"I have seriously underestimated the lengths of distance between places in this world. I was not prepared for the amount of time it would give me to contemplate life and regret everything that has led me to this point."
"Oh come on, it's not even that bad," Lee responded, as he balanced on a single finger, at the tip of one of Kuina's disposable training crappy swords, while at the same time, the surly and rather bemused looking Kuina held her sword up with both hands, firmly locking it in place.
Chi and Haki were not too different in application, which meant that much of the same philosophy and training applied across both energies, and more importantly, it also allowed Lee to disguise an otherworldly discipline as something that is simply a bizarre expression of something available and existing within this waterworld, with only those who are true experts in either matter being capable of finding the difference between them.
Case in point, were anyone to be watching, they'd imagine that both Lee and Kuina were using the same invisible energy, and yet, they were not.
The ship was swaying gently, the wind pushed the ship on its way, in the far distance of the bright blue sun the clouds moved, at the crow's nest a pair of perverted lesbian pirates were making out, and the shiphand was being given a crash course on the ship's specific characteristics as he was taught how to clean every last part of it by the ship's temporary helmsman and vice captain.
This meant it was an excellent time to be spent training, and Cologne wasn't about to waste it.
"You're not the one that has to endure the weight of your ego," Kuina responded testily.
Not too far away, seated cross legged, eyes closed and hands cupped together, the resident expert on poisons and most recent recruit was working on another form of training entirely.
"The amazons' knowledge of poisons will serve you well," Cologne explained. "Though I don't have the right herbs, roots, fruits and seeds required, I can certainly improvise," she continued. "How's it look to you?"
"It's incredible," the mistress of all things corrosive spoke, eyes a little wide, "I can't believe you can turn an aphrodisiac into something like this…"
"The poison's in the dosage, my dear… concentrate it enough, and even a single drop is enough!"
"I am extremely uncomfortable with you two working on developing poison that would do that to my dick," Lee commented.
"Hush husband," Cologne said, giving him a very amused smile, covering her mouth with her sleeve, in a stereotypically demure fashion that was completely at odds with the amusement radiating from her. "You will thank me for teaching this girl how to use this kind of poison later."
"Can you use something to make him lose weight first, my arms are starting to hurt!" Kuina spoke.
"You calling me fat?" Lee protested.
"Yeah I'm calling you fat. Fattie. Fatass!"
"It's muscle! Pure muscle! The only fat part of me is my-"
"LAND!" someone shouted from high above.
"Land?" Lee asked.
"LANDING!!"
And then a lesbian shaped meteor crashed onto the ship's deck, followed by a much more graceful landing from Mary Read, who landed with a somersault beside Anne, who had landed on her butt and was looking quite worse for wear after that. "Can confirm, not into bdsm," Anne quipped with a giggle.
Mary adjusted her cloak. "Definitely into bdsm," she responded, nodding to herself.
The tip of Lee's finger glowed for a brief moment and then a burst of wind and energy heralded him launching off of the tip of Kuina's katana, knocking her off balance slightly, though she quickly recovered, stepping back and doing a flourish with the craptana and sheathing it in one fluid motion, as Lee touched down on the deck beside her. "You guys saw land?"
"That's what I said," Mary said, then raised her hand, pointing in the distance. "Speaking of which we need to course correct," she said, "at the angle we're going we need to go five degrees starboard."
"Aye!" Drake's voice thundered across the ship.
"Alright, girl. You'll stay on the ship with me, there's way too much to teach, and not enough time," Cologne ordered, raising a finger and swirling it in the air, a pinkish fog coming out from it. "Until you can reproduce this, at the very least."
Lee put his hands on his hips. "Just be ready to come play the part of reinforcements when this inevitably goes tits up," he said.
"Fair enough," Reiju said, "what are the chances?" she asked Cologne, turning back to her.
"Not high but never zero," Cologne said, nodding and speaking in a sagely fashion that reminded people she was not as young as she might look, she just had an aura of being done with everyone's shit right at that point that was impossible to ignore. "Now let me tell you about how to refine and compound with just your chi…"
"I'll go check our supplies and make sure I'm equipped and ready to go."
"It's about time for me to go relieve Drake," Anne said.
"I am totally not going to nap at the Crow's nest, and I will be doing my job perfectly with no distractions," Mary said, giving a totally honest and legit thumbs up.
