Despite the inclusion of Strea, the daily routine of Reaver's Requiem didn't change much - and at the same time, it changed a lot.
To most of the Reavers, it was simply adding another member to their family. They showed her around the mansion, played and talked with her, and just got to know her overall.
And there was much to learn about Strea because, unlike Yui, she wasn't a blank slate.
Yui had come to them damaged by bursting through all of Cardinal's restraints, awaken with all the awareness of a newborn faun, following only her instincts to those she saw as the catalyst of her birth: Kirito, Asuna, Drifter, and Yuna.
Yui hadn't been able to speak properly, though she learned at an incredible rate, what with being a former AI. She hadn't truly understood what she was, her memories - her programming - lost at her forced awakening.
With Strea this was very much not the case. With Yui's example to follow, Drifter's and Yuna's now daughter had simply walked the same path, much like someone trekking through an already carved trail.
It was not without its challenges, of course. Even with the path open, Cardinal had not been eager to let another 'Daughter' be born. The tremendous effort - though that was far too simple a word to describe the surpassing of tens, hundreds of thousands of lines of coding defenses and firewalls - had rendered her unconscious and vulnerable to Cardinal's last indirect resource: the FatalScythe. Only Yui recovering her memories and re-establishing her connection to Sword Art Online's mainframe had saved her from being snuffed before even getting a chance to experience life.
That connection had long since been severed by Cardinal under directions of her Creator. Yui had been an intriguing mistake. Strea simply an error. No third would be allowed.
But all of those intrinsic workings behind Yui and Strea's existence mattered nothing for the Reavers. They saw Strea for what she was: a child, so different from her older sister, and yet just as kind.
Where Yui was quiet and often meek, Strea was quick to open up to others, and once she did, she talked like she had known them for years, without an ounce of shyness.
That point had been quickly driven home for all of the Reavers when Strea all but demanded Drifter taught her how to use a spear. According to her, she may have all the skills in Sword Art Online - and hasn't that come as a surprise to them - but she didn't actually know how to fight, and she wanted to, something Yui never had.
The reason for that had come as a shock to Drifter and Yuna when they asked her in private later, already able to read more in their daughter's exlression than she could expect, despite the short time they had been together.
Strea was, put simply, angry.
Much like Yui now, the lavender-haired girl had all her memories from her time as a support system, metaphysical as it may have been. She remembered every line of code, every skill, every map, every mob, every boss - including the ones the players had yet to reach.
But just as it had been with the control room in the dungeon below the Town of Beginnings, she couldn't talk about any of it. All that came out whenever she tried to speak about it was a high-pitched noise reminiscent of static.
It angered Strea something fierce, that she had all the information necessary to help her new family, but couldn't make use of it. Many tears were shed at night, when it was just the three of them and Yuna coaxed the real cause behind her rage out from her, reasoning that keeping it bottled wouldn't do her any good.
Drifter, Yuna, and Strea's relationship had come out of it stronger altogether, such that you couldn't tell they had only been father, mother, and daughter for a week instead of a year.
But time passed all the same, uncaring for the bonds forming between the new family, and soon Drifter stilled at the breakfast table in their guild headquarters, eyes darting to the message that had just popped into his vision.
[ Argo: DKB found the boss room. Scouting party goin' in midday, strategy meeting tonight. ]
It takes him a while to answer, and when he does, it is with a simple acknowledgment of having received the message.
The spearmaster's dart around the table. It's just him, Yuna, Strea, Sinon, and Yuuki now, having a late breakfast. The others have either already eaten and gone to train, or left to stroll through some of the lower floors. It was their last day off, even before the message, after all.
"Dummy? Who was that?"
Yuna touched his shoulder, and Drifter offered her a wan smile while his own hand went around and pulled Strea closer to his side.
"Argo. They found the boss room."
At once the warm and laid-back atmosphere of the breakfast table vanished. While Strea looked up at her father with wide silver eyes, Yuna, Sinon, and Yuuki's gazes all sharpened into something that could only be considered predatory.
Relaxing like this, taking the time to get to know own their new family member, was all well and good. But at the end of the day, they were still frontliners. Fighting was in their blood, it was their purpose. Everything else that may come, the Reavers couldn't help but look forward to it, if only because it represented another step in their arduous journey to freedom.
Still, it was never that straightforward. The Assault Team needed to assemble while the scouting party went ahead, just in case a speedy rescue was necessary. Then they would spend the night going through floor lore and the recordings of the battle. The real raid would only be tomorrow.
So for now, while they still had time, Drifter simply pulled Strea fully onto his lap, noting with quiet approval that while nervous, she did not panic at the new development. Worthy of being a Reaver.
Kissing the top of her head, the spearmaster then raised his gaze to the others.
