We had finally got the Skull Reaper's HP down into the red on its final bar of HP, the battle was nearly over after a good hours worth of bloody exhausting battle. Even though I carried an unbelievably light rapier, my arms felt like lumps of metal that wanted to fall off from my body. However seeing that the boss was so close to death my body kept pumping adrenaline through my blood, keeping me agile and energetic enough to stay alive for this final attack to once and for all destroy this terrifically powerful boss.
"Andrew, do you have any crystals or potions on you?!" I heard the question being shouted into my ear, in order to be heard over the uproar of the battle, by Aurora, my wife and fighting partner. In normal circumstances we would battle enemies using the switching tactic to surprise our foes and give the off player a chance to heal and regain some of their energy. But this battle had been very different. Switching wasn't a viable tactic for staying alive when the boss could kill you in one quick strike and was always charging around attacking any player that seemed somewhat off guard. So we were forced to fight in unison, attacking the boss at the exact same time in as many places as we possibly could before quickly pulling back and allowing the heavier players to fend off the scythes.
So far we had managed to get through this battle without putting ourselves in much danger of going into the red zone or of being killed, so in my mind it was going pretty well considering the boss. However to keep this margin of safety as big as it has been, both me and Aurora have had to used a large stock of our healing items, the majority being some of our expensive full heal crystals that I had bought the day before. However I was out of any healing items which I could quickly get a hold of from my side pouch, the rest of our healing items were stored safely in our join inventory which would take at least 10 seconds to access.
"Not to hand, no!" I shouted back at Aurora before running back forward for the next strike. However instead of the consistent, yet somewhat erratic, attack pattern we had been up against this whole battle the Skull Reaper began to spin rapidly on the spot, digging its tail into the ground to kick up a huge cloud of dirt and dust which completely obscured our vision of the giant beast. My search and tracking skills instantly kicked in allowing me to see a faint red outline of the boss through the cloud, however I wasn't going to risk combat with the boss without being able to actually see it, so I quickly backed off from the cloud of smoke to the perimeter of the platform.
Aurora quickly appeared from the cloud of smoke just in front of me and came running over to my side. "Both Sky and Steven are on low HP and it seems Steven hasn't used any healing items in the last 5 minutes, so I bet he's clean out." She explained the situation as fast as she could to me, surprising me at how vigilant she was of the party's health bars during the heat and rush of battle. "If they don't heal up soon they're going to end up dead, no matter how quickly we can kill this boss. One of them will do something stupid to save someone else and you know damn well they're the sort of people who are capable of that." She continued with worry and fear prevalent in her tone.
I looked to the top left of my HUD and saw four health bars floating there, my own health bar which was at the border between green and yellow, Aurora's who was near to full health and two others. Steven's health bar was in the low orange and not moving to the right, showing that no healing items were in use, but it wasn't going down to the right meaning that he was taking no damage. I then looked to Sky's HP bar, for a split second I could see it in the orange but a moment later it had plummeted straight into low red. At that moment I looked up to see that a number of bodies had been flung unceremoniously from the cloud of dust by the Skull Reaper. One of the bodies looked as if it was wearing armour of a deep midnight blue and holding tightly to a steel longsword.
"Sky." I just heard Aurora whisper in shock and fear of seeing Sky fly through the air and landing with a mighty crash, sending her down into the danger zone. A split second after that I heard the wind whip past my ear and I saw a flash of white as Aurora ran at full speed over to where Sky now laid, seemingly paralysed on the floor from the shock of the block. I looked back to the dust cloud to see that the boss was charging out of it with reckless abandon towards the pile of players it had launched across the platform in order to finish off its prey. Knowing that that meant that both Sky and Steven were likely to be in the line of fire I raced after Aurora to try and reach the stranded players on the floor.
However it seemed that Steven had got there before both of us and was standing in front of Sky, protecting her, with his sword held horizontally, just above his head in a simple and static block. His feet were dug into the ground and his eyes were hard and locked onto the Skull Reaper's many glowing red eyes. I expected him to charge forward at the boss to gain some momentum in order to try and parry the oncoming attack, but instead he just stood there a flesh and blood, if you could call it that in this world, shield standing in the way of Sky's harm.
