In the heat of battle, you both noticed and missed lots of things you normally wouldn't have.
Like the small ripples in the boss' body which denoted claws about to tear you apart, or a tail with a stinger ready to pierce you. Those were the things you noticed.
What you missed was the KoB player staring at where both of her legs should have been before the boss bit them off. Or one of Ambros' guildmates looking down at the hole a stinger punctured through their chest before their HP ran out and they exploded into shards.
Not everyone missed that, of course. Ambros and his guild certainly noticed. But Drifter was preoccupied trying kill the fuck out of the monster who took Feredir from them.
Severing a tail with Split Stream was supremely satisfying. Getting bitten in the shoulder for it not so much, but he still considered it an worthwhile trade overall.
Except the tail grew again the next minute, black sludge bubbling at the spot where it had been cut off, so really the only change had been the HP the boss lost. Which was, when you got down to it, all that mattered.
King Atlametis the Failed Chimera was on his last 2 HP bars now, and the boss was only growing more dangerous.
Twice already it had used the arrow attack, although, with the Assault Team now prepared for it, it hadn't been as effective. Still, there was only so much they could dodge, another reason why the raid was going slowly. Drifter had to switch anyone who got down to yellow, just to be safe.
In the back, standing between Yuna, who had not stopped playing her musical skills even for a second, switching between instruments as it was necessary, and Sinon, who had already emptied 6 whole quivers over the course of the raid, was Ran.
The girl, her hair a darker shade of purple than her younger sister, had recovered from her shock. Her expression was one of carefully crafted blankness.
She had no idea what happened to her. One moment she was attacking the boss, a Sonic Leap already launched, and the next the stinger was right in front of her.
To Ran, it didn't feel like anything happened to her. It was more like the boss had suddenly turned on some sort of '2x speed' mode. She didn't understand what happened until Feredir charged into her and knocked her down.
Died in her place.
It hurt. Feredir was Reaver's Requiem's mascot. Everyone loved the wolf, and he had been with them for so long he felt more like a guild member than just a pet like Pina.
Ran felt horrible. Not just because Feredir was dead, but because she couldn't stop thinking-
It would have hurt more if it had been someone else. An actual person.
And as if that wasn't enough to make her feel like a terrible human being, now she was forced to stay behind because Drifter didn't trust her not to mess up again.
And he was right. Gods damnit but he was right. Ran wasn't offended by how harsh her guild leader had been, because if she had been in his position, she would have done the same thing. There were variables that you couldn't afford to let run unchecked in a fight. And right now, she was that variable.
Ran just wished she knew why.
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Outside, the SAO task force was in chaos. Not because of the raid or the player who died. That was, unfortunately, normal.
No, the cause of their frenzy was the player who should be dead and wasn't.
"And- You are sure? Really, 100% sure?"
Seijirou asked for the seventh time. He had to. Because what he was hearing and what he was seeing were in direct contradiction. It went beyond the realm of improbable, shot right past impossible, and was now in the category many would call supernatural.
"Yes. Yes, sir. We sent someone to check in person. But we've confirmed it three times with the doctors on site. Player Konno Aiko, in-game tag Ran, has just passed away from health problems unrelated to Sword Art Online."
So he hadn't heard it wrong the first six times. Although Seijirou's subordinate seemed to have trouble believing what she herself was saying. Especially when he gestured vaguely to one of the many screens broadcasting the 40th floor raid. And one PoV in particular.
"Then how the fuck am I still looking at her?"
He thought a curse word was a valid addition here. Because if Konno Aiko, aka Ran, had truly just passed away from an onset of some disease related to her AIDS diagnosis... Then who the hell was he watching in that raid?
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Ran, that was who. It was still Ran. Koujiro Rinko, Kayaba's lover and the doctor responsible for his care, as well as - secretly - handing the Medicuboid units to the Konno sisters - then not-so-secretly taking over their treatment - knew that it was still Ran.
Even then, she couldn't help but keep alternating her gaze between Ran on the broadcast, alive if subdued, and Konno Aiko's body in the 001-Medicuboid Unit.
The Medicuboid was the future of advanced medical care. Using FullDive technology, it had been able to extend the life expectancy of even a terminal AIDS patient who had been infected at birth like Ran for 10 months. It was a remarkable achievement, and one she hoped to study and share for the betterment of the world.
But even the Medicuboid couldn't stop death. So Rinko knew that, whatever was going on, it had Kayaba's hands all over it. Her lover always held his cards close to the chest.
Still, even if she didn't know exactly how Ran was still alive, although just in SAO, she had an idea. Kayaba had made many mentions before of his dream to... 'Safeguard' his mind from the limits of the mortal body.
And then there was his other project. He may have kept most of it secret from her, but she was one of the foremost minds on FullDive research in the world. She didn't know what STL was, but she could take a guess.
The data in front of her didn't lie. Ran's physical body was 100% deceased. AIDS had broken her immune system to nothing, and other diseases had eaten away at her. All the Medicuboid had done was delay the inevitable.
And yet, when she read the second string of data, the one which bypassed the Medicuboid's open-sharing platform and went directly to Kayaba's personal servers - which only she, her lover, and the AI Cardinal had access to - everything was telling her that Ran's mental waves were holding steady.
