She didn't explain it then, claiming that she needed to consult her associates, and Otohiko couldn't immediately try to research it, for the situation was turning out to be a lot more complex than it had at first appeared. The Serpent Reavers and the sahagin themselves were being manipulated by a mysterious hooded man Y'shtola called an Ascian, member of an occult group that according to her had been acting from the shadows against the peace of the realm for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. He demonstrated magical prowess beyond anything Otohiko had thus far encountered, and he was the cause of Otohiko's third death.

And fourth. And fifth, and sixth. It took him a four deaths in total to finally defeat the man, with the help of a group of twenty other people, members of the Lominsan Grand Company, and Y'shtola.

Except it didn't, really. Otohiko thought he'd have been able to do it after the first failure, but since it was becoming clear he couldn't die, well...

...he didn't want anyone else to die, either. So he threw himself between them and other dangers, and he died for his failures, and the fourth time they actually succeeded but Otohiko had decided in advance he'd slit his own throat if even one of the others died, which he hadn't been sure would work but he was feeling reckless.

It worked. No one died. From the perspective of everyone else, as far as they were concerned, Otohiko had suddenly, from one moment to the next, become a much better combatant and a tactical genius with precognitive ability to ensure their success. People were hurt, for certain, it wasn't a perfectly clean encounter by any means, but the only deaths were those of Reavers and of the dark minion himself.

Once he crashed from the adrenaline, though, he had to take a moment to, uh, curl up into a ball and freak out for half an hour.

Holy shit. Hoooooooooooooly shit. Holy shit. He'd just died four times. It didn't hurt, it didn't feel like anything at all, the spot in his chest where he had been pierced through with a lance only hurt in his mind, but it had still hurt and now it didn't anymore.

When he finally came to, Y'shtola was sitting next to him, reading a book.

"Welcome back," she said, with a warmth very unlike the nearly clinical detachment she'd shown thus far. "Was it another vision?"

He looked at her through teary eyes—he'd been crying, apparently, he never noticed—and after comprehension filtered through to him he shook his head. "No. Something—something else."

"Oh?" She seemed unguarded, curious, remarkably non-hostile. Miqo'te body language was very different from what Otohiko was used to, as an au ra—their tails were very expressive, their ears even more so—and Y'shtola herself never spent any effort to conceal her own emotions. Quite frankly, she didn't care to.

"I died. Six times. Four of them today."

"...and yet, you still walk amongst us. An interesting way to die, that leaves you alive at the end."

"Yeah."

"...'tis not in jest. Is it. What do you mean?"

"I mean I died four times today. The golem crushed my skull once, then I was pierced through with a spear, then I was hamstrung and beheaded, and the last time I slit my own throat because I would not permit anyone else to die."

Understanding dawned on her face. "The Echo. I see. Yours... you live through battles, and if you would die, you turn back. But not through time, that would not... Then again, 'tis not as if we understand the Echo all that well, it could well be... But that is academic. You died until no one else did? That was how you obtained the uncanny knowledge you seemed to possess?"

He nodded, mutely.

"You would sacrifice yourself, at the end, for the safety of others."

"...of course!" he exclaimed, looking at Y'shtola like she'd grown a second head. "I can't die! How, how could I just—live, and let others—if I can't die, then I will well not let others die, either! If I had found no way to succeed, I would ensure their retreat."

"That... is admirable. You yet suffer for your deaths, but you defend your actions."

He looked away. "It'll pass. It wouldn't have, if they'd died. Any of them."

She nodded, slowly. "The Mothercrystal chose well, to gift you this power. You... I'm not sure I would have the same fortitude." She shook her head. "Rest, Otohiko. You've done more than enough. We can take it from here. With the Ascian defeated, we should see a measure of peace, for at least a little bit. Doubtless we will have need of your abilities again in the future, but for now, rest."

V. The Scions of the Seventh Dawn

Following these adventures, Otohiko was surprised to receive an invitation to a banquet thrown by none other than Admiral Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn, the political chief of state of Limsa Lominsa and warden of La Noscea. Curious, he looked into her a bit, and was even more surprised to find out that she herself was a reformed pirate, and with that discovery he learned some more about the history of Limsa Lominsa.

Until recently, Limsa Lominsa had been a den of crime and vice, a nearly-lawless city-state where might made right and where you could hire the services of cutthroats and pirates or find quality wares for much cheaper than elsewhere—presuming you were willing to look the other way when it came to the question of provenance. It eventually got unified by a group of pirates who created and defended a code of honour which stipulated that pirate crews would not cheat one another of plunder, nor rob a fellow Lominsan, nor sell fellow men into slavery.

It was with said unification that Limsa Lominsa became a proper power in its own right, with a seat at the international table, its own army (and, mostly, navy), and something resembling peace. And every seven years a contest called the Trident was held, in which pirate crews would (peacefully) race against each other and the winner's captain would become the new Admiral of the city-state. Admirals often drastically altered existing policies governing the place, though all of them upheld the pirate code, on pain of having an insurrection in their hands and being quickly deposed (which is to say, killed) so that order could be maintained.

This state of affairs changed fourteen years ago, when Admiral Bloefhiswyn won the Trident. Upon assuming her post, she declared piracy illegal, which shocked Limsa to its core and spurred no few attempts on her life and her crew. Extremely adept at both combat and politics, however, she survived all of those, and her plan for the future was soon revealed: the pirates would become privateers to be used against the Garlean Empire, which had been growing ever larger and stronger and more ambitious. Her reasoning was that they could not withstand the Garlean might on their own, and would need to ally with the other states of Aldenard if they were to survive and retain their independence. Her hold over the region was fully cemented when the La Noscean beast tribes summoned their gods—Leviathan and Titan—to try to resist Lominsan rule, and were sumarily crushed by her people. And to make clear that she was in fact the strongest and most skilled captain in these isles, she went on to win the two following Tridents, the most recent one having happened just this year.

The banquet was being thrown in celebration of "heroes": it was nearly the fifth anniversary of the fall of Dalamiq—it was called Dalamud in the Eorzean tongue—and (it was said) the only reason that disaster hadn't shaken the realm even more than it did was thanks to the efforts and sacrifices of noble souls (often called the Warriors of Light), that of a man named Louisoix Leveilleur chief amongst them.

It was obviously a way for the Admiral to court the favour of promising adventurers who seem like they'd be useful to her. The part he didn't get was why he seemed to be the guest of honour or something? His seat was right next to hers?? She was trying to butter him up and thank him and regale him with tales of heroism from the Warriors of Light???

He was just some guy.

At the end of it she asked him to stay a moment longer so she could make a request: she wanted him to be Limsa Lominsa's envoy to the other city-states of the Eorzean Alliance, to send them a missive suggesting that they organise an enormous celebration on the proper anniversary of the moonfall, meant to reassure the people that the realm was recovering and their leaders were on top of things and hard times were at an end.

Which was probably even true. From what Otohiko could gather, Aldenard was shaken up a lot more than Othard by the fall of Dalamud: Ishgard was now suffering a winter which seemed to be permanent, the geography of everywhere had been changed so much ruins that had been buried for thousands of years had suddenly emerged from the depths, monsters had become much more powerful and aggressive from the dissipated aether. But in the years since, Eorzea had managed to rebuild and recover, remarkably so.

Okay, but...

"Why me?"

"I have heard stories about you from too many different people to ignore, Otohiko. Taking jobs no one else will, helping people even outside that, going above and beyond what is asked of you, being frankly underpaid for how much good you do—"

...he was being underpaid? He didn't know that. It really seemed like he was being overpaid, to him.