Lee nodded, then he blinked. "Wait, we're still a long ways off, I can't even see land yet, and I have nothing to do!"
"Well you could always go help the shiphand," Anne said.
"Go fuck the cute femboy, got it," Lee said, giving a thumbs up.
"That's not what I meant, but I'm sure he'll appreciate it anyway."
Unfortunately, Lee wouldn't, in fact, get to do that, and instead, while searching for Sura to spend his time being a totally responsible and not at all lackadaisical captain, instead he wound up performing a routine check of the ship's innards, taking the time to perform an inspection. Twofold, checking that everything was in order, and that everything was clean, as well as making sure there were no undue pests. It was almost impossible to keep a ship completely free of pests, but the treated surfaces would at least resist the worst pests, and proper care of the supplies in the hold would help protect food and other important things from any rats that managed to sneak in.
As Lee went over the food supplies just in case, he hummed and stroked his chin, wondering if in the case of a rat infestation, it'd be better to have Reiju work on poisoning all of them with something that was harmless to humans, like an exterminator but fancier, or if it'd be better to just have a ship cat. Which, as it were, started to get him thinking about what he had been doing before he went on the impromptu inspection, and more importantly, got him thinking about adding cat ears and maybe a tail plug to Sura's maid outfit.
"Or maybe bunny ears and a pompom tail? We'd have to redesign the skirt to actually sow it properly though," he mused to himself, redesigning the outfit in his head, and then resolving to ask Mary about it later. She was the expert on sexy bunnies on ship, after all.
"Speaking of which, I do remember there are cute bunny girls in this world," Lee mused openly to himself. "Don't wanna go fuck with Wano until I'm sure I can take Kaidou though."
"Not sure what you're talking about but talking to yourself's usually a sign that you've been at sea too long," the voice of the woman who set the sun came into the hold and Lee turned to face the pink haired Captain Drake, who had decided to wear not her usual coat and tricorne hat, but instead, a white button-up shirt that could not contain the awesome might of her excessively powerful breasts, which Lee was in no way enchanted by nor was he terribly distracted to the point he had completely missed what she had just said.
"Yes they are amazing, I know," Drake spoke with a laugh.
"Right," Lee said. "So, are we there yet?" he asked.
"Soon," Drake said. "anyway, what are you expecting to find in this place?"
"What do I go to places for? Good food, good brawls and even better women!"
"Spoken like a true pirate," Drake spoke laughing and slapping Lee's back. "Have you taken stock of what we should resupply on?"
"Some, but I'm not done," Lee said.
"Right, let me look over your work," Drake said.
Certainly; two brains were better than one. Lee might not have been the height of humility but he also wasn't so arrogant as to think he was beyond reproach and incapable of making mistakes, especially not when compared to someone who'd been pirating longer than he'd been alive and had become an eternal legend of mankind for her talents… also it always felt good to be praised by an impressed teacher, no matter how cool one was trying to be about it.
With her help it went by quicker, and soon enough, they were out. There wasn't much to restock on, but it was always better to be stocked up, as long as you had proper labels and kept good track of how long the oldest of your supplies had been on the hold for. Fortunately like much else of the ship, the engineers and shipwrights of the One Piece world were far more advanced than they had any right to be, the shelving, the chests, even the tightly sealed containers that could hold onto temperature as long as they remained closed, allowing ice to preserve food for a long time…
"I would've loved to have some of these things in my time, this is quite convenient," Drake muttered, running a finger along the seal of the icebox. "This is very close to modern plastics," she muttered. "We've also fought robots and that submarine," she added, rubbing her chin. "Maybe we could possibly get a modern cruiser or battleship?"
"Definitely something worth thinking about long term, but that's gonna cost us a pretty penny," Lee said, shrugging. "If somebody were to lend us a galleon and a couple corvettes maybe we could go on a crime spree and get all the money and resources we need…"
"You wanna ride the Golden Hind, you first become a seadog worthy of stepping on her deck," Drake shot back, grinning, raising her arm and clenching her fist, both her voice and her body language remaining thoroughly firm.
"Right, right, let's just finish checking everything…"
And so it went, there really wasn't much to do. Training was over for the day so there wasn't that much more to deal with, leaving Lee to meditate alone in his room until finally, the journey wasn't too long but it was still long enough for him to sink into a deep trance, looking inward and focusing everything on the pathways of his chi, focusing on controlling and refining its flow. Despite accusations, he had not, in fact, been napping when Sura dropped by his room to tell him that they were about to reach their destination and begin the docking process.
