Sakazuki asked in a deep voice, "Tatsuki, is this abnormal speed your doing?"
"I've been found out?"
Tatsuki slowly turned around.
With his back to the violent sea, he wore that usual smile that was as refreshing as a spring breeze yet made one's teeth itch. He didn't answer directly, but instead slowly raised his right hand, palm upward.
"I originally wanted to get along with you all as an ordinary person, but all I got in return was distance." Tatsuki sighed, his eyes becoming deep and melancholy.
"I'm done pretending. I'm laying my cards on the table."
Buzz—
The air suddenly vibrated.
Visible green air currents frantically converged and compressed in his palm. The surrounding air pressure dropped instantly, giving everyone present a sense of pressure in their eardrums, like a rapid descent in an airplane.
"This power..."
Kuzan's dead-fish eyes suddenly widened, his sleepiness gone. "A Devil Fruit?!"
"I just went to the toilet to contemplate life and suddenly felt a bit hungry." Tatsuki said with a straight face, talking nonsense.
"I saw a weird-looking fruit on the sink. I figured I shouldn't waste food, so I just ate it."
"Who would leave a Devil Fruit in the toilet?!" Kuzan couldn't help but shout. "And how could it be such a coincidence!"
"This is destiny, Kuzan." Tatsuki said earnestly.
The green cyclone in his hand had been compressed to the limit, emitting a sharp, piercing buzz.
"This fruit called out to me. It told me that justice based solely on physical techniques has its limits. True justice needs wings, and more importantly... it needs to be thunderous."
Before his voice faded, he casually tossed the high-pressure cyclone in his palm toward the sea beside them.
Shhh—
When the cyclone left his hand, it didn't make a loud explosion. But everyone present, including the Marine Soldiers passing by on the deck, saw clearly—
In that instant, the sea "split" open.
A vacuum cut nearly a thousand meters long appeared silently on the blue sea. The seawater on both sides was forcibly pushed aside by an invisible force, even revealing the muddy seabed.
Only then did the cut seawater react, crashing back together and kicking up a hundred-meter-high wave.
"..."
"Gulp."
There was dead silence on the deck, only the uniform sound of people swallowing.
"Oh."
Borsalino straightened his sunglasses, his tone less mocking and more serious. "An invisible slash... that kind of cutting power... even steel would be as fragile as paper before it, right?"
"It's not just wind."
Tatsuki's feet slowly left the ground. He defied the laws of gravity, floating in mid-air like a feather. His body began to blur, breaking down into countless green streams of light, merging with the turbulent atmosphere of this world.
"There's also this."
In the originally clear sky, light suddenly vanished. Inky clouds rolled frantically a thousand meters overhead, converging with astonishing speed.
Deep within the clouds, countless purple thunder dragons roared and roamed, releasing a heart-palpitating aura of destruction.
Although he couldn't yet achieve the precise control and manifestation of lightning like Enel, this majestic momentum of influencing the sky was even more oppressive.
"Thunder Greeting!"
Tatsuki's voice sounded from all directions, carrying a certain divine etherealness.
Crack!
A purple pillar of lightning accurately struck a cluster of reefs a thousand meters to the left of the warship.
Boom!
The reefs were instantly vaporized. The high temperature evaporated the seawater, forming a thick white mist that blotted out the sun.
Immediately after, the gale whipped up huge waves, attempting to swallow the tiny warship.
"Oops! I went too far."
Kuzan's expression changed. Chill instantly condensed in his hands as he prepared to defend against the aftershocks.
"Don't panic."
In the air, Tatsuki simply waved his sleeve casually.
Cyclone Barrier!
Whoosh—
A translucent wall of green hurricane rose out of thin air, forming a huge cylinder that firmly protected the entire warship within the eye of the storm.
Despite the raging waves and thunderous lightning outside, the warship in the center of the eye didn't even shake, as steady as a mountain.
Rain began to fall.
The wind roared.
Thunder boomed.
And that man floating in mid-air, wearing a Marine coat, was the sole conductor of this natural disaster.
"Wind, thunder, rain, clouds, air pressure... I am the weather, I am the storm."
Tatsuki looked down from above at the three future Admirals in shock, feeling secretly pleased.
This was the effect he wanted!
Sakazuki watched the sky full of lightning, his fists clenching and unclenching, a hint of fanaticism flashing in his eyes.
Power!
This was the natural disaster-like power sufficient to destroy all evil and carry out Absolute Justice.
"If it's him..." The thought in Sakazuki's mind that had been somewhat wavering now became incomparably firm.
"The Lord of Storms?" Borsalino murmured to himself, putting away his cynical expression. "It seems I won't be able to slack off so easily in the future."
"Stop dazing off, comrades!"
Tatsuki dispersed the thunderclouds, landing back on the bow. His body returned to its physical form, and the divine expression on his face vanished instantly, replaced by that punchable grin.
He opened his arms to embrace the gale. "Since everyone knows, I won't pretend anymore. Hold onto the railings! We're about to take off!"
Before anyone could react, the next second, a gale ten times more violent than before suddenly erupted.
Boom!!!
The warship let out a painful wail, the stern seemingly fitted with rocket boosters.
The massive push-back force sent the unprepared Marine Soldiers rolling across the deck like gourds. Even Sakazuki had to crouch halfway to stabilize his center of gravity.
The spray kicked up at the rear of the warship even formed a twenty-meter-high wall of water.
"Tatsuki!!! You lunatic!!!"
Kuzan's desperate scream came through the wind, along with his eye mask drifting away.
"Slow down! I'm going to throw up!"
"Wahoo!!!"
Tatsuki stood at the bow, his hairstyle not at all messy under the protection of the storm, enjoying the extreme speed brought by the Storm-Storm Fruit.
"Full speed ahead! Destination—Marineford!"