Saint Naruto (CH 5) (Patreon)

A/N: This story is rated M for mature content not suitable for children.

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Chapter 5: The Black Vault and the Masked Dogs

One Piece Universe - Aurelius Estate

The subterranean vaults beneath the Aurelius estate did not smell of flowers or jasmine oil. They smelled of damp basalt, cold iron, dried sea salt, and old grease.

Three hundred feet below the sunlit marble plazas of Mariejois lay the true foundation of the World Government, ancient catacombs carved into the dense black heart of the Red Line long before the Void Century. Here, behind doors of three-foot-thick solid titanium locked with triple cipher keys, House Aurelius kept its true inheritance: not gold, nor silk, but weapons harvested from six centuries of broken kingdoms and fallen emperors.

Kuina walked two steps behind Naruto down the steep spiral staircase of dark stone.

She wore a dark leather tunic reinforced at the shoulders with steel plates, tight black trousers tucked into soft leather boots, and twin sheath belts buckled tightly across her hips. Her body was still stiff from yesterday's brutally exhausting workout, every muscle in her back throbbing with a dull, heavy ache beneath her bandages, but her gait was steady. Her right hand rested lightly against her hip where a sword ought to be, her fingers twitching with instinctual tension.

The darkness of the stairwell was broken only by the blue electric sparks crackling lazily off Naruto's shoulders. The soft, rhythmic snap-crack of lightning echoed off the damp stone walls, illuminating his tall frame in pale, ghost-like flashes.

"Most fools think a sword is just steel," Naruto spoke into the damp darkness, his voice calm, echoing down the spiral stairs. "They buy a blade at a shop in Loguetown, keep it clean, and think they're swordsmen. They don't understand that steel has memory."

Kuina kept her eyes fixed on his back. "Memory?"

"A great blade absorbs the blood of every man it slays," Naruto said, stopping at the bottom of the staircase before a massive arched doorway forged from black, non-reflective metal. "It absorbs the fear of the dying, the malice of the wielder, and the pressure of their Haki. Over decades, that iron gains a will of its own. It becomes a Meito."

He placed his right palm against the cold center of the black door.

ZZZZT.

A dense surge of blue lightning poured from his hand directly into the metal. Deep inside the stone walls, heavy iron gears groaned and shrieked as ancient locking mechanisms tumbled back one by one. The massive double doors slid slowly inward with a heavy, grinding roar that shook dust from the ceiling.

A vast, cavernous vault opened before them.

It was larger than the training courtyard above, a vaulted hall held up by massive obsidian pillars. Rows upon rows of weapon racks stretched into the gloom, holding broadswords, spears, naginatas, rapier blades, and heavy battleaxes. But in the center of the hall, resting on individual raised pedestals of dark purple velvet, lay fifty velvet-lined wooden cases.

Each case held a single katana.

Kuina’s breath caught in her throat. Even from thirty feet away, she could feel the unnatural pressure lingering in the air of the vault. It wasn't the physical temperature, it was a heavy, suffocating static that made the fine hairs on her arms stand on end.

"These are the Meito of House Aurelius," Naruto said, stepping onto the polished basalt floor. "Gathered from Wano Country, the Grand Line, and the deepest vaults of the World Government. Skillful Grade, Great Grade... even a few Supreme Grade blades that haven't tasted sunlight in two hundred years."

Kuina slowly walked into the center of the room, her boots making soft, echoing clicks against the stone.

She stopped before the first pedestal. Resting on the silk was a long, elegant katana with a cherry-blossom pattern stamped into the golden guard, its sheath painted a brilliant crimson.

"That is Sakuragari," Naruto murmured, standing beside her with his hands in his pockets. "A Great Grade blade forged by a master smith of Kuri three centuries ago. It cuts smoothly, light as a feather, designed for rapid draw-and-slash styles."

Kuina reached out a hand toward the hilt. But the moment her fingers hovered an inch above the polished wood, her instincts screamed. Her hand froze.

"It doesn't like me," Kuina said softly, her dark eyes narrowing.

"It doesn't," Naruto agreed flatly. "That blade was wielded by a samurai who fought for justice and honor. It rejects malice. Touch it, and its spirit will bite your palm."

Kuina pulled her hand back, turning her head toward the darker, shadowed corner of the vault.