The Conomi Islands weren't exactly the most well-known tourist location in the East Blue, but they still had space to dock a decently sized ship, and they were also smart enough to not really question what was coming into their ports as long as people didn't make trouble over it. Cocoyasi Village was on one of the islands in the archipelago, and that was where Lee was headed in particular.
While he didn't quite need the services of a navigator per se, as Drake, Mary and Anne all had the capability to read maps and navigate a ship, and it was not impossible to obtain maps if you knew where to look, even if it could sometimes be expensive. Most Marine bases would almost certainly have appropriate maps for their region and cartographers weren't exactly rare in a world mostly covered in saltwater.
Finding the right island took a bit of work, but luckily, they weren't particularly big and that meant finding the one with the Japanese-style tropical village didn't take too much work. Especially because after a few moments Drake seemed to start remembering the way forward, confirming that she had been around these islands while doing bounty hunting. This did make Lee wonder just how far from him she could actually wander, but he was distracted by the sight that jogged his memories.
The biggest building on the island, the name "Arlong Park", as well as the events that would go on in this village originally, coursed through Lee's mind. He had forgotten indeed that this was a place of tragedy and of despair for one of the most well-known and beloved members of the original crew of straw hats.
Luffy could and would eventually deal with this mess, if left alone, at least, that's what Lee thought would happen, he couldn't know for sure… not that it mattered. After all… "What kind of pirate sees a profitable situation and just lets it pass him?" he spoke, grinning as he overlooked the island from the crow's nest, not quite tall enough to get a good look at all of it, but good enough that he could somewhat see what was going on, tough he still had to use a spyglass to see things in detail.
From up there and by enhancing his sight and perception capability with his chi as best as he could, Lee could identify the Mikan farm and the house on it… "Weren't they super poor?" he muttered, as he looked at the two story farmstead, accompanied by a wooden shed with some farming tools, looking in decently good shape…
Didn't matter, a butterfly flaps its wings and an hurricane happens, all that jazz.
Folding up the spyglass and putting it in the case on the crow's nest again, Lee got down from it, half climbing, half sliding down the mast as he did, and then simply oversaw the process of docking. The village wasn't particularly wealthy but they had a usable dock even for the size of his ship. There wasn't bustling doc activity, and only a handful of small fishing boats docked there.
But it didn't look like people were in despair, just living their days waiting for the other shoe to inevitably drop, waiting for their cruel overlord to come down on them like an angry and very hungry shark… in fact, people were smiling and milling about, as the fishermen brought in their haul. Lee stepped on the dock fully, and it wasn't long before someone stepped towards the newly arrived boat.
A man in a vaguely Marine-uniform-esque outfit, but in maroon and lacking many of their ornamentations, wearing what looked like a parody of a marine officer's hat with a pinwheel attached to the front, maroon shorts, sandals and the porniest of porn 'staches ever conceived, stepped forward, his hands linked behind is back, standing proud but not quite tall.
Lee wasn't alone on land for long, as Kuina joined him.
"Ho there strangers," the man said. "I don't think you lads are simple travelers or even law abiding citizens at all."
Lee snorted. "What gave us away?"
"Besides the lack of uniforms despite bearing weapons?" the man asked, raising an eyebrow. "You've been around as long as I have and you learn to spot the troublesome sort," he said. "I'd recommend you avoid these islands for the time being, your sort isn't welcome here."
Lee snorted. "We're not welcome in many places, that's not usually enough to stop it. We're persona non grata as is," he said, laughing.
"I'm saying this for your own sake," the man said, "if you intend to cause trouble-"
"Oi, Genzo, that's not the sort you should be fucking around with."
A mature woman's voice cut through the air, and Lee, Kuina and the man with the pornstache all turned to look at the interloper, a woman wearing a green shirt, with fuchsia hair in a pseudo Mohawk that could really use a trim, and resting a long rifle on her shoulder. She had a cigar on her mouth but she quickly spat it out, moving the rifle slightly, tapping it on her shoulder.
"Yeah, they don't look the kind that just backs off when you ask politely," the man, Genzo, agreed, pulling his hands from behind is back, revealing he was brandishing a pair of flintlock looking pistols, which he quickly brought to bear.
The tension was climbing in the air.
