"I'd do it again," Quistis whispered into the darkness of the Detention Center.

Low-light confinement attempted to undermine the circadian rhythms of the body, removing the differentiation between day and night. Short term effects included fatigue, disorientation, insomnia, and missing an entire week of class that she'd have to make up later.

"I'd do it again," she hissed, her mantra, a talisman against the encroaching blackness.

She said it when the shame of her situation eroded her resolve, holding it before her like a candle.

"I'd do it again," she said, remembering the girl's tearful confession, spurted out in bursts of words squeezed between sobs.

"I'd do it again," she said, picturing the vague and disinterested look on the Headmaster's face. He cleaned his glasses as she spoke, stressing that while she may have done very well in interrogation classes, her instinct did not make the young man a liar, nor did it provide any proof. You must have gotten the facts wrong, because clearly it couldn't have happened like that and I will not waste Garden's time pursuing frivolous claims arising from some silly girl's broken heart.

"I'd do it again," she snarled, picturing the easy smile on the boy's face as he chatted with his friends in the cafeteria.

"I'd do it again," she intoned, the words sounding suspiciously like "I know what you did." The coffee pot arced through the air in slow motion, glass shattering against his face as the scalding liquid poured over him.

"I'd do it again," and the walls of her cell blended with his body, her fists seeking out all his vulnerable places, her attacks cold and dispassionate, a perfect seminar on how to cripple a man.

"I'd do it again," she told the Disciplinary Review Board when they ordered her to explain her conduct, certain that she'd simply lost control.

"I'd do it again," she told the Headmaster when he adopted a grave tone and informed her that because the boy would never walk unaided again, they'd had no choice but to dismiss him from Garden.

"I'd do it again," she told Seifer as he led her to the Detention Center, refusing the tiny flashlight he attempted to press into her hand. The darkness inside her cell held no horror for her.

"I'd do it again," she murmured after a week, security guards reaching inside to pull her, blinking, back into the light.