In the farthest recess of the hall, resting on a cracked pedestal of raw black iron, lay a long sword that seemed to swallow the light around it.

Its sheath was wrapped in coarse black ray-skin, bound with faded steel wire. The guard was a simple, jagged square of dark iron, completely unornamented. There was no gold, no silk, no beautiful lacquer. It looked crude, heavy, and ancient.

Yet, as Kuina looked at it, a sharp, metallic ring sounded inside her mind, like a distant bell struck in a thunderstorm.

She took three slow steps toward the black pedestal, drawn by an irresistible, magnetic pull.

"Ah," Naruto murmured, his blue eyes narrowing slightly as he followed her. "You have an ugly taste in steel."

"What is it?" Kuina asked, her voice hushed.

"That is Karasuba, the Crow's Wing," Naruto said, stopping three paces behind her. "Forged four hundred years ago in Wano by an outcast blacksmith who cooled his hot steel in human blood. It is a Great Grade blade, O Wazamono. But every master who took it into battle eventually lost their mind to bloodlust. It earned the title of a Cursed Sword, Yoma."

He leaned in slightly, his cold voice brushing her shoulder.

"Three World Nobles tried to claim it during the last century. The first accidentally severed his own throat while cleaning it. The second went mad and slaughtered his own guards in his sleep. The third locked it down here and ordered it never to be brought into the light again."

Kuina didn't step back. Instead, her dark eyes burned with a fierce, hungry intensity. She reached down, her bloody, bandaged fingers wrapping tightly around the coarse ray-skin grip of Karasuba.

THUMP.

The moment her skin made contact with the dark leather, a violent shockwave of pure, unadulterated malice exploded into her mind.

Kuina’s vision flashed blood-red. Images burned into her brain, screaming men, severed limbs falling into dark mud, the sickening smell of burning flesh, and an overwhelming, insane hunger for death. The blade's ancient, violent will surged up her arm like liquid fire, seeking to shatter her mind and reduce her to a mindless, violent beast.

Yield, the sword's dark spirit shrieked inside her skull. Yield and bleed for me!

Kuina’s jaw locked. Her teeth gritted until her gums bled, her eyes widening as blood vessels burst in the whites of her eyes.

She didn't scream. She didn't drop the sword.

Instead, she drew upon every ounce of absolute, bitter rage that had built up inside her chest, her hatred for her father's lies, her disgust at her own past weakness, and the cold, terrifying submission she had sworn to Saint Naruto.

Shut your mouth, Kuina roared back inside her own mind, her willpower slamming down like an anvil on top of the sword's spirit. You are metal. I am the blade. You don't own me, I own you!

A faint thread of black static, pure, raw Armament Haki, surged out of her bleeding palm and wrapped tightly around the hilt of the sword.

CLANG!

The dark air inside the vault shuddered. The red vision shattered like brittle glass, leaving Kuina standing before the pedestal, her chest heaving violently, sweat dripping off her chin.

With a slow, agonizingly smooth motion, Kuina pulled the blade three inches from its sheath.

The steel was pitch-black, its edge marked by a jagged, blood-red temper line (hamon) that looked like fresh, open lightning. The moment the edge caught the faint blue light of Naruto's Raijin fruit, the air around the blade hummed with a low, predatory whistle.

Naruto stood behind her, watching the black static flicker around her knuckles. A slow, genuinely vicious smile curved his lips.

"It didn't break you," Naruto observed softly. "In fact, it likes you."

Kuina slammed the black blade back into its sheath with a crisp SNAP. She turned around, holding the heavy Cursed Sword against her hip, her dark eyes glittering with newfound, terrifying confidence.

"It belongs to me now," Kuina said, her voice hard as iron.

"Then keep it," Naruto replied, turning toward the vault exit. "Carve your name into its iron, or let it consume you when you grow tired. Either way, it will make a fine show."

Before they could step out of the central vault hall, a sharp, echoing footstep sounded from the spiral staircase above.

TAP. TAP. TAP.

The heavy, rhythmic click of iron-heeled boots rang down the stone shaft.

Naruto stopped in his tracks, his smile disappearing instantly, replaced by an expression of cold, bored disdain.