"Now, I'm saying this for your own good," the fuchsia haired woman said, changing her grip on her rifle and making it clear she could use it, the sun glinting off of the bayonet attached near its business end as she did, "this island's not welcoming to the free spirited and those that frequently run afoul of the law, not since that loser Nezumi was posted here."
Lee snorted. "Well, I've got business here," he said.
Kuina looked at him for a moment, then one of her hands held onto her katana. She didn't need words to know where this was going. Her eyes darted between the two inhabitants that were clearly setting up to start a brawl right then and there.
And then suddenly, Lee was almost bowled over from behind as Drake leaped off of the deck of the boat and landed right behind him and Kuina, one hand on his left shoulder, the other on her right, almost knocking them over. "Oi you scallywags, don't start a fight as soon as you touch the ground, or at least, if you're gonna do it, invite me first!" she called, grinning fiercely.
"Wait, shit, Drake is that you?!"
"Last I heard El Draque's got no equals, so yeah it's me," Drake said, pushing Lee and Kuina to the sides and stepping in front of them. "Ah, wait, Bell-mére!" she said, her face quickly morphing into a happy and excited grin, walking forward, rearing her right hand back, at the same time as the woman with the weird Mohawk did the same, the two swinging their arms forward.
"You crazy bitch!" the two echoed, their hands meeting in a powerful grip that had both of them exposing the size of their muscles, as the veins popped on their flexed biceps and forearms and even on their hands, matching grins on each other's faces, fierce, yet with a hint of unhidden, open and visible desire…
"Damn, I'd almost forgotten what your face looks like, you never come by anymore!" Bell-mére spoke, the two of them coming closer, almost touching their faces to the other. "I guess pirates really do have a woman on every port huh!"
"Only the best ones!" Drake barked out, laughing as she did, before pushing Bell-mére back, their handshake breaking as the two stepped back. "Yo kids, this is Bell-mére," she said.
"These kids are yours? Didn't know you had a permanent crew," the woman said. "Yo," she said.
"Nah, they're not my crew, this kid right'ere," she said, grabbing Lee by the shoulders and pulling him into her side, quite touchy considering she was wearing the sleeveless version of her coat and Lee was wearing only a vest given the tropical weather of Cocoyasi, "is our captain," she said.
"Huh, you had a kid? Doesn't look that much like you," Bell-mére said, raising an eyebrow. "Or are you robbing cradles now?"
"Yarharhar," Drake rolled her eyes, "I'm a pirate, I do what I want, and the law changes to follow me," she said, grinning. "Anyway, what's this about some rat or something?"
Bell-mére rolled her eyes as well, "it's a whole thing. Look, I'm serious, the new captain assigned to this area's just a greedy asshole, if he thinks he can make money at all, he'll be calling every bit of backup he can."
"It's fine, we don't have a bounty and haven't been caught in any crime, far as the Marines care, we're bounty hunters currently," Lee said. "See, it's fine," he said.
"Then we can talk," Bell-mére said. "But not here. Come to my house, I've got space for you guys."
Genzo grunted. "That easy? You're gonna trust some outsiders?" he asked.
"Drake's with them and we still owe her for the thing with the fishmen," Bell-mére shot back. "If you've got a better idea, Sheriff, then I'm open to it, but unless you do, I'm gonna take the ropes I've got."
"Fine, you're right," Genzo allowed. "I'll make sure everything's in order with the ship."
Lee nodded. "Speak to the blue haired woman. She's in charge while we're on land," he said. "Normally it'd be Drake but…"
"Yeah, I should probably be involved on this one, you look like you want me to start explaining some stuff," she said, stretching. "Right, some time on land does make the sea air all the saltier," she spoke, "lead the way, you know I love watching you go."
Bell-mére snorted. "My girls are grown up now, you know, Nojiko's even got her own place in town and I could always send Nami out for a sleepover with her."
"Oh you know just what language to talk to me in," Drake said, gesturing for her to lead the way.
"I'm disturbed that I'm starting to get used to this bullshit," Kuina muttered. "I guess it's a lot easier to accept, it's just a Drake thing."
"Yep," Lee agreed. "Eh, I could've used a good fight to get my blood pumping and the heat flowing but we can always spar later. Come on, let's follow them."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming," Kuina said, relaxing. The duo followed behind Drake who in turn followed behind Bell-mére, who was sashaying her hips as she walked, showing off the rear end that had enthralled Drake, apparently. The village was rather quaint and had a strange mix of classic and old styles and more modern conveniences, the majority of the buildings in the island were concentrated in the village proper, near to the docks, technically making it a port but barely qualifying as such, there wasn't much to look at overall, the village's main street was lined with whatever few businesses there were and most people were milling about, some caught sight of you and turned away.
