A/N:

Naruto + RWBY

I do not own anything from Naruto or RWBY

When a lonely champion faces defeat for the first time she discovers that perhaps losing wasn't such a bad thing. A tournament brings two people who would otherwise not meet, friendship and perhaps more.

Naruto Uzumaki x Pyrrha Nikos

This is a "Multiverse Collection" a number of one-shot stories.

These single-chapter stories may or may not be upgraded to complete works in the future.

Please feel free to leave any feedback that you may have, positive or negative. Whether you end up liking or hating this story is up to you.

Huge shout out to my new Beta Reader - Dojo4fFic

Thank You.

A Worthy Challenger

Chapter 1: The Perks of Defeat

*Mistral Regional Tournament Arena*

The Mistral Regional Tournament Arena was packed with spectators as Pyrrha Nikos, better known as the Invincible Girl, prepared for her final match. Pyrrha had dominated her previous matches with her impressive combat skills and Semblance, just like she had won numerous tournaments in the past. Her fame had turned her into a celebrity, but she preferred to stay humble.

Standing in the arena, Pyrrha awaited her final opponent, unsure of who she would be facing. She hoped that her adversary would be a worthy opponent, as they had made it to the final through the other bracket of the tournament.

The crowd watching the tournament cheered loudly, being the previous winner and "Pride of Mistral", the crowd was excessively loud, all cheering for her. In her mind she sighed, feeling bad for her opponent who most likely had very few people in the crowd rooting for them. It made her frustrated as this type of reaction and her fame often caused her to struggle to make friends since it made people think they were not good enough to be near her or that she was pompous and stuck up.

With a deep breath, she focused her mind on the match ahead, ready to face any challenge that lay ahead of her. Pyrrha looked up from checking her armor and weapons as the crowd's cheers changed to boos and jeers, drawing her attention to her opponent who, to be honest, didn't look like much yet appeared to be taking the crowd's reaction well, all things considered.

Her opponent came out into the arena turning out to be a relatively young or perhaps just short boy with spiky blonde hair and striking blue eyes. He wasn't wearing much armor other than forearm guards and shin guards and was armed with two small sticks, probably mech shifts of some kind. Taking in the appearance of his clothing and weapons she could tell that they were not of the greatest quality but looked custom built, perhaps made by himself with low-quality cheap materials, and his clothes alone appeared to be rather cheap and worn.

She frowned but at the same time got slightly excited that perhaps her opponent was skilled if he was able to make it to the finals of the tournament with cheap and lesser quality armaments. She grew startled somewhat however by how aggressive, angry, and hateful the audience was acting, they normally didn't root for her opponents but this was the worst it had been.

Glancing at her opponent again her eyes widened slightly realizing why that could possibly be, he was a faunus, atop his head were a pair of crimson red-colored fox ears. Disappointment and sadness grew in her mind at the fact that this boy who must be at least somewhat skilled was on the receiving end of such hatred from the crowd due to his faunus heritage.

Her musings were interrupted by the sound of her opponent approaching. Despite the jeers, he was smiling at her with a happy yet slightly nervous grin. "Uh hey there. Um, you are Pyrrha Nikos, right? I'm Naruto. Naruto Uzumaki. I'm excited to get to fight someone of your skills! Hopefully, we can have a good match and have some fun!" Naruto spoke eagerly, extending his hand out for her to shake.

Pyrrha was taken aback by Naruto's enthusiasm. She had never encountered someone who was excited to fight her before, let alone someone who hoped they could have fun during the fight. She couldn't help but smile slightly at his eagerness, and she extended her hand to shake his. "Hello, Naruto. Yes, I'm Pyrrha Nikos. I hope we can have a good fight as well.

Their hands met in a firm handshake, and Pyrrha couldn't help but feel a sense of camaraderie with Naruto, despite the fact that they were opponents. She was impressed by his confidence and bravery in the face of the crowd's hostility towards him.

As they pulled away from the handshake, Naruto's expression turned more serious. "I know the crowd isn't on my side, but I promise I won't hold back. I want to give you my best, Pyrrha."

Pyrrha was surprised yet touched by Naruto's determination and honesty. "Thank you, Naruto. I won't hold back either. Let's give the crowd a show they won't forget."

Naruto grinned, his blue eyes sparkling with excitement. "You got it! Let's do this!"

As the two combatants took their positions, the crowd's jeers and boos faded away, replaced by an intense silence. Pyrrha could feel the weight of their expectations on her shoulders, but she didn't let it deter her. She focused her mind, ready to face Naruto's challenge head-on.

Naruto himself did a few stretches and pulled out the two sticks he had on him, activating them causing a sickle-style blade to pop out of the side of both handles much like a flick knife would deploy its blade. He experimentally twirled the hand scythes around a couple of times before moving into a ready position with the same megawatt grin on his face. He looked her in the eyes before shooting her a quick thumbs up and moving back into his ready position.

Pyrrha had to stifle a small laugh at his actions; perhaps she had finally found someone that she could befriend that wouldn't be intimidated by her. The countdown rang through the arena as the two combatants readied their muscles before the starting bell rang. Both combatants shot off toward each other swinging spear, shield, and scythe at a high speed.

Naruto grew confused as his strikes seemed to shift around her or not hit as hard as they were supposed to. On the next round of engagement, he watched carefully and saw something that made his eyes shoot open wide. Her semblance had to be something to do with magnetism or polarity as he could see a faint shimmer around his scythes throwing them off or slowing them down just the smallest amount. He quickly jumped back to disengage.