Out of the dark stairwell walked three tall figures dressed in immaculate white suits. Their faces were completely hidden behind elaborate, featureless porcelain masks with exaggerated red and black paint markings, the terrifying visual identity of Cipher Pol Number Zero. CP0. The direct, secret executioners of the Five Elders.

The lead agent carried a tall wooden staff topped with a golden ring. Behind him stood two massive, broad-shouldered agents whose arms were wrapped in thick leather bands, Rokushiki masters trained from birth to be living weapons.

"Saint Naruto of House Aurelius," the lead agent spoke. His voice was unnaturally flat, muffled behind his white porcelain mask, carrying the cold authority of the Highest Authority in Mariejois.

Naruto didn't bow. He didn't move his hands from his pockets. "Guernica. What is a dog of the Five Elders doing in my private vaults?"

The lead agent, Guernica, did not flinch at the insult. He held his staff flat against the stone floor, his dark eyes visible behind the narrow eye-slits of his mask, tracking the bruised girl standing behind the Celestial Dragon.

"The Gorosei have noted your recent activities at the Sabaody Archipelago auction," Guernica said flatly. "You expended one billion berries to acquire an unlisted asset from the East Blue. An asset belonging to the lineage of Shimotsuki."

Kuina’s hand instantly tightened around the hilt of Karasuba, her muscles tensing for a fight.

Guernica shifted his gaze to her, noting the dark Cursed Sword at her side. "Furthermore, you have brought an un-registered, non-collared captive into the deep catacombs beneath Pangaea Castle, accessing Great Grade Meito without filing an inventory report with the Ministry of Defense."

"Is that so?" Naruto asked, his tone dripping with lazy sarcasm. "And since when does House Aurelius submit inventory reports to five old men who sit on their asses in the authority hall all day?"

The two massive CP0 agents behind Guernica took a synchronous step forward, their heavy boots cracking the basalt floor tile beneath them. The air around them grew heavy with the subtle, lethal tension of men who possessed complete mastery over Sori and Tekkai.

"House Aurelius is subject to the supreme laws of the World Government, Saint Naruto," Guernica said calmly. "The Five Elders are concerned that your recent behavior shows a disregard for established security protocols. The girl is an unregistered variable. We have been instructed to take her into CP0 custody for psychological evaluation and mechanical restraint."

Kuina felt a cold spike of panic shoot through her chest. CP0. The shadow assassins her father had spoken of in hushed whispers, men who could pierce steel with their fingers and move faster than the eye could follow.

She looked at Naruto’s back, waiting to see how her master would handle the highest authority on the Red Line.

Naruto slowly pulled his right hand out of his pocket.

He didn't draw a sword. He didn't raise his voice. He simply held his right hand out at chest level, his long fingers open, turning his palm toward the three white-suited assassins.

BZBZBZBZTZT!

The temperature inside the cavernous vault plunged twenty degrees in a single second.

A ring of pitch-black, blinding blue lightning exploded around Naruto's head, forming the distinct, jagged halo of Raijin, the Thunder God. The air pressure spiked so violently that the velvet-lined weapon cases on the surrounding pedestals shattered into wooden splinters, glass raining down onto the stone floor.

Guernica’s staff rattled violently against his white gloves as the raw electric current ionised the air in his lungs.

"Let me make something very clear to you, dog," Naruto said, his voice no longer sounding like a young man's, but rather like a rolling, mountain-crushing thunderclap that reverberated directly through the bones of everyone present.

He took a step forward, his golden hair whipping violently in the localized storm wind created by his fruit.

"The Five Elders exist because my family allows them to exist," Naruto sneered, his eyes burning with pure electric light. "They manage the paperwork. They count the taxes. They play with their little admirals and their navy ships. But if you think for one second that a masked dog can step into my house and demand my property..."

He narrowed his glowing blue eyes.

"I will burn Pangaea Castle to ash before the sun sets today."

The two heavy CP0 agents behind Guernica immediately dropped into defensive stances, their muscles swelling beneath their white coats as they activated Tekkai, turning their skin and flesh as dense as cast iron.

Guernica raised his left hand, signaling his men to hold their position. Despite his calm mask, a bead of cold sweat rolled down the inside of his porcelain visor.