Yet the Reaper took no heed to Steven standing there and simply swung both of its killer scythes down at the centre of his blade at the same time, shattering his sword which until now had accompanied him through the majority of the upper floors without faltering or failing him once. In that last second I saw Steven close his eyes in a stubborn resignation, not wanting to dodge out of the way for the possibility of Sky getting hit. The scythes kept moving past his sword and straight down the centre of his body, leaving a huge section of his body a lump of glowing red particles. To the top left of my screen I saw his health fall through the red zone and straight to zero, no amount of defence could have stopped that blow.
The second after his health hit zero his body lit up with a blue glow and his body was quickly engulfed in a white light which swiftly expanded and exploded outwards into a burst of particles. Nothing was left of him, not his sword, not his armour, now he was nothing but a crossed out name on the monument of life on the first floor and a memory to those who knew him. My mind went blank, I didn't know what to do now that three of my friends had died in combat without me being able to do anything about it. All three had lost their lives fighting for the players trapped in this stupid game, each of them protecting those who needed it most, all had gone before even three quarters of the game had been completed, at least half a year before this hell hole would be ended.
My mind was kicked back to its senses with a huge explosion of power as a number of attacks blew up in the face of the Reaper at once, sending it sprawling to the other side of the platform, quickly followed by the remaining players. The Reaper had been backed into a corner and seemed to be on its last few pixels of health. "Everyone attack!" Came the quick order from Heathcliffe, eager to seize this opportunity to end this battle before more players lost their lives to this battle of attrition. Everyone cheered to his order and rushed over to the Skull Reaper which seemed to losing its life bit by bit as it began to slump its body downwards to the cold stone ground. And after a straight minute of everyone unleashing their highest and most damaging skills the boss reared upwards, covered in a purplish glow. The glow quickly grew to a radiant blue before it exploded into tiny pixels which floated gently to the ground.
The solitary white "Congratulations!" hung in the air above the spot where the boss had been slain. The battle had been one, but none cheered, no one celebrated for the battle had taken literally every ounce of strength from each of the players involved and had only been won through the sacrifice of all players present and dead. Most people disregarded their drop screens and simply slumped to the ground in outright exhaustion and relief.
I slowly walked over to where Sky and Aurora were, Sky was just dragging herself off of the floor and Aurora sat there dragging her up off of the hard ground. Once off of the ground Aurora passed over a red crystal which she had hastily taken out of her white inventory panel and looked around her. Sky held the crystal up, crushed it in her hand in order to activate it and looked around the room with searching eyes. But she couldn't find the one she was looking for so her head started to frantically turn from side to side, her eyes wide with fear and grief. Instead of letting this go on Aurora pulled Sky into a silent hug, confirming what she feared while at the same time consoling and comforting her that she wasn't alone.
I sat down just to the side of them with no real expression and just stared off into the distance, my mind still processing what had happened and trying to recover from the battle at the same time. At the other end of the room I heard Klein say solemnly, "How many did we lose?" his voice was dark and already full of sadness.
The reply to his question came from Kirito who had quickly counted the number from the small dots on his area map, "Fourteen died." he said slowly and quietly, realising that this was the highest number of deaths for a good 30 or more floors, even the crusade against the Laughing Coffin guild had gone better. After hearing the death count I tuned out of the chatter in the room and went back to absent-mindedly looking into the grey distance. We still had 25 floors to go and even before this battle the number of clearers had been decreasing through death and abandonment at the sheer strength of some of the monsters on the higher floors.
All of a sudden Kirito burst off from the floor and struck Heatcliffe with a glowing sword skill. However his sword was blocked by an invisible wall, the purple tag "Immortal object" quickly appeared next to the place Kirito's sword had been stopped. At this everyone, including me, looked up in shock at our so called leader. He was part of the game somehow as only game objects such as buildings and NPCs had the "Immortal object" tab next to them and anything purple indicated an Admin was at work.
Asuna had ran to Kirito's side in shock and confusion, "Immortal object? What's going on, Commander?" she said in a simple and honest way, not having a clue as to what she was really seeing.
"The game ensures that his HP will never fall into the yellow zone." Came the quiet growl from Kirito, seemingly the only one who knew what was going on apart from Heathcliffe. "Something has always bothered me, ever since I arrived here. Where does he hide while he watches us and adjusts the world?" He was referring to Akihiko Kayaba, the creator of the nerve gear and this world. "But I'd forgotten a simple piece of psychology. Something any kid knows. There's nothing as boring as watching someone else play an RPG. Isn't that right, Kayaba Akihiko." He finished his explanation with a dark tone.
