Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-68.188.236.252-20160211014055/@comment-1173941-20160211033737

Is it a possible canon explanation? Sure, a lot of people just choose to accept that headcanon, instead of whatever is said.

That said, the anime was mostly bad at portraying that scene anyways. Kirito never died there. The novel is more clear on that. When he snapped out of his depression, his avatar was still breaking apart. His HP reached 0, He IMAGINES himself dying, but doesn't quite complete the process.

As such, the revival item couldn't really have been used.

Now, there's still the interpretation that Kirito, through sheer force of will, extended the time between HP hitting 0, and his avatar being destroyed, because for some reason the text implies that his and Kayaba's avatar broke at the same time (which wouldn't make sense, unless Kawahara was just writing nonsense.)

Either way, Kirito either "snapped out of it" pretty quickly before striking back, or he did in fact "Slow down" the length of time it took for him to "die" through willpower. But because he didn't truly die, the revival item couldn't really be a reason for his not-dying anyways.