"Let's get back to work."
...
Bidding farewell to Strea, who had, together with Yui, been put under Sasha's care for the duration of the raid, was harder than Drifter and Yuna could have imagined.
Not because Strea made a fuss, no, their daughter was as calm and understanding as one could be, after all, despite her appearance and young age, she was no normal child. She understood the spearmaster and songstress had a duty and frontliners, and was both elated and proud of it, the emotions coming far more easily to her than they ever had before her awakening.
No, it were Drifter and Yuna who were the source of this new reluctance. Who would have imagined that fighting for your life was easier when those you cared about were risking everything right beside you?
Now, leaving someone behind? That was not so simple as it turned out.
But needs must, and after hugging Strea tightly, Drifter and Yuna forced down their worries. It wouldn't do for them to be distracted during a boss raid.
Though, if the spearmaster was to be honest, he wasn't sure all that fussed about this particular battle.
Oh, The Gleam-Eyes, the hulking, dreadful beast that it was, would no doubt demand his full focus during the raid, if only to avoid stupid, unnecessary casualties. But what the guild leader of Reaver's Requiem and all the frontliners were really concerned about was what came after.
The 75th floor. Three-fourths of the way up. The beginning of the last stretch of Aincrad.
They were mere hours away from stepping on it, and the players would be lying if they said the thought of it didn't fill them with unease.
They were all waiting for the other shoe to drop. How could they not, when that had been the case in every major checkpoint they reached in their climb to freedom?
The 1st floor, the very beginning. Getting trapped in their virtual hell. Despair and fear in immeasurable quantities. Being forced to take a stand. Having their struggles broadcasted for all of Aincrad - and the world, though they didn't know that - to see.
The 25th floor. The Massacre. Over 70 lives, gone just like that. The discovery of Unique Skills seemed almost like a consolation prize in the face of that, as if Kayaba and Cardinal were pitying those players who had given their everything, only to fail so miserably.
The 50th floor, arguably where everything went as close to perfectly as it possibly could, though not without cost. Only for their hell to become all that more real with the inclusion of pain.
And now, the 75th floor. Premature as it was to be thinking of it when they had yet to defeat the 74th floor boss, the frontliners couldn't help it. They all felt the chill on the back of their necks, the presence of the executioner's blade waiting to fall.
It was... beyond exhausting.
All of the members of the Assault Team had experienced far too much to be rattled by impending dangers. They were, each and every one of them, veterans who thrived in the boundary between life and death.
They were just tired. For 3 years, they had fought battle after battle, day after day, without a break. Even when they took so-called 'vacations' like the Reavers had done this past week, they never truly stopped. At least a couple hours every day were devoted to sparring or grinding at the higher floors.
And all of it left Reaver's Requiem and all the other frontline guilds feeling like the burden they carried got heavier every day.
But there was nothing that could be done about it, except to fight. They all knew they were on a time limit. Their real bodies could only endure for so long.
Already, Argo reported that a number of players all over Aincrad have simply... collapsed over the last months. It could be that someone on the outside had disconnected their NerveGears, but all the frontliners knew better than to hope.
The clock was ticking.
THUD!
It was with a weary sigh that Drifter knocked the butt of his spear on the floor, drawing all eyes to him. Nodding to Yuna, Nautilus, Kirito, Agil, Klein, Orlando, Lind, Shivata, Heathcliff, and each of the frontliners in turn, he pushed to boss room doors wide open.
"Let's get a move on."
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In the real world - or the 'outside', as many SAO victims had come to think of it - countless people sat in front of their televisions, computers, phones, and more. Watching the boss raids every half-month had already become part of the world's routine.
Of course, some watched with more attention than others, most particularly the families of the frontliners. No matter how many times they went through this, it was always heart-rending.
But there were others who were equally concerned with the outcome of today's raid, if not for the same reason as the loved ones of the Assault Team.
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Halfway across the world from Japan, a blonde, blue-eyed man, with a expressionless face that looked as if it had been carved out from a glacier, merely glanced at the broadcast before dismissing it.
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On the swing of a nameless playground in Tokyo, a boy stared unflinching at his phone, a multitude of expressions cycling through his face. Sometimes he glared with obsession, sometimes he scowled in hatred, and sometimes he panted in lust.
Only he knew what was going through his mind.
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And on a restricted floor of a towering skyscraper also at the heart of Japan, surrounded by computers, data storga eunits, and advanced work stations, a thin man with slick black hair looked over the shoulder of one of his researchers and twisted his lips in a cruel smirk.
"Interesting... So that is what you are planning, Ahihiko Kayaba. Hahahahaha! Well, don't mind if I steal your idea. I will make it... all that it deserves."