-Tomb of The Giants-

"Stop," said Jinta, suddenly.

"What? Why?"

Seiko followed where Jinta was looking to see another Undead in Paladin armor staring out off the cliff. In the distance was gray mist, black water, and trees so large that they threw off depth perception.

"I thought you only came down here to save three people."

"I did. I have a bad feeling."

The Undead stood up and took up its weapon, shield already on its arm. The weapon looked like a large rock with a long handle fused to it. The Undead approached along the cliff at a walk, vision fixed on Seiko and Jinta.

"I think that's Paladin Leeroy. If I remember right, his abilities are like mixing your strength and my miracles. I doubt he's got our finesse, so we'll be better off avoiding a direct conflict. There are two of us and one of him. Treat him with respect, don't get hit, and we should be ok."

As Leeroy got close, he put up his shield and started taking more balanced steps. Seiko stayed behind Jinta, but she had a plan already. When Jinta started forward, Seiko followed him. When the two seemed like they would clash, Seiko lept over them both and landed behind Leeroy, facing him. While Jinta avoided getting crushed and tried to find an opening, Seiko used Rapport again. Leeroy stopped after a swing and started shaking, trying to resist. His right leg was slowly sliding toward the edge of the cliff not so far away.

All of a sudden, Leeroy was freed. He focused his power into his weapon, a hunk of iron called Grant, and a magical explosion blew away Jinta and broke Seiko's concentration. Leeroy shifted his grip on Grant and spun to his right, swinging Grant out over the gap. He aimed to drive Seiko into the wall, but she jumped again. This time, though, she drove a boot into Leeroy's helmet. They both tumbled to the ground and over the side of the cliff.

Seiko reached out with the Abyss to latch onto the cliff. Leeroy latched onto her leg.

"Seiko! Are you crazy?!" said Jinta from above.

"Be right there," said Seiko, flatly.

She activated Power Within, scalding Leeroy's hands in seconds. Leeroy lost grip and fell to his death.

Seiko pulled herself back up onto the path and made sure the Abyss had all joined her. She removed her gauntlets to check her arms. She had patches of skin missing and was starting to bleed. Her hands started shaking.

"Estus, please."

Jinta recited Heal instead. Seiko's skin healed up and she put her gauntlets back on.

"No lecture?"

"If you didn't have the Abyss, that would have been a death. Even I have to admit that. Some missing skin and a prayer sounds better than losing Humanity."

A pause.

"Alternatively, you could have just let me fight him and thrown a Fireball at his back."

Seiko stared vacantly into space.
"Hindsight, eh? You need to come back to Earth, ya know? You're powerful, yes, and immortal in a way, but you don't need to be reckless or use your full power on every little thing."

Seiko sighed. "There's the lecture."

Jinta stammered for a second, about to defend himself.

"But," said Seiko, "You're right. Sorry."

Now it was Jinta who sighed. "Don't mention it. Now let's get going."

"Pinwheel?" said Jinta, quietly.

"There's more than one. How?" said Seiko.

"Does it matter? They look smaller, though. Hopefully they're weaker than the one we fought, or we're in trouble."

Seiko stood out of the shadow of the bones they'd been hiding behind, hands aglow with flame.

"I'll go in first and make a scene. You can flank them while they're distracted, like you did before a few times."

"If you're going to make a habit out of making yourself bait, don't you think a shield would be a good idea?"

"I can use physical Pyromancy to block ranged attacks, and I'm fast enough and strong enough to deal with close range attacks. I'd rather have both hands free to use Pyromancy."

"Fair enough. I'll follow along, then. Whenever you're ready."

He drew his swords.

Seiko ran forward into the open, throwing a Fireball at the nearest Pinwheel. Caught off guard, the Pinwheel didn't dodge in time and was struck by the Fireball. The flames burned away its robes and masks, cracking its bones. Seiko was already focused on another target, throwing fire left and right, doing her best to control the size and strength of her attacks and save her stamina. All at once, the chamber was awash with flames from all sides. Seiko took to focusing on dodging rather than attacking. Her head swept left and right, her feet moved deftly, and in brief gaps she threw Fireballs.

Just as planned, Jinta ran in second, during the crossfire, and cut down Pinwheel after Pinwheel. Lucky for Seiko, these Pinwheels were weaker than the "real" one they'd fought earlier. By the time Jinta was able to thin the group, Seiko had covered herself with her gold-hemmed robes and was simply side-stepping attacks instead of flipping about and wasting energy. In a glimpse of her, Jinta realized what a real Daughter of Chaos must look like. A deity of flame, many times stronger even than Seiko. It was a horrifying distraction that he quickly pushed from his mind.

In moments, it was over. Jinta was hardly tired at all, while Seiko was out of breath and covered in a cold sweat from oxygen starvation. As soon as there was no more threat, she collapsed to the ground on her back, sucking in great breaths. Jinta rushed over, swords sheathed.

"You ok? Magical exhaustion?"

"Regu… lar… Exhaus… tion…"

"Estus?"

"Save it…"

"If you say so. This is a Lord we're dealing with, after all. We can wait here for you to recover. I'll look around a bit, I guess. Come on, stand up. I'll sit you by the way forward."

He helped Seiko over to a rotted ceremonial rug and sat her down at the mouth of the next cave. She focused on breathing, every second fighting to stay awake. She wouldn't say it, but it was a terrifying experience, like a near-drowning death. Jinta walked away to look around the cavern they were in, and while he was finding useful Titanite and the corpses of other dead warriors of all kinds, Seiko was struggling to stay awake.

