"Damn brat—those eyes?!"
Karl's sincere praise was a needle in Gecko Moria's pride.
That fury at being looked down on by a youngster twisted his face. He drove his shadow to spear form again and thrust.
"It's useless. The gap between us is too big."
After a brief exchange, the battle-lust Karl felt at facing a Warlord-level foe guttered out.
He craved a duel between equals.
Not a one-sided crush.
He hadn't even needed Haki; in overall power he simply overwhelmed Gecko Moria.
He no longer hoped this fight would give him any hot-blooded thrill.
If he weren't set on not killing, he'd already have drawn his knight's sword—or summoned the mysterious spear—and ended it with one final blow.
Slipping past the shadow lance with Observation Haki and blinding speed, Karl pushed his velocity to the peak of his normal state. The explosive force of his step shattered the tiled floor as he appeared before Gecko Moria.
Without giving him the chance to swap with his shadow again, Karl's fist, sheathed in a vast reserve of Armament Haki, slammed into Moria's gut.
Once more, waves rippled across that belly; a terrifying backblast blew out behind him, shattering a dozen walls in succession, bursting from the castle to swallow everything outside.
This time, Gecko Moria neither flew back nor even took a step.
But both knees buckled to the floor.
His eyes rolled white, his face went slack, blood trailed from the corner of his mouth—he lost consciousness on the spot.
"Relying on externals will never match your own strength. I hope this wakes you up a little."
Retracting his fist, Karl looked down at the insensate Gecko Moria and said it as if to himself.
Then he hefted Moria's bulky body and headed for Perona's room.
"...What did you do to Lord Moria?!"
When Karl woke Perona, one look at the miserable state of Gecko Moria had her forgetting her fear and shouting at him.
"My enemy. Now,"
Karl grinned—a devil's smile in Perona's eyes—then said, "you struck at me, so I should wipe you all out. But your ability is good. Let's make a deal…"
"...I understand. I'll join."
Just as Karl planned: with her captain—like a father to her—on the line, Perona accepted the "devil's bargain," choosing to join Karl in exchange for Gecko Moria's life.
And so the Ghost-Ghost Fruit user changed hands.
The Karl crew's strength rose again.
To avoid the scene of Moria waking and raging when he learned Perona had traded her freedom for his life, Karl let Perona leave only a farewell note, then took the downcast girl and left the castle to rendezvous with Carina.
"Don't be so dejected. Gecko Moria's a legitimate pirate lord, so you weren't a pirate before either—you've only sailed out as a bounty hunter,"
Karl said, seeing the side effect of his recruitment method bloom—Perona's fear of him—and trying to soothe it. "I'm not a pirate. I won't treat you like that. When I've realized my dream, if you can't fit my crew, I'll set you free."
"Really?"
Hugging the single doll she'd brought along, Perona looked up, anxious.
"Of course…"
Karl flashed a contagiously warm smile, raised three fingers, and spoke a line that would have made Carina and Nami roll their eyes to the heavens had they been there: "I swear it on the name of a knight."
Right now, he looked like a man with a lollipop coaxing a little girl.
But the truth was, from joining the Moria Pirates to now—holed up on Thriller Bark—Perona really was that simple.
"I believe you!"
She nodded hard. Most of her fear melted, replaced by a good deal of fondness.
That one sentence.
Winner takes all—the rule of the pirates' world.
She herself had attacked Karl; that he beat Absalom and even Lord Moria meant he had every right to decide her fate.
Trading her freedom for Moria's life felt to Perona entirely worth it.
You pay, sooner or later, for life at sea.
If there's blame, it's on Karl's opponents, not on Karl.
So Perona never once felt hatred toward him.
The reason for her gloomy air was worry about the future.
Afraid that aboard this "devil's" ship she'd suffer inhuman treatment.
But when Karl swore it on the name of a knight, she realized he was, in fact, a "righteous" knight.
This scene…
Wasn't it a knight storming the demon king's castle to rescue a princess?
She knew it was wrong to liken the respected Lord Moria to a demon king, but Perona had adored such fairy tales since she was small, and her mind ran away with her.
That's Perona's charm.
A blank page: beside villains, she takes on villainy; beside good people, she takes on goodness.
It was one reason Karl had chosen to recruit her.
That childish personality fit her loli looks and petite build perfectly.
But here's a cold fact—
Perona's actually an adult: nineteen now, and after her June 7th birthday, twenty—five years older than Karl, Carina, and Nami.