He knew the rumors. Saint Naruto was not like the soft, decadent Celestial Dragons who rode on the backs of slaves and cried when their robes got dirty. He was a monster who had conquered the Raijin fruit, a warrior whose raw battle potential rivaled the highest military assets of the Navy.

"The Gorosei do not wish for a conflict with House Aurelius, Saint Naruto," Guernica said carefully, adjusting his posture. "However... the girl must prove she is not a security risk if she is to walk freely in Mariejois without an explosive collar. That is the absolute law of the Holy Land."

"A proof?" Naruto asked, his dark smirk returning as the blinding lightning halo slowly receded, leaving only small, crackling threads around his knuckles. "You want proof?"

He turned his head slightly, looking over his shoulder at Kuina.

"Kuina."

"Yes, master," Kuina responded instantly, stepping forward, her boots crunching on the broken glass.

Naruto pointed a single finger at the massive CP0 agent standing on Guernica's right, a mountain of a man named Agent Seven, whose arms were thick as tree trunks.

"That dog thinks you're a security risk," Naruto said coldly. "Cut his throat."

The vault fell dead silent.

Kuina stared at the giant CP0 agent. The man stood six-foot-six, his white suit stretched tight over muscles hardened by decades of murderous Rokushiki training. His posture was completely relaxed, his hands resting behind his back, looking down at her through his featureless white mask as if she were a mild annoyance.

"A test of lethality," Guernica said flatly, stepping back to give them space. "Agent Seven will not use weapon techniques. He will rely solely on Tekkai. If the girl can break his defense with that Cursed Sword, CP0 will register her as an official martial asset of House Aurelius and withdraw."

Agent Seven stepped into the center of the basalt floor. He didn't draw a blade. He simply spread his legs shoulder-width apart, crossed his massive arms over his chest, and took a deep, heavy breath.

TEKKAI

His skin turned a dull, metallic gray beneath his white suit. His density multiplied tenfold, his body becoming a solid pillar of iron capable of deflecting cannonballs and steel blades without taking a scratch.

"Come, little girl," Agent Seven’s voice echoed hollowly from behind his mask, filled with supreme, arrogant confidence. "Show me the skill of the East Blue."

Kuina’s heart hammered against her ribs, but the fear was gone. In its place was the cold, lethal clarity that Naruto had beaten into her over the past twenty-four hours.

She remembered the three thousand swings of the hundred-pound iron bar. She remembered the feeling of her skin tearing, her bones aching, and the dark static of Haki flickering around her fingers when she thought she was going to die.

She slowly drew Karasuba from its dark sheath.

The black steel emerged with a soft, singing hiss that made the air in the vault hum. The blood-red temper line caught the torchlight, gleaming like fresh blood.

Kuina dropped into the low, ancient Shimotsuki stance.

Her right foot slid forward on the smooth basalt, her knees bent, her left hand gripping the base of the handle while her right hand held the sword near the guard. She brought the black point up, aiming it straight between the narrow eye-slits of Agent Seven’s mask.

"Don't swing with your arms," Naruto's voice drifted into her ear from behind, calm and instructing. "Your arms are weak. Connect your mind to the iron. Drive your will through the blade."

Kuina shut out everything else.

She stopped listening to the drip of water from the ceiling. She stopped feeling the pain in her bruised ribs. She locked her vision entirely onto the small gap between the CP0 agent's collarbone and neck, the tiny seam where his white suit met his throat.

Flow, Kuina thought, her jaw tightening. Flow like water. Strike like iron.

Deep within her stomach, the dark, stubborn flame of her willpower flared.

A visible coat of pitch-black Armament Haki crept out of her right hand, flowing smoothly onto the hilt of Karasuba and spreading down the black steel blade, turning the blood-red temper line into a gleaming, obsidian edge.

Agent Seven's mask twitched slightly behind his visor. Haki? A girl from the East Blue who hasn't even reached fifteen years old?

Before he could adjust his stance, Kuina moved.

SORI!

She didn't know Rokushiki, but her footwork, refined through thousands of hours of relentless sparring in Shimotsuki Village and accelerated by Naruto's brutal conditioning, exploded off the basalt floor with terrifying velocity.

She disappeared in a blur of motion.

A fraction of a second later, she materialized directly in front of Agent Seven, her body low to the stone, her black sword swinging upward in an arc of pure, black-and-red death.

