To be honest, Xie Wen could not understand Otohime and Shirahoshi's thinking: knowing full well who their enemy was, yet having no intention of holding him accountable.
But in the One Piece world, with all its eccentrics...
All right, he still could not understand it.
"Princess Shirahoshi, why didn't you tell us?!"
After Shirahoshi explained how she had learned the truth, Jinbe, who was equally unable to understand, asked her that question.
"Because I thought that if I said anything, someone would hate Mr. Hody, and that would make Mother sad..." Princess Shirahoshi explained, tears streaming down her face. "The last promise I made to Mother was that no matter who the culprit was, I would never hate them!"
So it was just because of a promise to her mother? After hearing Shirahoshi's explanation, Xie Wen could somewhat understand why she had done it.
After all, Shirahoshi had been a little girl not even ten years old at the time. Choosing to say nothing because of her mother's instructions was fairly consistent with her personality.
But Xie Wen truly could not understand Queen Otohime's actions. Even if her reasons at the time had been to keep her daughter from being consumed by anger and hatred, and to prevent Shirahoshi from losing control and summoning the Sea Kings...
Hadn't she always been running around trying to eliminate the divide between humans and Fish-Men? Yet when Hody pinned her murder squarely on humans, she chose not to reveal the real culprit...
Was it because Queen Otohime's Observation Haki could no longer detect that much as she lay dying?
Rubbing his chin, Xie Wen gradually worked out roughly what had happened at the time.
Still, even after understanding the logic behind the mother and daughter's actions, Xie Wen could not understand how their