According to this the man who had led us through so many battles and had raised the strongest guild in the game was in fact the man who created this god forsaken game and had simply been playing along and watching us as we made our slow way through the game, every so often prodding us to do things and to excel his own plans and amusement.
"Would you be so kind as to tell me how you figured it out?" Akihiko replied in curiosity, no anger or annoyance at being found out could be found in his tone.
"The first time I felt something was wrong was during the duel. In that last instant, you were far to fast." He answered the question directly and honestly, no point in holding back the truth any more.
"I suspected as much." Akihiko replied in disappointment at his mistake. "That was an unfortunate mistake. You overpowered me to the point that I needed to engage the system's over-assist mode." He continued, not caring to hide the fact that he had used to the system he created to advance his own means and survival.
"Yes, I am Kayaba Akihiko. And if I may add. I am the game's final boss, who would have awaited you at the top floor." He finally revealed his full identity with the fact that he would betray us at the very end.
"That's pretty bad. The strongest player betrays us to become the last boss?" Kirito commented with no fear or care for the man in front of him.
"Not a bad storyline, is it?" He said rather smugly. "I always thought that you would be the one to stand before me at the end. Dual-wielding is the skill given to the player with the fastest reaction time, who will then act out the part of the Hero that challenges the Demon King." He laid out his fantastical storyline for Sword Art Online. "But your power exceeded my expectations. Well, these unexpected events are part of the fun of an MMORPG." He continued calmly.
Out of nowhere one of his own knights yelled out "How dare you?!" and leapt into the air with his sword raised high in order to bring it down on Akihiko's head. But with a few quick flicks on a panel, Akihiko managed to block the attack by putting paralysis on his attacker. He then continued to place the paralysis status on the surrounding players, dropping us all to the ground helpless and unable to move a muscle for being shocked with some weird power.
However he had left Kirito standing. "What are you going to do? Kill us all, and cover it up." Kirito asked with a steady but darkened voice.
"Of course not. I wouldn't do anything so unfair. Very well, then I shall await you on the top floor, within the Ruby Palace. I've put a lot of time into developing the Knights of the Blood Oath and the other front line players, so it's a shame I have to leave them partway. However, I'm sure that with your power you'll reach me eventually." He calmly explained to everyone who was listening, revealing his purpose during the floors below his Ruby Palace.
"But first," Akihiko continued, "Kirito-kun, I must reward you for deducing my identity. I shall give you a chance. The chance to fight me one on one. Naturally, I'll deactivate my immortal status. Defeat me, and you beat the game. And all the players will be able to log out. How about it?" He directed this challenge towards the black swordsman, disregarding everyone else in the room.
"That's fine. Lets finish this thing." He gave his answer to Akihiko despite the protests from Asuna, who rested in his arms. After a few quick words to Asuna, he stood up to face Akihiko and drew his dual blades. "Egil, thanks for helping to support the swordsman class. I know you spent nearly all the money you made helping players during the middle zones to level. Klein, I really am sorry for leaving you behind that day." He said his final goodbyes with finality in his voice.
"DAm it, Kirito! Don't apologise, don't you dare apologise to me now. I won't forgive you, I won't forgive you until you buy me a meal on the other side!" Klein protested against Kirito in vain.
"Got it. See you on the other side." Kirito said finally with a slight wave of his black sword. He looked at Asuna for a few seconds before turning back to Akihiko. "I'm sorry, but I have a request."
"What is it?" Akihiko asked curiously.
"I don't plan on losing. But if I die here, I want you to make sure that Asuna can't kill herself, just for a little while." He laid his final request out very clearly.
"Very well." Came the short and understanding answer from Akihiko. He quickly opened up his panels and flicked with his panels while in the background Asuna was protesting, her voice filled with emotion. "Changed into immortal object." appeared a red tag next to Akihiko that confirmed that he was no longer invincible. He drew his sword and faced off against Kirito.
Kirito burst forward and the brutal duel to the death began with a flash of unbelievably fast sword skills and the spray of hundreds of glowing orange particles. But Kirito seemingly couldn't get past Heatcliffe's enormous and sturdy shield, to the point where his silver blue sword shattered into a number of pieces.
