Newt blinks, turning the words over in his head for a moment because this Dauntless thing sounds like what he would have chosen to, but he's sure as hell no soldier. He's not really selfless, can't really say he'd put anyone else first, except for Kate and a very select few others. He's not the guy who dives headfirst into danger for the sake of others, he does it as a means to an end that'll satisfy his curiosity, his need to know how things work.

That tattoos, they're reminders of why he'd joined the Resistance. On days that he'd found himself feeling too exhausted to keep facing disappointment after disappointment, of not being able to figure out exactly how to end all the death and destruction because a two-man team can only get so much done at once, the tattoos had made him remember that he'd taken the job--and kept it even after everyone else in the K-science department had abandoned their posts--for a reason. He hadn't just wanted to understand the kaiju, he'd needed to understand them, and he'd succeeded. But he'd done it for himself.

He wonders where that would have put him, between the two factions she's told him about.

"Soldiers, huh?" he asks, leaning his head forward just slightly to get a better look at the tattoo of the hands on her shoulder. "What is it that you were fighting for?"