[She wouldn't call herself foolish, so she's fairly sure she wouldn't think he was, either, but Ari lets it go. They probably won't agree, and it's not terribly important that they do.

His question does make her think, and she sips at her beer before she speaks again, taking the time to collect her thoughts.]

Honest answer? I had two reasons. The first was principle. It was an injustice, and an unnecessary one. I still think we all should have refused. If it was genuinely the case that Skulduggery had to die, then that would-be captain should have simply executed him. No murders, no spectacles, no dragging in of everyone else because he was too much of a coward to do what had to be done.

I do think that an alternate solution was possible, at the outset. It probably wasn't by the time you spoke to me, because we didn't have a chance of turning public opinion. I didn't see it, and that's because of the second reason. I had to stand by Oda. I don't know how much you were told, but those were his words I was shouting, not my own. He couldn't do it himself, he'd been very badly hurt, and so had Yato, and people he thought would have supported him either weren't there or actively turned against him. It felt, in the moment, as if I were all he had left, and I have my faults, but disloyalty's not one of them.

[She adds, sadly] It took me too long to realise that it really was hopeless and that he wasn't able to back down.