"If you just wanted to borrow someone, why didn't you say so in the first place?"
Gecko Moria held his cheeks, which had swollen another size from the beating, and stared resentfully at Xie Wen.
Xie Wen rolled his eyes, speechless. "I fucking said borrow right from the start, okay?!"
Moria thought back hard...
It seemed, apparently, probably, that really was what he had said.
In other words, he had brought that beating entirely on himself!
Moria wanted to cry but had no tears. He felt he was simply too unlucky.
If Xie Wen had known what Moria was thinking, he would definitely have scoffed. He knew these pirates' personalities and ways all too well. It was hard to get them to listen properly without beating them up first.
Emmmm... to put it more nicely, this was the classic battle manga trope of "connecting through fists," or, as people back in China liked to say, "no friendship without a fight."
Though Xie Wen might not be able to make Moria "open his heart" or "become his friend," getting him to "know his place" was no problem.
"But I'm coming along too!"
Though the fists of Xie Wen and the Felines had forced Moria to "lend" them Perona, he valued his companions as much as ever. Besides, he had raised Perona himself, and she was little different from a daughter to him. Naturally, he couldn't rest easy letting her follow Xie Wen alone to deal with that "King of the World."
Of course, Xie Wen wouldn't refuse such a small request. In his place, he wouldn't feel comfortable letting weaker Felines like Ai Haibara Meow and Meowrah face Imu or the Five Elders alone either, so he understood Moria's feelings very well.
Besides, though Moria's current strength was fairly unremarkable, his