They didn't look beaten and cowered into submission…
But curiosity was eating at Lee, and so, he stepped forward, closer to Bell-mére. His memories weren't crisp and clean, it'd been a good two decades or nearly so that he'd been separated from the source material after all, he could be forgiven for not being on the up and up, he thought to himself, and it was time to start getting a heads up on things and see if he could jog his memory. "Yo. The name's Lee. Bell-mére right?" he asked.
"Yeah. You're Drake's captain huh?" she asked. "She's a big deal around these parts."
"The biggest and baddest," Drake quipped.
"How'd that happen?" Bell-mére asked in wonderment. "She wouldn't even take a permanent crew last I heard."
"It's complicated, kinda secret," Lee said. "We're kinda like a family," he said.
"That's fine, I guess," Bell-mére said, clearly satisfied with that answer.
"How about you? How'd you two meet?" Lee asked. "Drake never really talked about what she did while she was bounty hunting and making fools of the Marines," he said, his arms meeting behind the back of his head as he walked forward in a very relaxed pose.
"Not exactly the most exciting tales of my life," Drake said.
"Your definition of what's exciting and what's not is a little suspect," Kuina mentioned.
"I agree with her," Bell-mére said. "For you it might've been just a slow Tuesday, but the day you wiped out the fishmen is the greatest day in this village's recent history," she said, turning around and looking over her shoulder with a wide and bright smile on her face. "You prevented a disaster."
Something clicked. "Hm- fishmen… Arlong?"
"One and the same! Pirates from the Grand Line, right here in this remote East Blue archipelago," Bell-mére said, using a hand to flick a lock of hair from her forehead back into proper place.
"Not that big a deal for such a feared man," Drake said, shrugging. "I've fought stronger minnows."
Lee's face scrunched up. "Oh."
Right. That was… the situation he had been coming to solve, wasn't it? Instead of coming in as the big damn hero who would fight Arlong and free Cocoyasi village and earn their undying thanks, it seemed like someone else had already handled the matter for him… and even moreso, it was his very own crew member, whom he had brought to this world with him. "I really need to sit down with you some day and talk about what you've been doing," Lee said, looking at Drake.
"Making money, spreading my name and putting the fear of El Draque in the hearts of lawmen and pirates alike!" Drake said, the wind blowing at exactly the right time to provide a dramatic effect to her speech.
"Fair enough," Lee said. "She handled Arlong then?"
"Yeah. Right as he was about to shoot me, at that," Bell-mére said. "There were too many enemies and my only weapon, well he'd just chewed the end off," she said, taking her rifle in her hands, clearly reminiscing, "it was me or my daughters," she said, "and that decision was an easy one."
"What? What happened?" Kuina asked, now enthused in the conversation as well.
"The fishmen invaded us, and they were too strong. They demanded tribute, a hundred thousand per adult, fifty per child. I only had enough for one adult or two children, and I had two girls that couldn't pay for themselves," she muttered, an edge of darkness creeping into her voice, "I was just about ready to die right there when he overpowered me."
"And then I shot him in the face."
"Just like that? No questions asked?? No warning?" Kuina asked, her eyes wide as saucers. "That's-"
Bell-mére laughed openly. "Maybe if she'd blown his head off just like that it'd have been fine," she said, shrugging with her shoulders. "But it was just enough to catch his attention," she said. "He was so angry, I thought he might cook himself right then and there, I swear he was steaming."
"But you still shot him without knowing what was going on," Kuina said.
"I mean, you see a freaky fish guy-"
"That's racist," Lee pointed out.
"Look, I'm not saying fishmen are freaky, I'm saying Arlong was a freak," Drake specified.
"I mean we're not gonna judge, they came here with intent of enslaving us so we're not exactly sympathetic," Bell-mére said with a laugh of her own.
"I continue, you see a big scary man pointing a gun at a defenseless looking woman, you don't really need to ask," Drake said, pulling one of her pistols and twirling it on her finger from the trigger guard, before holstering it again. "'sides I just caught his attention, if I'd wanted to kill him he'd have been dead right then and there."
