"Hm?" Tsuru was just about to deal with the Donquixote Family officers when she used Geppo to stop in midair and looked toward the sound in confusion.
Then Tsuru saw the strange kid who had flown in with a wheelchair at first, now flying up with Doflamingo.
"Fufufu..."
"Old hag, are you disappointed I'm still alive?"
Tsuru wasn't angered by Doflamingo's words. Instead, after giving Gray a few more looks, she replied to Doflamingo, "Not really. You're alive, sure, but you did make me stretch my legs a little."
"You know how it is. When you get old and sit in an office all day, you have to move around a bit, or your bones start to rust!"
Her tone was calm, but her words made Doflamingo's fury flare.
Doflamingo naturally understood Tsuru's taunt.
What she was implying was that beating him was as easy as taking a stroll after dinner.
"###" The veins in Doflamingo's forehead bulged as he felt his blood pressure rise. If he weren't gravely injured, he would have charged at her.
"What's the matter? Aren't you coming over?" Seeing that Gray and Doflamingo were just standing opposite her, Tsuru suddenly thought of something. "If you aren't coming over, then I'll come to you!"
Whoosh!
Before she had even finished speaking, Tsuru had vanished from where she stood.
"Hey, hey! That old hag's fighting dirty!" Gray yelped, quickly flying higher and retreating.
Tsuru stopped where Gray had just been and frowned, watching him rapidly rise and retreat through the sky.
"Kid! What's your ability?"
Gray: ???
"You think I'm going to explain—"
"Fufufu... He's a Paramecia-type Spin-Spin Fruit user, a top-tier Devil Fruit that lets him fly freely!" Before Gray could finish, Doflamingo had already shown off his ability.
"Ugh!" Gray covered his face in pain. "Has anyone ever explained their own ability to the enemy?"
"I've read the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia too. I don't think the Spin-Spin Fruit lets you control your flight freely like that!" As the Marine Grand Staff Officer, Tsuru was naturally familiar with the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia sent by the World Government. She remembered the appearance and abilities of every fruit recorded in it clearly.
"Fufufu... Who knows?" With a malicious smile at the corner of his mouth, Doflamingo used his words to buy himself more time.
"Maybe this is just what it means to be a genius!"
Tsuru couldn't simply ignore that remark. She thought about the Spin-Spin Fruit's description in the encyclopedia, then about Gray's earlier attack and the way he was flying freely now—something no previous Spin-Spin Fruit user had ever shown.
"A genius like you would be wasted here."
"Kid, would you be interested in joining the Marines?" Tsuru, who valued talent, saw that Gray was another child and invited him right in front of Doflamingo.
"Hey, hey! Inviting him right in front of me—" Before Doflamingo could finish, Gray raised a hand to stop him.
"Sorry, I've never considered joining the Marines."
"As the Marine Grand Staff Officer, you should understand the darkness within the Marines better than we do."
"Besides, the Marines' justice is only the World Government's justice." That was Gray's honest opinion of the Marines.
He admitted that there were people like Smoker in the Marines who truly believed in justice. But as they climbed higher in rank, were they still the same righteous people they had once been?
Sengoku's justice was called "the justice that reigns over the world"!
Perhaps in the past, he'd wanted to reign over the world himself, which was why his Conqueror's Haki had grown stronger and he'd joined forces with Garp to form the Marines' greatest fighting force.
But after he became Fleet Admiral, who was the "ruler" in that "reign over the world"—him, or the Celestial Dragons?
And from the way the World Government treated the Marines in the original story, it was obvious that Sengoku was no longer the man he'd once been.
Every decision he made had been completely controlled by the World Government.
The Marines were merely the World Government's Marines.
"Oh my! Looks like you're a bad kid!" Tsuru understood what Gray meant. But she wasn't going to argue with an outsider like him about whether the Marines were just.
As a woman of wisdom, she knew only one thing mattered right now: they were on opposing sides.
"Comet!" As Tsuru prepared to charge, one of the round beads on Gray's wheelchair armrest popped out of its slot. It spun rapidly at his fingertip, crackling with electricity, and Gray fired it at her.
Thinking that wasn't enough, Gray controlled three more beads and sent them out.
"Comet!" ×3
The electrified beads shot toward Tsuru like beams.
"Those won't work!" Though she said they wouldn't work, the electric charge on the beads packed a punch; they weren't as harmless as Tsuru made them sound.
Even she couldn't easily wash away their force while moving through the air.
At the very least, to counter Gray's attack, she had to stop in midair and use her Devil Fruit ability at full power.
There was no helping it. Though she had developed the Wash-Wash Fruit very skillfully, it wasn't a direct-attack ability. Against an enemy's powerful direct attacks, she had to put in extra effort.
And besides, she was in midair!
Her strength in the air was nowhere near what it was on land.
"I told you, they won't work!" After washing away Gray's attack, Tsuru immediately used Geppo to chase after him.
"So what if they don't? Catch me first!" Gray's Observation Haki had been covering this little patch of sky, so he could clearly see Tsuru's every move.
"Chase me, and if you catch me, I'll let you have your way with me!" Even while dodging, Gray still had time to tease her.
On the ground, Tsuru was leagues ahead of Gray in both speed and attack power.
But this was the sky!
As Tsuru chased him, Gray flew higher and higher.
Geppo wasn't flight, after all. The higher she went, the more stamina it took. And because she was in the air, Tsuru couldn't make full use of her physical abilities.
"What a smooth-talking brat!" In the past and now alike, the only people who'd ever flirted with her were Sengoku and Garp—after she'd beaten them into behaving—and now this little brat Gray.
"Fufufu..."
"Tsuru, looks like you're not all that after all!" At a time like this, Doflamingo seemed to have forgotten who'd beaten him into this state. He still had the nerve to taunt her.
"Say that again when you're back on your feet. Then you might sound more convincing!" Tsuru glanced at Doflamingo. Her sharp tongue still knew just where to strike.
But just then, before Doflamingo could say anything, the female Marines below cried out in terror. "Ah... What is that?"
"What's going on?"
The three of them looked down and saw that the Marine warship had taken on water and was slowly sinking into the sea.
"Fufufu... Looks like the Marines you brought along have a big problem, Tsuru!"
Just as Doflamingo said, if the bombardment at sea had been exhilarating, they were just as terrified now.
At sea, no one knew better than them what it meant for a ship to sink. After all, the Marines often fought pirates and sank their ships, making it easy to wipe them out.
Before you continue