-Anor Londo-
Seiko looked around, confused.
"Why did you bring us here?" she asked Jinta.
"Because if you have weapons, they can be infused with Titanite. And I imagine the best blacksmith for that job will be the giant, here. He has the most experience with Lord Gwyn's knights and their equipment."
"But the Abyss!"
"Relax. You've said yourself that the Abyss anchors itself to a powerful soul. You just need to show up and kill it. That would be easier if you had a powerful weapon, wouldn't it? Besides, he works fast. Let's hurry over, have him strengthen and sharpen up your swords, and then we can rush to the basin."
"Fine. Let's go then!"
Seiko took off, going up the stairs five at a time with a Black Knight Greatsword in each hand.
Jinta went to hurry after her before the Firekeeper cleared her throat to draw his attention.
He looked back, barely stopping.
"There's more to a weapon than simple infusion. Think very carefully about what you do with those two big swords. I can't imagine anyone carrying those around for a lifetime."
The Firekeeper lowered her head again, which Jinta took as a sign she'd said what she wanted. He ran up the stairs to catch up with Seiko, who was waiting on the lift anyway.
The two hurried across the bridge after riding the lift down, and Jinta led the way to the giant smith. Seiko wasn't ahead not because she didn't know the way, but because her swords slowed her down considerably. As they approached the door to the smith, Jinta stopped.
"The Firekeeper made a good point before we took off," he said. "What are you going to do about carrying around two swords bigger than you are for the rest of your life?"
"What? I'm not going to do that."
"You already have a fix in mind?"
"Of course. He made me this armor before. I was planning on having him use these swords to make me as heavy a katana as he can. The few chances I've had to use weapons, I feel like slashing has been the best compliment to my strength. I don't need a blunt weapon as long as I have my armored fists. There's padding under the knuckles in these gauntlets anyway. I need a way to fight with more finesse, and any spare souls I've had have gone into infusing myself with better ability to control my body and my Pyromancy."
Jinta felt a bit silly for being worried without reason. He didn't have any way to respond, so Seiko walked past him and got the giant's attention.
"Ooh, glowy eye girl. Like armor?"
"The armor's been great, yes, but now I need a weapon too. And we need to hurry. The Abyss is spreading again. Can you use the metal from these swords to make a katana?"
The giant smith reached out and picked up both swords in his fist and inspected them in the palm of his hand.
"Hmm… Made these weapons. Old, burned metal. Magically touched."
"Is that a no?"
"Need special shiny, and demon's skin."
Seiko took the box off her belt that she'd kept in the hopes of giving it to Tetsuro. She held it up for the giant, who set down the Black Knight Greatswords and picked up the small box. He opened it to find a brightly glowing ember, something any smith would be overjoyed to work with.
"I don't know what you mean by demon's skin, though," admitted Seiko.
"I do, and I've got some," said Jinta. "He means Demon Titanite. I don't have much, maybe four chunks, but I don't have a use for them otherwise."
Jinta took a large pouch off of his belt from behind his back and opened it. There were several types of Titanite, but slices of clearly different types were against the sides, almost too big for the bag. Jinta took out three chunks of this polished stone, and offered them to the giant. The giant took them between his finger and thumb and separated out the three, then handed back one.
"Katana? Small, curved blade?"
"Yes," said Seiko, "One my size, as heavy and dense as you can make it."
"Hmm…" thrumbed the giant in agreement. He held out a hand once more, saying nothing.
Seiko did the same, offering the power of her collected souls as payment.
The giant withdrew his hand and appeared to sit and think, probably deciding what to do.
"Were you the one who made the weapons of Gwyn's four knights?" asked Jinta.
"I am."
"Do you remember making Knight Artorias' weapon? She needs one that can withstand the same force. Something that would be useful to Artorias."
"Ahh! Can make Knight weapon. Hard, strong, heavy for humans. Katana?"
"Katana," affirmed Seiko.
The giant quickly went to work. He used tools that seemed far too small for him, but he worked precisely nonetheless. He disassembled the Black Knight Greatswords, removing their parts until he was left with the solid metal blades. He held the blades tightly in his fist and coaxed the ember Seiko had given him out of its box with a wave of his free hand. With the ember and swords in his grip, he began tapping his foot and humming. Seiko and Jinta realized he was keeping time as he did.
The blades heated in his hand, and a faintly shimmering barrier became visible as it protected him from the heat. The giant kept humming, grinding the blades into a lump and continuing to heat them. He suddenly slammed the lump down on his anvil, snatched up his hammer, and began shaping the metal. The ember he'd used sank back into its box, and the box closed.
The two Undead curiously watched the process. The giant used the ember several times, heating the metal and shaping it again, then reheating it. The last time, he worked more precisely than every time before, even taking out what looked like an ice pick and carving shapes into the sword, or curving up parts of the metal. When he was done, he picked up the sliver of a blade and pressed his thumb to the bottom. The ember responded and he heated where the pommel would be. He attached a separate chunk of metal, compressed from the pommels he'd taken off the Black Knight weapons, to balance the blade.
He once again closed the weapon in his fist and kept time, but this time he wasn't heating the blade. Seiko could feel more magic now than in the rest of the process. She and Jinta had sat down near the wall after the first hour or so, but this drew her attention. She got up to walk closer, curious. The giant's deep humming made her ribs vibrate in her chest, and the tapping of his foot kept perfect time.
He finally stopped, took in a sharp breath, and sighed. He straightened, his spine popping loudly as he did, then turned to face Seiko. Every joint that had been perfectly still now cracked and popped as he moved. He lowered his hand to present the sword to Seiko, a black Katana with no tsuba and what appeared to be carvings of a cloth wrap on the grip rather than actual cloth. Seiko picked it up and found that it was pleasantly warm, and had the weight of both huge greatswords that went into forging it.