SHIMOTSUKI STYLE: ONE-SWORD DRAWING TECHNIQUE - RED CROW!

CLAAAAAANG!

The black steel blade slammed directly into Agent Seven’s throat.

The impact sounded like a heavy iron hammer striking a church bell. A violent shockwave of compressed air exploded outward from the point of contact, blowing Guernica’s white coat back and scattering loose dust across the vault floor.

For one terrifying second, time seemed to freeze.

Agent Seven remained standing, his massive arms still crossed over his chest, his iron-hard throat holding against the black edge.

A cruel laugh began to form behind his white mask. "Is that all....."

CRACK.

The iron-hard skin beneath his throat split open like a dry leaf.

The Haki-coated black steel of Karasuba, powered by the sword's ancient bloodlust and Kuina's absolute desire to prove her existence, cut straight through his Tekkai defense as if it were soft lard.

SPURT!

A brilliant fountain of crimson blood erupted into the air, splashing across the white porcelain mask of Agent Seven.

The giant CP0 agent let out a wet, bubbling gasp. His massive arms uncrossed, his hands reaching desperately for his severed throat as he stumbled backward, his iron density collapsing instantly.

He fell to his knees on the basalt floor, his body twitching violently as blood pooled around his white trousers, before pitching forward and hitting the stone with a heavy, lifeless thud.

Kuina stood three feet behind his fallen body, maintaining her low follow-through stance.

The tip of Karasuba pointed toward the stone floor, a single line of bright crimson blood trailing down the black steel before dripping off the point into the dark stone.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Guernica and the remaining CP0 agent stared at the corpse of their elite comrade in total, stunned silence.

Agent Seven was a veteran of twenty years in Cipher Pol. He had survived fights against New World pirates with bounties over a hundred million berries. And he had just been decapitated in a single strike by a bruised, Eleven-year-old girl using a basic drawing stance.

Kuina slowly stood upright, her chest rising and falling in controlled, rhythmic breaths.

She didn't look back at the dead man. She turned her head, her dark eyes looking straight at Guernica through her damp dark hair, her voice dead and emotionless.

"Who's next?" Kuina asked.

Guernica’s gloved fingers tightened around his wooden staff. A thick, heavy silence settled over the cavernous vault, broken only by the crackle of Naruto's lightning.

Slowly, Guernica bowed his head, his voice devoid of its previous arrogance.

"That will... not be necessary," Guernica said softly. "The asset's lethality and discipline are confirmed. She is hereby classified as an elite retainer of House Aurelius."

He turned his body toward the spiral staircase, gesturing for his remaining agent to retrieve the body of Agent Seven.

"We will inform the Gorosei that Saint Naruto's personal security remains... entirely compromise-proof," Guernica added, his masked face turning one last time toward Naruto. "Good day, My Lord."

The two remaining CP0 agents picked up their fallen comrade and retreated up the spiral staircase, their heavy footsteps fading into the cold darkness of the upper levels until the vault fell quiet once again.

Naruto walked up beside Kuina, looking down at the small pool of blood darkening the basalt floor.

He reached out, his warm fingers grasping her chin and tilting her head up so he could look into her dark eyes.

Her face was pale, her arms trembling slightly from the immense exertion of channeling Haki into a Great Grade blade for the first time, but her eyes held no fear. No regret. No horror at having slain a man in cold blood.

She had passed the threshold. She was no longer a civilian girl playing with wooden swords in the East Blue.

"How does it feel?" Naruto asked quietly, his thumb brushing over her soft lower lip.

Kuina looked at the blood on her black steel blade, then looked up into his cold blue eyes.

"The steel was light," Kuina whispered, a faint, dangerous smile touching her lips. "It didn't feel like iron at all."

Naruto let out a quiet, dark laugh that resonated warmly against her chest.

"That's because you weren't fighting just you muscles anymore," Naruto said, his hand sliding from her chin down to her hip, resting over the sheath of Karasuba. "You were using Haki."

He turned her body around, leading her back toward the vault exit.

"Come," Naruto commanded softly. "The Grand Line is waiting for us. And we have many more dogs to cut."

Chapter End

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A/N: Here's another chapter for you all! I hope you enjoy it, feel free to like and leave a comment if you do. See you later!