Story Title: Apprentice of a Hero

Crossover: Disgaea 3/Phantom Brave/Naruto

Disclaimer: I do not own any story, plots or characters taken from Phantom Brave PS2 game, Disgaea 3 PS3 game and Naruto Anime/ Manga

Summary: Naruto became an apprentice to one of the most powerful demon hunter to walk the multi-realities and he will change Konoha, as the apprentice of a Hero.

Author's Note: Almaz is a human hero character in Disgaea 3, I'd also be using several special skills from the Phantom Brave game. Naruto would be modeled after certain characters from Phantom Brave. No prior knowledge of the games are needed.

This fanfiction was written a few years back, even before I started writing Phantom Brave. I've posted it in a forum and then forgotten about it until I received a message from a reader asking about its status. And so... after such a long while, here's the whole story on and a new chapter ;)

Chapter 1: The Apprentice

Almaz sighed as he stared at his reflection on the water. Though he was now 1201 years old, he still looked like he was only in his late teens. But then, he supposed that the demonic energies coursing through his body might be the cause of his youthful appearance.

He was a well known name in the Netherworlds of countless realities. His titles were many, The Flying Blades, Demon's Death, The Ultimate Hero. It was not surprising that the demons had bestowed such titles on him. Throughout the years, his skills had grown and he had killed a large number of dangerous demons. Many demons considered him one of the most powerful human heroes to ever walk the various Netherworlds and survived to tell the tale.

Almaz had one simple rule that he followed throughout his thousand years of living. That rule was to help the innocent and protect them from those who would abuse their powers, be it human or demon. With each evil human or demon he had slayed, he in turn absorbed their powers into him, growing more and more powerful.

But Almaz knew he could not live forever. He knew that one day he might die under a demon's hands or pass away from old age. Thus he had begun his legacy. In every reality and every world that he passed through in his journey, he would pick someone worthy for him to pass his skills to. Almaz would then leave his disciples and continued his way through the multi-verse, seeking to right wrongs and bring justice to the wicked.

Right now, he was in Reality 673, on the world 87-RT, as so named by the denizens of the Netherworlds. He actually had to intervene when a three tailed demon had tried to wreck havoc at a coastal village. He had currently sealed the three-tailed demon which looked like a large tortoise with three tails, into a small pearl. He had no idea what to do with it yet, but since he was in this world, he might as well find someone worthy who could carry on his legacy and protect this world when he was gone.

Summoning his will and power, he spread his magic out into the waters, focusing on the qualities that he wanted his disciple to have. The spell would then cover a wide area of land and pinpoint anyone who matched his criteria.

An image of a grinning blond haired boy in his early teenage years appeared. Almaz frowned as he sensed the taint of a demonic aura around the boy.

"A level 200 demon sealed within the boy, and quite an evil one at that." Almaz said angrily as he instantly judged the demon's power level according to Netherworlds' standards. "How inhumane to use a mortal as a container for a demon of that level. I'll have to add my own seals to make sure the demon never escape."

Almaz waved his hand over the water. The image flickered and now showed a very large gate which seemed to be the entrance of a village.

"Well I better get moving." Almaz muttered to himself. "There are still a lot of worlds out there for me to save."

He touched the image of the village on the water. There was a flicker of light as he vanished, leaving no trace of his presence behind.

OoooO

Naruto scowled. Today was the first day he had gotten to be with his new genin team and he had been thoroughly humiliated by Kakashi sensei who was their team instructor. They had the bell test only a few hours ago which was apparently Kakashi's variation of the final test that all genins must take. Naruto had tried his best, but in the end, he had still ended up being tied to a wooden post as punishment. It had been pure luck that Team 7 had passed the test today.

"I wish I am stronger." Naruto said with a sigh as he walked through the forest, making his way home. Kakashi, Sakura and Sasuke had already disappeared once the bell test was over and the team meeting for the day ended.

"Do you really mean that? To become stronger?" A voice asked behind him.

Naruto whirled around to find a dark haired young man wearing a set of white jacket and black pants smiling at him.