She didn't know how he had done it. But somehow he had. Kayaba had accomplished-
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"Immortality. That's what this is, isn't it? Maybe not of the body, but... Motherfucker. Is this what SAO was all about?"
Seijirou didn't know. He was quite afraid to know. The implications... He had never enforced a gag order on his staff before, but he couldn't help but feel he was completely justified. And of the medical personnel in charge of the Konno sisters too, of course.
Maybe the Ran they were seeing was an AI. He couldn't phantom why she would be, but somehow that ludicrous idea was still more believable than accepting Kayaba had somehow managed to upload a human being's brain to the SAO servers, which was the other conjecture his team had come up with.
He needed to report this to the higher-ups. Whatever was going on, it was way above his pay grade.
He just wished he knew how to tell them without sounding crazy.
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[ STL-0001XK-GT3 procedure successful. Analyzing subject's stability... 99.972%. Final conclusion: test successful. Initializing STL-0001XK-GT3 Phase II.]
[ Instructions clear. Deferring STL-0001XK-GT3 Phase II until GM approval has been secured. ]
[ Deferring approval request until Boss Conflict Event 40-1 has been completed. ]
[ Inquiry pending... Inquiry sent. ]
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It would be a long, long time before any of the SAO players, bar Heathcliff (who didn't really count) - Cardinal would inform him as soon as he retired to his quarters later that night - ever knew anything about what happened to Ran. Most would never get the full picture.
Although Heathcliff would get a very through debriefing from Cardinal later, the AI had elected not to inform him of the new development immediately, least it distracted him from the ongoing raid.
Of course, Heathcliff was using his status as Game Master to ensure his HP never dropped below yellow, so he could stand there all day letting the Failed Chimera strike at him, but that wasn't exactly something he wanted to advertise now, was it?
So that lead to the not uncommon, but still sometimes uncomfortable, scene of Heathcliff fighting together with Drifter.
Not back-to-back, because that wasn't something you really saw unless you were surrounded by a much greater number of enemies, but still- Together.
Drifter thrust his spear in a Sting, while Heathcliff used Vertical. Both basic skills, but in the hands of experienced masters like them, one blinded an eye while the other lopped off the end of a stinger.
Not debilitating injuries to the Failed Chimera by any means, since the boss could just regrow lost body parts, but it was still impressive teamwork for a pair that most SAO players would agree greatly disliked, if not outright hated, each other.
That was what happened when two people who didn't like one another found something they both hated more. Well, Heathcliff didn't really care one way or the other, but he still had to play the part.
And Drifter, for all he found Heathcliff a cold-hearted, objectionable bastard, had to admit the other guild leader was very skilled. Enough to rank near the top even amongst frontliners, that strangeness that hung about him aside.
"Switch, Heathcliff."
Somehow, the KoB guild leader still had over half of his HP. Holy Sword, his Unique Skill, was really overpowered. But even he couldn't take another hit without falling into the dangerous, and potentially deadly, range Drifter had marked.
Nobody could blame the spearmaster for not knowing that, in fact, Heathcliff could take as many hits as he wanted.
The older man didn't put up much of a fuss, pausing and glancing at Drifter just long enough to show that retreating was his decision, and not because he was being ordered about. Honestly, the Reaver couldn't care less about the mind games right now.
"Last push! Watch out for the AoE attack! Vallerk, Shigio, Liten, I want you in the first line! Secondary tanks, assume your positions! Everyone else, heal up and go to Lisbeth if you need repairs. Yuna, ready up the attack buffs. Once we are set, we go on my mark!"
The spearmaster was keeping a close eye on the last HP gauge of King Atlametis the Failed Chimera. Just a little more and it would tip into the red, also called the berserk zone. Once that happened, it would be a race of who could kill the other faster.
"Klein, Ambros, pull back! You are doing too much damage! We don't want to start the last phase before we are ready! Lind, I need you to cover the left flank!"
"Hm. Shivata!"
The DKB started shifting to get into their positions. Drifter looked for Heathcliff, who had already healed up, and jerked his head to the right.
"I'll leave the right to the KoB. Reaver's Requiem will take the front. Orlando, I want you and the independent parties to cut off the back!"
"Roger that, boss!"
It took 3 minutes to get everyone ready, during which Drifter carefully controlled the damage output so they kept the boss right on the required threshold. That involved constantly yelling orders for players to retreat, advance, attack, defend, and switch as he deemed necessary.
Liz realized some emergency repairs on near-breaking equipment with her Volcano Forge, hammering as fast as the skill would allow her - and far faster than humanly possible - and granting weapons buffs where she could.
Yuna already had her selection of songs lined up. Firemare and Amihenta's Notes for attack Power and critical rate increase respectively, and Clear Breeze for attack speed and that last push. Unfortunately the effects wouldn't stack perfectly since the buffs only lasted a short while after she switched songs, but the frontliners would take what they could get.
Looking around and doing one final vocal check, Drifter nodded resolutely. His spear glowed a dangerous silver as he raised it over his head.
"Kill this fucker!"