting in this epic battle today!" She said, leaning towards the blonde ninja.

Naruto smiled nervously. "Uhhh…not really Tebayo…"

Something in her eyes pierced into him. "Are you absolutely sure about that?"

x.X.x

By the time it was twelve am, poor Naruto had placed all of his money on a bet that the geezer with the staff would lose. He didn't even remember why he gave in…it was all a blur…

But it didn't matter anymore. The battle would begin any second now. Even now, he saw Ichigo enter the opposite side of the anime stadium.

The stadium was sparsely populated, since most were still at the battle between the two old wizards. A couple of characters from Ichigos' canon world were sitting lazily in the stands, but the rest were those who chose not to read ,and thus had no interest in the epic battle going on in the stadium next door.

Naruto stepped onto the field where the battle would take place. He might not have a huge audience, but this was still going to be a huge battle. He could sense it.

Ichigo stepped onto the field, opposite of Naruto, he carried his giant sword, almost effortlessly and positioned himself for a fight.

The screen flashed the words:

ICHIGO KUROSAKI VERSUS NARUTO UZUMAKI

GO!!

Naruto smirked. "You're going down!!" He roared at the top of his lungs.

Ichigo rolled his eyes. "Idiot." He said under his breath.

Naruto began to form hand seals.

"Ninpou…Kage bunshin no-"

The next thing Naruto knew, everything had gone black.

x.X.x

Shikamaru gave a smirk of victory. The points had been counted up. He had won by four and a half points. Once he had learned Toyas strategy, winning had been the easy part. Of course, even with a full game behind him, it wasn't until the last ten minutes where he able to finally find his opening and turn the game around entirely.

Toya lowered his head in disappointment, and clenched his hands tightly together. "We will battle again, Shikamaru-san" He said quietly.

"Like hell you will! Not till he battles me first!" Cried out a voice behind them. It was a boy with black hair except for his bangs which were blonde.

Shikamaru recognized this boy as one of Toyas friends, most likely from the same canon. "As exciting as that sounds, I must go pick up a very troublesome idiot. We have some scenes we need to shoot and junk." He said tonelessly.

Toya and his friend looked at him mournfully. Their shows and manga had ended a long time ago. It was a painful thing, knowing your story had ended.

Shikamaru said nothing to show he sympathized, since at the moment, nothing would have appealed to him more then to have the series end. He could finally settle down, and date any girl he wanted. He wouldn't have to baby sit Naruto anymore, and he could spend his entire day discovering new mind games.

And he could finally get back to that chess game he and Artemis Fowl never finished.

And he could finally have time to get a different hair style.

Frankly, life would just be a lot less troublesome.

Shikamaru first realized something was wrong when he had heard the battle had been done for hours. Surely Naruto would have tracked him down to tell him the play by play of his newest victory?

Maybe he just got lost. Yeah, that dunderhead most likely got lost trying to find a ramen shop or something…

The second time he realized something was horribly wrong, was when he caught view of the statistics in the anime stadium.

2: Ichigo Kurosaki

Losses: 0

Wins: 85330

Shikamaru began to get really worried. Naruto…lose?

He tracked down Kakuzu, only to find out that the Akatsuki had not seen the idiot since he left with what little money he had left.

Shikamaru was now panicking, something he rarely did. Where was Uzumaki Naruto?

x.X.x

He finally found him. He was in the hospital, right next to two swordsmen who were grumbling about how they were perfectly fine and that they didn't need a doctor.

Shikamaru found his mouth dry as he saw his companion.

Naruto was completely unconscious, and absolutely covered in many deep gashes. Even with the Kyuubis' chakra healing the wounds, it was still clear that he had been beaten badly.

"Naruto…?" He asked hesitantly. Naruto had to be ok. Right?

Naruto gave something that resembled a cough. "Damn bastard..." He said hoarsely. "I'm going to murder that strawberry head…"

Relief flooded in. That idiot was alive!

"Don't scare me like that!" Shikamaru found himself saying despite himself. He had never realized how much he cared for that idiot.

Naruto glared at Shikamaru. "I lost…" He said, more to himself, in pure disbelief.

He turned around, and faced the ceiling, leaving his mouth to form an 'O' shape. "I really lost."

Shikamaru sighed. "You can't win them all Naruto. Look, you fought a fair fight, and in the end he got more hits in then you did. Just keep practicing, like you're doing with Sasuke."

Naruto stared at Shikamaru. He gave a twisted grin that wasn't a grin at all. "That's the problem Shika. I didn't get any hits in…"

Shikamaru widened his eyes. "Wha--Bakano!! You had to have punched him once!"

"The battle was less than a second long. I didn't even have enough time to use a jutsu. Next thing I know, I'm here next to two samurai losers who refuse to shut up."

Shikamaru gulped. Naruto was by no means the most powerful ninja. But he was the title character! He was… he should have… not even one hit? He had to have been mistaken. There was simply no way…

No. There was something horribly wrong here. Shikamaru turned away and headed out of the hospital. He had a few well placed questions for this Ichigo Kurosaki…

To Be Continued

Vote on my userlookup for the outcome of Dumbledore versus Gandalf. Many thanks to my first and only reviewer DtecnoKira.