"Oh you scared me." Naruto said scratching his head. "Who are you?"

"I am Almaz." The young man said simply. "Tell me, if you have more power, what would you do with it?"

"I'll use it to become Hokage of course." Naruto said at once, puffing out his chest as he grinned at the stranger. "So that everyone will respect me."

Almaz gave a small smile. "Not really the answer I was expecting, but that is still a worthy goal... You do have the potential to be a great person someday, and I have to admit, I am seldom wrong in such matters. I hereby accept you as my eightieth disciple."

"Eightieth disciple? What are you talking about?" Naruto asked in confusion.

Almaz did not say anything except to take hold of Naruto's hand.

"I am going to compress five years of training in one minute." Almaz said, his lips quirking up. "Stay calm, the first time is always rough."

Naruto opened his mouth to ask what he meant before the world twisted around him. His vision spin with a wild variety of colors, like a drawing painted by a very bad artist. There was a sickening lurch in his stomach as the feeling of falling from a great height swept over him before his feet touched solid ground.

Naruto collapsed onto the floor, vomiting out what little lunch Sakura and Sasuke had shared with him after the bell test. Someone took hold of his shoulders and pulled him upright. Naruto look blearily around him and realized with shock that he was no longer in the forest but standing in the middle of what seemed like a wasteland. He quickly turned around to face Almaz, stepping back from him cautiously.

"Who are you? Where did you bring me to?" Naruto asked looking around him in shock.

"I am Almaz von Almadine Adamant, Protector of the Innocents and Upholder of Justice. I am a human who had lived for 1201 years, and had honed my skills by battling against tyrants and demons throughout many realities and many different Netherworlds." Almaz said calmly. "I do know that I could not live forever, and thus I've decided to pick people worthy enough for me to pass my skills to, so that they in turn could learn to protect their own worlds and mayhap follow in my footsteps."

Naruto blinked as he tried to understand all that Almaz had said, only one thing registered in his mind. "You're 1201 years old?"

"Yes, 1201 years old. I've absorbed the essence of quite of lot demons during my journey which had prolonged my life span." Almaz explained. "Right now we're in a sub-reality that I've created where I will begin training you for the next five years. This is unfortunately the maximum limit for me to maintain this reality. Rest assured that time does not actually pass here, we'll not grow old during our time here."

Naruto looked helplessly at Almaz trying to understand what he's trying to say. "What do you mean training? I've never agree to this!"

Almaz raised his hand and a powerful blast of lightning exploded from his hand, smashing a nearby boulder to pieces. He then raised another hand and summoned several fireballs which began to spin above them.

"Do you want to be powerful enough to do these things?" Almaz asked looking at Naruto. "I could teach everything to you and return you back home with only just a minute of the time in your world's passing."

Naruto's eyes widened at the powerful techniques he had just seen, a look of awe on his face as he slowly nod his head.

"Alright I wish to learn from you Almaz sensei, though I have no idea of a lot of things that you're talking about." Naruto stated.

"That will be fine." Almaz said with a shrug. "We have five years worth of time in this reality, I'll explain to you gradually then. First, we'll begin your weapons training."

Naruto watched in amazement as Almaz began pulling all sorts of weapons from the small bag he carried on his back. Some of the larger weapons like the swords or spear could not possibly be contained inside the bag, yet somehow Almaz was able to retrieve them from a bag of such small size.

"Let's start with you practicing the bow." Almaz said, tossing Naruto a set of bow and quivers.

OoooO

For the next few months, Almaz pushed Naruto hard in learning how to handle all sorts of weapons proficiently. Almaz also had a bag of food and water that never ran out, which ensured that they would not die of hunger. Naruto slowly begun to understand more about his new sensei and the worlds outside his own.

There are an infinite numbers of realities out there, each realities had its own set of worlds as well as its own set of the Netherworld where the demons reside. Powerful demons known as the Overlords ruled over each of these Netherworlds, occasionally attacking the human inhabited worlds. But demons are the same as humans, there are good and bad ones mixed into the group. Almaz had made it his duty to eliminate any corrupted humans or demons, gaining quite a name for himself in the thousand over years.

