"Keep going," he told Veyra, voice raw. "We go now." He shoved down the panic and followed the route Celestia had traced for him: past the scullery, up the service stairs, into the undercroft where the vaults lived in the cool dark.
They moved as if pulled by ropes.... one step, then another... He let himself believe, for those few moments, that whatever had happened outside was the price paid for their entry; that Celestia had bought them this chance... but he knew... it was his fault...
Then a sound from the stair slit made his blood stop. A movement of boots above, a high, formal voice, and the edge of a shadow that did not belong to the castle guards.
Argento froze. He had thought the courtyard final, the danger behind them. He forced his head up and peered through the narrow opening where the stairs met the undercroft landing.
There she was... Celestia... alive, standing in the center of the square, hands raised above her head as if waiting to be taken. A CP4 agent stood a half-step behind her, pistol leveled, the barrel a blunt promise at the back of her skull. Her face was composed, but his eyes found the small tremor at her jaw; it was proof she had chosen this role.
He couldn't reconcile the two images: the body slumped at the service door and the woman standing with her hands in the air beneath the gilded platform. For a moment his mind fracture... had there been two of her? A decoy? Or had the thing at the door been a trick, staged to let them believe they had made it in?
The CP4 agent's voice was soft and clinical as a surgeon's scalpel. "Step away from the door," he said, sounding as if he were a man reading a list. "No sudden movements." Around him, enforcers closed like the teeth of a trap. The Celestial Dragons above watched with bored satisfaction.
Celestia D Rtut the 'Silver Matron' Bounty: two hundred million berries. You are hereby sentenced to execution for the murder of a Celestial Dragon.
The words fell like a dropped blade. Around the square, faces that had been painted with fear turned to a new kind of shock, recognition, then a ripple of whispers as names and rumors collided. The platform of the Dragons remained still as carved stone; below, the enforcers stiffened, their grips on spears tightening.
Argento's stomach dropped. His Mother??? A Pirate???
She stood with hands raised, framed by the agent and the watching crowd. For a heartbeat there was no panic in her eyes. Only a hard, contained sorrow that reached him even from the slit of the stair. Then her jaw set, and something like defiance, terrible and beautiful, crossed her features.
The world narrowed to a single, bright sliver of sound, the crack of the pistol, and then everything else went wrong and unbearably slow.
Argento saw the flash first, a white star blooming at the agent's muzzle. The bullet was a thin, merciless line that seemed to cleave the air itself. For a heartbeat it hung there, impossible and glittering, as if time had taken pity and slowed so everyone could watch the moment unfold.
Her head tilted, a single, precise motion, and the shot scraped past the air where her skull had been a heartbeat before. The sound grazed his ears like a physical thing, but the shape of her moved somewhere he had not expected. For one jagged second hope flared bright and blind.
Then she sprang.
Her body uncoiled with a force that seemed to have been waiting in the quiet of her bones. She closed the distance to the CP4 agent in two long, hungry steps, hands a blur. Where the crowd saw a woman pinned, Argento saw a shadow peel away from the figure he had thought so helpless, the practised economy of someone who had rehearsed dying a dozen ways and refused them all.
The agent's expression snapped from control to surprise. He had expected compliance, a ritual execution. He had not expected movement. The crowd around him watched as a second Celestia appeared as if summoned from a shadow behind him and stabbed him with a hidden knife from her sleave.
The agent's body stiffened, a flicker of shock crossing his otherwise unreadable face. Blood blossomed across his crisp uniform as the knife slid home with silent precision.
The real Celestia, her eyes burning with controlled fury, shifted her stance, blades now drawn from concealed holsters. Every motion was fluid, deadly, a dance of vengeance born from desperation.
The shout tore across the square like a blade. "KILL HER!" the Celestial Dragon barked, voice cold and furious. The words carrying the weight of law and malice both. For a moment the sound swallowed everything: the drums, the cries, the crackle of panic. It landed on the crowd and turned fear into something harder, sharper. Celestia turned toward the celestial dragon and began to laughing...
"Cecelelele… You shitty pretenders, thinking you're all high and mighty above the Red Continent… You are so scared of us… The Will of D… will not cow to your gilded thrones!" Celestia laughed in rage as a sense of power emanated from her. A will. shot out of her body... silver lightning bathed in black shooting out of her as it knocked out every single person surrounding her... Just as Argento thought his mother would survive a bullet tore through the air and struck her right in the forehead.