It was about that time that Seiko thought she started hallucinating. Tiny skeletons, no larger than babies, started closing in around her, teeth dripping with black blood. In her near unconsciousness, it frightened her intensely. Her already labored breathing quickened, and she tried to call out.

"J-Jin… Ta…"

She sucked in a deep breath. One of the skeletons bit her shin, and she could feel the teeth slice right through her robe, armor, and flesh.

"JINTA!"

The little things crowded around her, sinking their teeth into every part of her, biting deep and then grinding their teeth around. At some point, Jinta appeared and started slashing at them, clearing them away quickly before reciting a healing miracle. Right away, Seiko's exhaustion left her, and her wounds were healed, but she still felt sick. There was a cold sinking into her body, and her limbs still felt dead.

"I can't move… Their blood… The blood…"

It was getting harder and harder to keep her eyes open. With her face shadowed by her robe's hood, her veins turning black under her skin went unnoticed. Black veins started spidering over her vision.

She thought she heard Jinta's concerned voice, but it was like she was underwater and he was above the surface. Everything went dark.

Some time later, Seiko woke up. It was still almost too dark to see, so she was still in the Tomb of the Giants. Jinta was asleep next to her, slumped over a bit, back to the wall like her. They were still just outside the way forward.

Seiko bumped shoulders with Jinta, shaking him a few times that way. He roused suddenly, his head turning left and right to get bearings.

"You're awake! I made it in time, then… Good. You were poisoned, I guessed, so I used Caressing Prayer. I must have barely made it, because you didn't wake up, but you didn't die either. I used another healing miracle to be safe, but when you still didn't wake up and I couldn't wake you myself… I was worried you wouldn't wake up at all, to be honest."

"Are you ok? Using miracles like that…"

"I told you, it's not nearly as much of a risk using weaker miracles. Only the most powerful, like Wrath Of The Gods, must be used sparingly. I can only cast Wrath three times in one fight, or use the equivalent in power of other miracles. Any more than that and I'm liable to lose my mind or even Hollow. A few heals and some rest isn't any trouble at all, especially if it means keeping you from dying."

"There's no need to fear death so much…"

"That's not true."

"Of course it is. We're immortal. Anyone with a strong will and hope can die an infinite number of times and always get right back up."

"I disagree completely."

Something about the force behind that statement stopped Seiko from disagreeing a second time.

A/N: BRS TV, Precious Things by Hiromi Kikuta

Jinta went on.

"Yes, I know, with Humanity and hope, we can stave off the curse. We can hang on to our memories. But we never forget the pain of death, and our fellows never forget watching us die. We are human. Our ancestors grew up, grew old, lived and died, always entwined with death. They died once. They worried about the where and how of every other human death. Before the curse, death was what tied us all together, even if it wasn't the worst thing that could happen to us. Tortures far beyond death have always existed… But that doesn't mean it's ok to just throw your life away, or just brush it off when you die and move on like nothing happened. Death has meaning. You can throw away your death, but you can't throw away your memory of it, or force others to forget it."

"I think you just care too much. You invest too much in one life. It'll Hollow you."

Jinta stood up. By his stance and sharp motion, Seiko could tell he was furious.

"Yes! I do care too much! And, yes, maybe it will Hollow me! But I'm not going to just throw up my hands and go, 'Oh, well!' about it! If you want to pretend that all this pain and suffering is nothing, you go right ahead and wear that mask! I won't! I will fight until every tooth and nail I have is broken, til my weapons and armor rust, and until my body falls to ash before I'll let myself die a single time! Humanity, hope, purpose all be damned! I refuse to just throw away something so important as a good death!"

Jinta, worked up in his anger, looked down at Seiko now. She had been looking down, listening. She looked up, piercing sky-blue eyes glowing in the dark cavern, and peered into his helmet's visor.

Like she could meet his eyes.

All was still.

The silence split open further and further, yet neither of them moved. Just stared. The only sound was Jinta's heavy breathing after his shouting.

"Hmph." Seiko closed her eyes and stood up, then opened them again.

"I'm sure I've never met anyone quite like you. You're not weak, but without me, I bet you would have died several times down here. If not for you, I wouldn't be down here at all. You're a good person, but it doesn't seem like you're just worried about divine retribution or anything as your motivation. I don't know what happened to you to make you this way, but you don't seem like you've been to the depth of suffering others may have seen. Maybe you just haven't suffered enough. But what I can say for sure about you is this…"

She paused, then smiled a bit.

"Never change. Never change and you'll be a hero someday. Tetsuro could never be anything like that, but you could. Maybe. Someday."

Her smile and tone had turned from gentle admiration to an almost playful sarcasm at the end.

She turned to the mouth of the next cave, the way forward.

"Now let's see you make good on those words. A Lord awaits."

A/N: Believe me when I say I didn't plan anything that happened in this chapter. It's about five pages long in Drive, but this one's word count is pretty short, about 2100 words. I wrote the last conversation there, then I kinda figured I should include some music for those of you like me who like to listen to music while you read. I was originally going to pair "Heaven" with it, also from BRS TV, same composer, but I decided on "Precious Things" instead. Using the English titles might make it a little more difficult to find them, but I have a playlist on YouTube I've saved so I have easy access to the OST… Anyway, things are picking up at work, but I'm also mostly out of the winter dark. I should be able to consistently post on Friday's again starting today, so look forward to future chapters on time. I've really gotta put my nose to the grindstone on this story! After all, a seventh book idea is starting to come together, and it's really driving home just how much more work there is to be done for me and my writing! Thanks for reading.