Throughout the years, Almaz became skilled in all weapons, as well as being able to access magical abilities and other special abilities. Being a frequent visitor to the Netherworlds of countless realities, Almaz had encountered various demons that made a living selling various special abilities to anyone who could pay the price. One of the ability Almaz had bought was the ability to create sub-realities that stood outside of time. Apparently it was a special skill that was normally used by a special class of people who called themselves the Dungeon Monks.

Almaz had also been particularly interested in the story of how the Fourth Hokage had sealed the Kyuubi into him. Almaz had at first called the method the Fourth Hokage had used barbaric, but had conceded that there were most probably no other humans in the world at that time who could deal with the Kyuubi through other means. Almaz had then done something to the seals on Naruto's stomach which he said would prevent the Kyuubi from ever taking over or escaping.

By the time that half a year worth of time had passed, Naruto had gained a suitable amount of mastery over each of the weapons to satisfy Almaz. Naruto had also noticed that he had not aged in the time he had spent here, which was exactly like what Almaz had promised.

"Your weapons training is now satisfactory, we'll begin training you on other areas now." Almaz announced at the end of the sixth month. He pulled a thin piece of metal and pressed the button on it. A voice drifted out of the metal surprising Naruto.

"Takehisa's Skill Emporium. What can I do for you today?" The voice said.

"I'd like you to make a trip to my location. I need to buy some skills and special abilities from you." Almaz said into the metal piece.

"Alright, locating your position… Ok, I've got it." The voice said.

Naruto watched in amazement as a whirlwind began to appear beside Almaz before morphing into the form of a man that looks like a ninja.

"Long time no see Almaz." The man said with a nod, he turned and eyed Naruto. "New pupil?"

"Yes Takehisa. I need to purchase some of your abilities for him." Almaz explained. "I'd need the four basic magic skills, Ice, Fire, Wind and Heal. I also need to purchase the Dungeon Monk, Blacksmith and Fusionist special abilities for him."

Takehisa ran a critical eye over Naruto. "You know, this child has the potential to learn the Item Worlds special ability…"

"Which is demonic in nature." Almaz pointed out. "Those kinds of abilities tend to gradually lead its user down the path of a demon, I'd prefer if my students do not walk that road. Human type special abilities will suffice for my pupil."

"Very well, you know the price for these skills wouldn't you?" Takehisa said with a shrug.

Almaz nodded handing him a small pouch. "Fifty Orion's belts, Fifty Chaos orbs, and a thousand gold bars."

Takehisa took the pouch and pocketed it before turning to Naruto. He touched the tip of his fingers on Naruto's forehead and Naruto felt a cool and soothing energy swept over his body.

"There it's done, and with no complications." Takehisa said turning to face Almaz. "Call me if you had another new pupil that needs my service. See you next time."

A dust cloud swirled around Takehisa before he disappeared. Naruto looked at Almaz in surprise.

"That's it?" Naruto asked, he didn't feel any different.

"Yes." Almaz said with a nod. "I'll first explain the difference between skills and special abilities. Most skills are techniques that anyone can replicate on their own given enough time or inclinations. These skills are also not hereditary, meaning that your children would not be born with whatever skills you have.

The special abilities however are abilities that can be passed on to your children. I believe in your world they are called bloodline limits. I've given you three of these bloodline limits. The Dungeon Monk bloodline allows you to create sub-realities. The Blacksmith bloodline allows you to boost the hidden potential of items, creating special skills limited to each items. The Fusionist bloodline allows you to fuse skills or bloodline limits into another person."

"That's amazing! They sound so cool! Thank you Almaz sensei for your gifts." Naruto said bowing respectfully.