Argento froze, his heart lurching as the world seemed to tilt sideways. The silver-black lightning that had erupted from his mother's body dissipated into a crackling haze, leaving behind only stunned silence and the echo of her defiant laughter.
Celestia stumbled, a thin line of crimson appearing where the bullet had struck her forehead. Her eyes flickered, wide but unyielding, burning with fury even as her body began to crumple. The CP4 agent stood atop the roof, cold and precise, his pistol still smoking, a predator satisfied with a clean strike.
"Mom…" Argento's voice shattered, raw and desperate. He wanted to move, to fight, to will her to stand, but logic screamed against him. The square was chaos. Guards and enforcers were recovering, scanning, already pulling their guns again.
Then, slowly, his gaze flicked back and his breath caught. Celestia wasn't gone. She stood, staggering, her body standing defiant, blood trailing down the side of her face, but alive. The CP0 agent who had fired was now advancing toward her, calm and clinical, as if marking a final step in a calculated procedure.
Argento's chest tightened. The illusion of safety shattered. Every warning in his mind screamed: danger, danger, danger.
He turned. Veyra's hand was tight in his, trembling. "We… we have to move," he hissed, panic laced with resolve. The vault lay ahead. The treasures... the Devil Fruits... were still within reach.
Argento ran, pulling Veyra after him. The chaos in the square had drawn the attention of most people. Guards and enforcers were focused on Celestia and the CP0 agent, leaving a narrow, dangerous path for them to slip into the undercroft.
They ran for what felt like forever, feet pounding against stone floors that echoed like drumbeats of warning. The corridors were empty, dimly lit, the air thick with the scent of smoke and panic from the square above. Argento's grip on Veyra's hand was iron-tight, dragging her along with him as he searched desperately for the vaults.
At a crossroads in the castle, the path ahead split into two narrow hallways. Argento's pulse hammered in his ears, his instincts screaming that every second counted. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw it: a door near the outer wall of the castle erupted in a violent burst, splintered wood and smoke filling the hallway.
Pirates poured through the opening, their faces wild with greed and excitement, weapons swinging, boots clattering against stone. They were clearly here for the same thing, the treasures hidden within the castle. Their shouts reverberated, a mix of laughter and commands, as they fanned out, searching for anything of value.
"We're not alone," he whispered to Veyra, dragging her behind a low pillar as the pirates spread through the corridor. "Stay close. Stay quiet."
A booming, gravelly laugh echoed through the hallway, bouncing off stone walls like thunder.
"GURARARARA… Rocks… we've made it… You wanted to save your family, right?"
Argento froze. His blood ran cold. That laugh… he knew it. It wasn't just any pirate... it was the unmistakable, world-shaking laugh of Edward Newgate… Whitebeard.
He froze, heart hammering in his chest. Rocks… here… in God Valley… and not for them.
Veyra's small hand tightened around his arm, eyes wide. "Arg…?"
He swallowed hard, panic clawing at his mind. "It's… it's him," he whispered. "Rocks… he's here. But… he's not coming for us. He's here for his family."
Argento's stomach twisted. The sheer power of the man, the inevitability of his presence, it was terrifying. If Rocks was here, then God Valley was already in chaos. Their own chances of survival just got smaller.
He tightened his grip on Veyra's hand, jaw set, forcing his fear into determination. "We have to keep moving," he said, voice low but fierce. "We survive… we reach the treasures before anyone else… and hope we don't cross him."
Argento's legs burned with exertion, his lungs screaming for air, but he didn't dare slow. Veyra stumbled at his side, but he steadied her, forcing her forward. The corridors twisted and turned like the veins of some great beast, each step echoing with the distant chaos of the square, the shouts, the gunfire, the metallic clang of falling stalls.
Argento's eyes went wide, almost sparkling in the dim torchlight. "We… we found it!" he shouted, voice trembling with disbelief and pure exhilaration. "The vault! Treasure! Just for us!"
Veyra's jaw dropped, her small hands pressed against the cold metal as if it could anchor her to reality. "It's… it's real…" she breathed, barely able to believe her own eyes.
Argento's heart hammered in his chest, the tension and fear of the chase collapsing under the weight of discovery. The vault loomed before them like a promise, each symbol etched in iron a whisper of legends untold. "All the Treasure… All the treasures…" he murmured, almost to himself. "Everything they've hidden… it's here."
He pressed both hands to the door, feeling the chill and the gravity of what lay beyond. "This… this is it, Veyra. This is our chance. Whatever happens next… we're going in together."
With a deep breath, he turned the handle, ready to face whatever trials the vault would throw at them…