"But he was worth more alive than dead, wasn't he?" Bell-mére asked.
"Not much but enough," Drake agreed.
"Ah, so you didn't kill him then?" Lee asked.
"Nah, just kicked him off the island, heard he escaped confinement though, good for him," Drake said, shrugging. "Maybe he learned his lesson after that thrashing."
"Somehow I have a feeling that's gonna come back to bite us, and I'm not just saying that because the dude's a shark," Lee said. "I just have this feeling in my bones."
"That makes sense to me, but that's what makes life exciting innit?" Drake asked, making a grand gesture. "I'd hate a sea void of enemies and challenges!" she said.
Bell-mére exhaled out of her nose and closed her eyes. "That's what separates you folks from people like us, huh? I'd be perfectly fine with my peace continuing unchallenged," she spoke, sounding almost wistful.
"There's no point in a sword that's never gonna be used, I guess?" Kuina said. "I think I know what you mean," she added, her hand on her sword. "I'd be fine just fighting this doofus and Zoro," she said, gesturing at Lee.
"Eh, I'll take the adventure myself," Lee spoke, "I'll continue forging my own path forward unrestrained and unbound, that's what I've come to the world to do!" he said, grinning fiercely.
"Yeah, I can see why Drake likes you now," Bell-mére said. "Oh, that way," she said, as the path split outside the village and the group began to head towards the farmstead that was her home, near the Mikan fruit grove. She led them all the way to her small, but cozy and well looked after home.
"Your place looks way nicer than last time I was here," Drake commented.
"Yeah, Nojiko and Nami stepped up and with their help I was able to pick things up a lot. Nami's maps sell pretty well too so things are looking up and up," Bell-mére explained, putting her hands on her hips. "Well, we're here," she said, opening the door to her house. "Welcome to Casa Bell-mére, and-"
And then, a highly tattooed blue haired young woman wearing only a black bra and tan pants burst through the just opened door, crashing into Bell-mére, though not bowling her over, instead, Bell-mére put her in a headlock, bringing her down to her knees. "What have I told you about looking where you're going!? I raised you better than that!"
Letting out a pained shout, the blue haired young woman, struggled uselessly to get out of Bell-mére's grip.
"This thing," the woman who had dropped her rifle moments ago said, as she squeezed and tightened the grip on her headlock, bringing the generously chested woman she had captured down to the ground, raising one of her arms and then pulling back, fully pinning her, "is my eldest daughter, Nojiko," she said, "and she should know by now that shirts are a thing!"
"Agh, get off!" Nojiko shouted, "mooom!"
"Anyway, come on in," she said, "Nojiko, is your sister home yet or is she delayed again?" Bell-mére said, letting go and standing up, helping her daughter up as well.
"You know our cute little kitty cat, she's off who knows where."
"Convenient," Bell-mére said, "anyway, you can go home now, thanks for watching the place, but now, it's time for some serious discussion."
"What about?" Nojiko said, "Oh we have visitors, you guys are- oh- Captain Drake?" she said, her eyes going wide and her jaw hanging open. "You don't mean-"
"Yeah… it's time to punt Nezumi off the island," Bell-mére said. "If you're up for it."
Rather than replying directly, Drake looked at Lee, but he grinned back at her.
Kuina sighed. "I guess that's decided, we're picking a fight with the Marines now."
"Alright then," Lee said. "I'm listening."
"Good. Hope you're ready to actually earn yourself a bounty, 'cuz you're not walking out of this one unscathed," the woman explained.
Were he to be honest, Lee would've told you he couldn't remember who this Nezumi loser was, but he also couldn't bring himself to care. He wasn't here to reenact the plot he had already mostly forgotten… he glanced at Nojiko. She was indeed a more than worthy motivation just on her own.
"You know no help comes for free, right?" Drake asked.
"Of course. You already know I'm more than willing to pay with my body," Bell-mére replied, wagging her eyebrows.
"Ugh, mom, really?" Nojiko said, rolling her eyes. "Aren't you too old for that already?"
"This lady's aging like a fine wine," Drake said.
"And if you think I'm too old, maybe you can take up the role yourself?" Bell-mére said.
"Imitating you? That's Nami's thing, thank you very much," Nojiko said, crossing her arms. "I'd rather pay with cash."
Drake laughed, and Lee joined her.
Kuina sighed. "I just know how this is going to end…" she muttered. "Well, in for a Belly…"