"Think nothing of it. These skills and abilities are necessary towards advancing your powers. First we'll start with you learning how to access your magic skills. I want you to cast the Ice, Fire, Wind, and Heal spells. Follow my instructions carefully…"

OoooO

A year quickly passed by with Naruto mastering the basic spells, after which Almaz moved onto teaching him how to use his bloodline limits. The vicious and compact training had also revealed an astonishing fact about Naruto's Shadow Clone technique. Apparently Naruto's clones passed on their memories to Naruto when they were dispelled, making them massively useful tools for rapidly mastering techniques.

Weapons training, Elemental techniques training… by the end of the year, Naruto could claim at least high genin level proficiency with all of them. Almaz had also set aside a period of time for Naruto and his clones to memorize details of the Netherworld, the various bloodlines, techniques and monsters of the multi-realities. Naruto had no idea where Almaz had gotten the numerous books and scrolls from, but reading time was literally hell on earth for Naruto. The side effect was that he had a good command of demonic and five other common Netherworld languages by the end of the year, and he could identify most of the C to E rank bloodlines, techniques, and monsters just by seeing or having a description of them.

"We'll now train you on your Dungeon Monk bloodline. Basically what it does is to create a sub-reality outside of time that is totally under your control. You can even summon monsters into the sub-reality which you could fight against." Almaz explained. "The monster summoning process is pretty random, you'll have no control over what type of monsters are summoned to fight against you. However if you do defeat them, you can gather the items they had as spoils of wars."

"That sounds interesting." Naruto said excitedly. Training for one year period of time with only Almaz to talk with had became stale, even if he got to learn some really cool techniques. The calm methodological pace of life in the sub-reality was driving him nuts.

"Prepare yourself then, starting from today, you'll be practising your Dungeon Monk bloodline as well as actually fighting against enemies for the first time." Almaz said, waving his hands. "First I'll show you how it's done. Use your senses to feel the spiritual energy flowing through me as I summon more monsters into the dungeon."

Naruto stretched out with his senses, mentally imprinting the way Almaz manipulated the energies around him as hordes of slime creatures appeared around them.

"Magic and weapons are allowed. I also give you permission to loot their bodies for items after the fight is over." Almaz called out as he seated himself calmly on the ground. "Begin!"

Naruto gave a happy cry as he charged into the midst of the slime creatures, blasting them with fire and ice spells, swinging his sword around him in an arc occasionally to make more room for him to fight in.

Almaz watched from where he was seated and smiled. This child was a worthy successor to his name.

OoooO

"In the past four months, you've gained quite a bit of mastery over your Dungeon Monk bloodline." Almaz said approvingly. "Your weapon skills, especially your sword mastery in particular, had advanced by leaps and bounds. Your magic skills had also become more powerful. I am truly impressed with your powerful wind spell, though your Heal spell is still very weak. However, you did well enough to advance to learning how to use the Blacksmith and Fusionist bloodlines."

Naruto took a sword that Almaz handed to him as Almaz continued his speech.

"The Blacksmith bloodline requires you to pump your spiritual and physical energies, which you ninjas called chakra, into an object. The Blacksmith bloodline automatically force the object in question to store the chakra, allowing the object to grow more powerful than it once was. A massive storage of chakra will also cause the object to unlock certain skills or bloodline effects that anyone touching the object can use. The object in question would also become tougher and may even gain some special abilities, like increasing the endurance of anyone touching it." Almaz explained. "Basically, it is a type of "enchant object" ability, except that you can't control what type of skills or effects an object could unlock."

Naruto nodded. "That sounds easy, I've got a lot of chakra to spare."

"Perhaps. Now moving onto the Fusionist bloodline. It allows you to take any skills or special abilities that you've unlocked in any object and implant it into your body. Which mean that you would not need the item any more in order to use its power. You can just tap into that skill/bloodline effects yourself." Almaz said. "The skills and bloodline effects are grouped by ranks from E to S rank by Netherworld standards. One reason why I gave you the Blacksmith and Fusionist bloodlines is so that you'll not need to frequently return to Takehisa for additional skills or bloodlines, you'll be able to make them yourself. I am also giving you this tome of bloodlines and skills encyclopaedia which contains all the known skills and bloodlines as well as explaining their effects. It will magically update itself and contains an infinite number of pages."