"Sword will not break easy," said the giant. "Blade will chip - bite enemy sword - but recover. Metal for guard too delicate, too small."
"I'll manage for now," said Seiko, holding up the blade and inspecting the weapon. "What do you mean it will bite the enemy's sword?"
"He means it's more useful than my blessed weapons," offered Jinta. He got up and drew one of his arming swords.
"My blades won't ever chip or dull, but that means I need to rely on my quillons or cross-guard to catch my enemy's blade - if they're humanoid. I don't regularly fight enemies wielding weapons I can clash with, though, and I don't have the strength for that kind of weapon-wrestling. A blade that will chip, on the other hand, can catch an enemy sword with just the blade. I guess he made your sword more flexible than mine, with the trade off that yours can break."
"I wish we had the time to train me," said Seiko. "That was hard to follow, and I'm not sure I'll fully understand until I try it."
"Will repair powder work on her sword?" asked Jinta.
"Will do, but only smith will make guard."
"Of course. Are you saying we'll need another smith, then?"
"Too small for me. Knight sword use quillons. Katana needs tsuba."
"Fair enough," said Jinta.
"Still," said Seiko, "Thank you for this. It's perfect."
"What will you call it?" asked Jinta. "A sword like that needs some kind of name, right?"
They both looked at the giant.
"I make weapons."
They took that to mean he didn't name his creations, so Seiko looked at the sword instead.
"I doubt there's anything else like this in the world, so… I guess I'll just call it a Black Knight Katana for now, since it was made with their weapons. I'll come up with something better if we can get a guard for it. Can we have the metal you didn't use back?"
The giant handed them the deconstructed golden parts of the two parent swords.
"Can we keep these in your Bottomless Box until we have time to make a guard?"
"Sure. We need to get back to a bonfire anyway."
"Thank you again," said Seiko to the giant.
"Be safe," said the giant. "Abyss defeated by only one."
"We will. Thank you," said Jinta. He put a hand on Seiko's shoulder and the two faded away a few seconds later when Jinta finished reciting Homeward.
-Darkroot Basin-
Seiko and Jinta walked along the cliff leading down to the basin after warping to a nearby bonfire. Seiko was still idling swinging her new sword around, switching hands regularly, to get used to the weight.
"Too bad he couldn't make you some kind of magic scabbard for it. You realize you're going to have to carry that thing in one hand or the other forever now, right?"
Seiko shrugged.
"If I can handle Power Within," she said, "I think I can handle a little muscle burn until I'm strong enough that it takes no effort to swing or carry it at all."
The two continued down toward the basin. Seiko asked questions about weapons combat to at least train her mind on the way. As they got closer, though, she stopped asking questions and stopped swinging her sword around. There weren't any golems, but there also weren't any other signs of life, either. No birds. No wind. Like they had stepped out of time into a painting of the basin.
Jinta noticed shortly after Seiko did and started looking around everywhere. He drew his swords.
"I've never dealt with the Abyss before aside from your use of it here and there. Are you sure you know where you're going?"
"Yes," said Seiko, clearly focused and almost deadpan, "Just be ready to back off or run. If there's a lot of it, you could die."
"What am I supposed to do if you can't handle it?"
"Go back to the First Flame, throw yourself on it, and pray that snuffs out the Abyss long enough for someone else to figure out how to survive it and kill whatever's anchored to it."
"That sounds both pleasant and reassuring."
The two continued in silence, following Seiko's senses. They neared the lake, walked up to and past the waterfall, and started following the cliff through the shallow water. Jinta noticed that there was more than just fog in the air; Seiko was already heating up her body, turning up Power Within slowly the closer they got. It was creating a mist about her thicker than the rest of the basin.
Jinta looked up and around behind them once more before they entered the mouth of a wide cave, then approached a corner. They rounded the corner to see a golden crystal golem hunched over at the end of the cave, almost as if it were afraid of something. As the two Undead approached, the golem spun and swung a spiked-club-arm at them. Seiko stopped the blow with her new sword, then punched the arm with her right hand.
She and Jinta were able to down the golem almost without a fight after that, but instead of a simple pile of gold dust, the golem also contained another person. As the large crystal that had jutted from the golem's shoulder broke down, it revealed a woman in a white dress.
Before this woman, or anyone else, could recover from the conflict and get a word out, a black portal ripped open at the back wall of the cave. A hand on an impossibly long arm reached out and closed its fingers around Jinta and the woman. It looked almost like a paw, and the arm swirled with a coating of what seemed to be Abyss.
Seiko was too slow to stop the hand from yanking both its targets back toward the portal. Jinta managed to slice himself free before the arm disappeared into the portal. He hit the shallow water, tumbled toward the portal, stopped his roll and jumped back away from the portal.
After sputtering from swallowing water, he spoke.
"What on Earth was that thing?!"
"I don't know, but it clearly wanted one of you! We need to go after it!"
"Isn't that portal Abyss? I'd die! Also… What's that thing?"
Jinta motioned with the tip of his sword to Seiko's belt. The black pendant she'd picked up in the Duke's Archives was floating up and pointing at the portal, as if a wind that only affected it was trying to suck it in.
"I don't know," Seiko said about the pendant. "But no, it's not Abyss. But it leads to Abyss. I'm sure of it. I need to go in there."
"If it's safe for me to follow, and you're going, I'm going too!"
Seiko sloughed through the water past him as fast as she could without another word and vanished into the portal. Jinta whipped his head to the side to throw off some of the water to clear his visor of drops collecting in his line of sight, then ran after her, into the portal…
… To another time and place…