"That was awesome!" He shouted.

Pyrrha stopped and looked confused. What was awesome? Her eyes widened when she saw him glancing at her and then back to his scythe blades before retracting them back into the handle. Did he figure out her attacks? She watched as he quickly removed his arm and shin guards and threw them to the side of the arena. He had to have figured it out! He would be one of the few people to ever realize her semblance in combat and his response showed that he had an intelligent mind toward battle.

She saw him get ready again and watched shocked as the scythe blades opened again but this time a different blade came out. That was a blade of dust, wasn't it? That would make her semblance less effective but there still had to be some metal in his weapons that she could move. She got back into the fight charging him before engaging in more precise combat maneuvers testing her semblance against his new dust blades. Yes, she could affect it still but it was lessened and it almost seemed like he was compensating for her manipulations with each movement.

"This is a super fun fight, Pyrrha! You are really good!" He said in the middle of another strike.

She smiled lightly while blocking an overhead strike. "This is quite fun. And you are good as well." She looked over to the monitor quickly to look at their aura levels and saw that they both were close to equal with her level being just a little higher than his.

Turning her eyes back to the fight she deflected a blow with her shield before her eyes flew open as she felt her legs get taken out from under her. But how? She was watching him and didn't see him trying to trip her. Then she saw it. Coming out of his back were two glowing gold chains hovering around him almost like an additional set of limbs. She watched as he activated another shift on his scythes that split the two scythes down the middle separating them into four individual weapons.

She continued to block as he passed off two of the split scythes to the chains which seemed to hold the weapons like a hand. She grew just a little bit scared but also excited as this Naruto definitely was skilled and was making this fun. He also wasn't taunting her or anything despite the fact that she could now tell she was at a disadvantage and struggling. He still had a smile on his face and she could hear him occasionally laugh, say how much fun he was having, and compliment her.

Before she knew it she blinked as she felt tired and felt herself impact the ground. She stayed there as she heard the buzzer ring announcing the end of the match. What happened? Who ended up winning? The arena was extremely quiet for some reason. She didn't know but she honestly didn't care if she lost, he was nice, friendly, and skilled. If he won he deserved it and she would be happy for him, and perhaps they could become friends.

She got her answer when the crowd erupted in boos and jeers, so he won. She smiled and looked as a hand entered her vision. Standing above her was Naruto looking quite tired himself holding his hand out for her to take. He had a small smile on his face, not one of ego or gloating but one that showed that he was happy to have fought with her. Her smile grew as she accepted his hand and let herself be pulled up.

"That was a great match! You alright?" She heard him ask.

"Yes, thank you. I agree that was a good match." She looked up confused as the hand that had been helping her lifted her hand into the air. She blushed slightly when she realized that he was basically holding her hand and raising it in the air as a show of sportsmanship showing that he thought that she was the winner just as much as he was.

The aftermath of the match went by quickly for Pyrrha as she separated from Naruto to pick up her gear and get ready for the title ceremony and subsequent reporters that would most likely show up. She was frustrated that throughout the whole ceremony, the crowd continued to boo Naruto. Her only reassurance was that Naruto, despite a few downward twitches of his fox ears, did not appear to let it get to him.

After the ceremony where for the first time since she started fighting in the competition, she received the second place award, she headed towards the changing rooms to take off her gear.

"Pyrrha! Wait up!" Turning around she saw Naruto running up to her waving his hand in the air.

"Naruto? What is it?" She asked.

"Well… um, I just wanted to say that I had a fun time fighting you and you're really good. And uh well… I was wondering if you'd give me your scroll number?" Naruto asked, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand shyly.

Pyrrha looked shocked for a moment before she smiled. "You want my scroll number?"

He shrunk down a bit in nervousness. "Um well I mean if you don't mind. Um, I don't have many friends and I mean, well you seem pretty cool. I don't know you that well but you seem like a nice person and um well you're really strong and skilled too. So you know I was thinking that maybe we could get to know each other better and maybe, um become friends. And we could even spar with each other too. I mean you are really good and your semblance is really strong so it would be a fun challenge to spar with you. But um if you don't want to do that it's ok I just well thought I'd ask. Um yeah haha." He said, awkwardly and nervously.

Pyrrha giggled a little bit at his rambled speech before smiling and holding out her scroll. "Yes, I would like to get to know you more and maybe become friends. Sparing against you could be fun too, your semblance and fighting style is really unique, and I could see each of us improving from practicing together."

Typing in his scroll number quickly Naruto handed it back to her with a huge beaming smile on his face. The redhead had to imagine that if he had a tail it would be wagging right now. Having not had, really any, friends Pyrrha was wholly inexperienced when it came to many social interactions and was actually quite nervous, yet the blonde's friendly and upbeat attitude wiped away any nerves she had, leaving her excited and looking forward to the new friendship that was forming.

After talking for a bit more about the match and saying their goodbyes the two teens separated with promises to get in touch. Naruto was happy to have a new friend to spar with and talk to, leaving with a large smile on his face. Pyrrha too was happy, losing the match to such a skilled opponent excited her, re-igniting the spark that initially drove her to train so hard. Finding someone who wasn't intimidated by her and actually wanted to be her friend also left her nearly skipping on her way out of the stadium, completely negating any feelings of disappointment over her loss.

3/20/2023