"Thank you Almaz sensei!" Naruto said eagerly accepting the huge book that Almaz handed him.

"Remember Naruto, using the Fusionist skills to implant even a single skill or bloodline into someone takes a lot of chakra. Also some skills/ bloodlines are not suitable for certain people. Those people will either get sick after the implantation, or the skills/bloodlines will only awaken after some time has passed. Be wise about what skills/bloodlines you wish to implant into your self." Almaz said seriously. "It is also better to just focus on a few of the skills/bloodlines you have implanted onto yourself and master them to their full potential before implanting anything more into yourself. Since the skills and bloodlines will get stronger with frequent usage. It'll be better to be a master of let's say sword fighting skills, than become a jack of all trades and master of none."

"I see your point sensei." Naruto said with a nod. "I'll choose an area to focus in a set of selected skills. But in the meantime, I'll power up all the items I can get my hands on with my Blacksmith bloodline so that once I unlock their potential, I can choose which skills I want to implant into myself in the future."

"Good." Almaz said with a smile. "Now I want you to begin to practising with your Blacksmith and Fusionist bloodlines. Once you've done that, I'll teach you ways to store up your chakra in your body in case you ever need to access extra chakra in the future. After that, you're free to train in any areas that you wish to specialize in for the next few years before the five years time limit is up."

"Yes Sensei!" Naruto said with a grin as he began pumping chakra into the sword.

OoooO

5 years had past in the sub-reality, only 1 minute has passed in the real world

Naruto appeared back in the forest of Konoha, armed with a green metal sword. He sniffed the fresh air of the forest and sighed. It had been five years of intensive training for him, yet not much time had passed in the real world. He checked the pouch tied to his belt, it was a magic pouch that contained the items he had gained through his monster fighting session by looting the monsters' bodies. The only bad point about the pouch was that it could only carry a limited mass of items, and it had literally reached its limit as Naruto had three years worth of loot contained within.

A swirl of air behind him announced the arrival of Almaz. Naruto turned and gave him a bow. "Thank you for your tutorage Almaz sensei."

"I have my own selfish reasons to train you, so that you could protect this world without my help." Almaz said with a smile he took out a few phones and handed it to Naruto. "I've arranged for you to have these phones which you can use to call the various shops in the Netherworlds. If you should ever need their service, just press the buttons on the phones to contact them, I've already informed the shop keepers of this arrangement. You've encountered Takehisa who's the skills merchant during the training. But there are a lot of other shops you have not seen yet which might prove useful to you. I've labelled all of them so you know which phone is for what purposes."

"Thank you sensei." Naruto said as he quickly pocket the items.

"There's one more thing. I've captured and sealed a three tailed demon from your world. It cannot harm anyone now, but you could still tap into its powers." Almaz said handing Naruto a blue pearl glowing with power. "I'm powerful enough that I wouldn't need a trinket like this, but it might prove to be useful to you until you've learn to raise your skills to another level."

"I will bear your words in mind Almaz sensei." Naruto said clasping Almaz's hands.

Almaz smiled before he stepped back. "It's time for me to go to other worlds to find innocents to save and train more students to follow in my footsteps. Stay true to yourself and be the Protector of this world in my place. If destiny wills it, we shall meet again. Remember my words carefully Naruto, the demons from the multi realities wouldn't like it if the secret of the Netherworlds is revealed to too many humans. Keep this fact a closely guarded secret unless you have no other choice but to reveal it, for the demons might attack this world if provoked. Take care."

Naruto felt tears stinging his eyes as swirls of power surrounded Almaz before he disappeared.

"I will promise to put the gifts you've passed on to me to good use." Naruto vowed to the empty air where Almaz used to stand. "Good luck in your travels sensei."

Naruto paused for a moment before he made his way back to his apartment.

"Watch out Konoha, a new Naruto has arrived." Naruto said as he whistled a happy tune.

OoooO