"Considering we start training at six, yes, I do think twelve is better!" She felt defensive, not able to articulate quite yet how it wasn't just an exam, how this was qualifying and testing people to make sure they weren't sent out on missions that got them killed in ways that could be that much more horrifying, ways that could get their entire teams killed because they balked at the last moment.

"Your team is your fail safe. Your training. Believe me, I went through that exam twice. You have to be pretty damn stupid to get yourself killed out there," pending s-class criminals weren't stalking you down in the forest, "And it's always a choice. Nothing and no one makes you take that test." Ignoring the social pressure and the peer pressure combined.

His statement that it would be acceptable had they been under attack, without an alternative, struck her as absurd. "But it's fine if we had no choice? We can die without the right training when there's no alternative." Ignoring that he had no context for her world outside what she'd told him, and that she'd told him very little in the grand scheme of things, she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "When we're under attack in a way you recognize, then at least we can justify why people die defending the things they believe in?"