"Farewell Kirito-kun." Akihiko said with pride as he raised his sword to grow a huge blood red glow. which he quickly swung downwards towards Kirito. But his strike missed Kirito and hit Asuna straight on. Somehow she had broken free of the paralysis and had charged in the way of the deadly sword. Asuna's HP dropped straight down to zero and she burst into a million pixels, dead, and lost to the world.
Kirito grasped after the pixels in and absolute grief which seemed to grip his body instantly, however there was nothing left that he could do for his wife and he fell to his knees completely broken and sobbing.
"That was a surprise. I don't believe I programmed a way to neutralise the paralysis on your own. I guess these things happen sometimes." Akihiko spoke without much care for what he had just done, more curiosity and interest at the feat Asuna had just pulled off.
Kirito drew Asuna's rapier which had dropped when she died and weakly walked up to Akihiko and started to feebly swing his sword in his general direction, no attempt or will to fight. Akihiko, dissapointed, simply raised his sword and threw the sword in Kirito's right hand skyward. He then moved forward and stabbed Kirito straight through the chest without any real resistance.
Just as Kirito's HP his zero and his body began to give off the white glow of a dying player he started to move forward against the blade and stabbed out with Asuna's rapier, dealing the one fatal blow to Akihiko, the only attack that was needed to end this nightmare and to free those many thousands that were in there.
Soon after a female, mechanical voice spoke loudly through the whole castle of Aincrad. "As of 14:55, November 7th, the game has been cleared. All players stand still and wait to be logged out of the game." We all looked at the spot where it happened, where Kirito and Asuna had made their sacrifice to end this game. Now after over two years of fighting and dying, it was all over, the game had been cleared, Sword Art Online was over and the castle of Aincrad was no longer our prison.
I looked over to my two close friends but my vision was blocked by a bright white light with the black letters in the centre of my vision, "Logging out."
I came to with my eyes closed and on a soft bed, I could only just feel the world around me, my hearing was blurry but I could hear a number of high pitched beeps ringing out in a gentle unison around me. I couldn't move my body and I could only breath in slight and shallow breaths due to a huge flare of pain across my chest. I slowly opened my eyes to find that my vision was tinted through a black visor which had a time saying 6:55 and a battery symbol on it. The nerve gear was still on my head and was still plugged into the power, but it was deactivated, I was out.
After a few minutes the feeling started to return slightly to my body so through the many aches and pains I raised my arms and slowly lifted the nerve gear away from my head. The ceiling was white with a few lights and a solitary fan which was lazily spinning in the centre of the room. With another few breaths I pushed myself into a sitting position through a blaze of pain all over my body, and looked around the room. I was in a long and large hospital room which was lined with beds on either side of the room, all of the beds occupied by people in white apron like clothes and a grey plastic nerve gear on their heads.
I looked to my right to see a girl taking off her nerve gear, she had long brown hair which was dirty and had little shine to it, her face was pale and vacant, I could only recognise her by her shining eyes. Aurora. By some miracle we had ended up in hospital together. I wanted to call out to her and to reach over to her and embrace her in the success of finally being in the real world but a thought crossed my mind, 'If she's right here, then where are the others.'
I looked around the room to see more and more people taking off their nerve gears with shaking hands and very thin bones and bodies. Out of the mass I recognised Sky, who had taken her helmet off but had kept her head on the bed and was crying. However others were starting to cheer with croaky voices and started trying to move and get out of their beds to walk once more on their own legs.
I looked to my right to see a person who hadn't taken their nerve gear off, it was for some reason still active and the heart reader was still steadily beeping away to indicate that the person was still alive. I stared at the person, wondering why they still had their nerve gear on before looking down to the foot of his bed with squinted eyes to see a large name written on a board that was attached to the metal frame of the bed.
"Steven Keywood" The sign read the name of one of my best friends in both the real world and the virtual world. I looked back to the person to see long brownish hair coming out from the bottom of the helmet and the facial features of the person I once knew. But his vital signs were still beating even though we had watched him die, before the final battle with the creator of the game. There was no way he could still be alive if the nerve gear had enacted its final orders of frying his brain with microwaves. But here he was breathing, heart beating, but still in the virtual world without a way out.