Kirigaya Suguha

Kirigaya Suguha (桐ヶ谷直葉) is the cousin and adoptive sister of Kirigaya Kazuto. She is raised along with him as his sister. She is an accomplished kendo practitioner following in her grandfather's wishes.

She later takes up VRMMORPG playing in «ALfheim Online», as Leafa (リーファ), a Sylph warrior.

Real Life
Suguha has short black hair and dark grey eyes, almost blackish. Her breasts are also much larger than the rest of the female characters shown so far although the novel mentions that she has grown a lot recently. She also has a cute childish look and is often seen with an embarrassed expression, especially when around her brother.

Due to the Kendo training, she has strong and defined muscles that show up even when she makes small movements. In one volume, Kazuto has described her as "monstrously muscular" and although he claims he is exaggerating, he does state that "she is heavier than she looks."

Her three sizes are 82-62-81.

ALfheim Online Avatar
In the game ALO, Suguha appears as a more grown up person than a child. She has bright green eyes and wears white and green clothes. She also has a white and green collar on her neck. She has long blond hair, often tied up with a flower like hairband. Her hair bangs, however, are not tied up with her hair. Like all of the other players in ALO, her ears are quite long and pointy. Her display name is spelled as "Leafa".

Background
Kirigaya Suguha was raised with Kazuto as his sister since her parents took Kazuto in after his parents died in a traffic accident. Kazuto is Suguha's first cousin; his mother and Suguha's were sisters. They were taught kendo by their grandfather, who was a former policeman and a Kendo champion. Kazuto gave up after two years and embraced the world of technology, leaving her behind. The truth is, Kazuto found out he was not her real brother around this time and the distance between them became further and further apart, until they were practically strangers before the SAO Incident. She continued with Kendo and became a national quarter-finalist.



Suguha originally disliked VRMMOs for the reason it hid people's nature and reality as it did with Kazuto. She took up ALO in order to understand Kazuto better when he was trapped in SAO. She won the Sylph tournament earning the title as strongest Sylph before Volume 3. She learned how to play ALO from her classmate, Nagata Shinichi. Suguha has become very good at ALO, because of the many years she has practiced kendo and the skills learned there were very effective for fights in ALO. She enjoys flying in the game so much that Recon even nicknamed her as "Speed Holic".

In an obscure part of her childhood, she fell into the lake in her home's backyard trying to catch a water strider. She was saved by Kazuto a few seconds after falling in, but she was afraid of water until the end of the Fairy Dance Arc.

Personality
Unlike her cousin Kazuto, Suguha is upbeat and outgoing. She is much more social and converses easily with others. Even when Kazuto began to push her away after finding out they weren't really siblings, she still treated him with good spirits and tried to get back in his life. She can be very aggressive towards those that annoy her or cross her and can easily lose her temper. This is demonstrated in one case when Recon attempts to kiss her after confessing his love to her; she punches him and then beats him up. Despite treating Recon most of the time with annoyance, she cares for him as a good friend, although she does not seem to return his feelings. She did, however, say she enjoyed seeing "this side" of him when he confessed, and was shocked and motivated by his sacrifice at the battle at the World Tree.

Despite her positive outlook and slightly aggressive behavior, Suguha can be somewhat fragile and delicate due to her young age, especially when her cousin, Kazuto is involved. Once she found out that Kirito and Kazuto were the same person, she locked herself in her room away from her cousin and went into a slight depression. In addition to this, after seeing Kazuto in a comatose state due to being locked in SAO, she broke down crying for the first time in years. Most of the time she is quick to rebound from these moments and be the same upbeat girl she always is. She also is, besides Asuna and possibly Sinon, the only girl Yui will allow to interact with Kirito, most likely because the two are family. She also developed romantic feelings for her older brother (actually her cousin), Kazuto.

Aincrad Arc


Just before Kazuto logged on to Sword Art Online, she told him that she was heading to club activities. When Kazuto became trapped, she learned of the news, and was struck by grief. Soon after, her mother explained to her that Kazuto was not her real brother, and in fact her cousin, which Kazuto himself had already known about.

Soon, she had begun to wonder about the world which stole her brother away and asked a classmate, Nagata Shinichi, to help her with VR Games. ALfheim Online was selected, due to the focus on physical ability, without the need for large amounts of play-time.

Fairy Dance Arc
She first is overjoyed to find Kazuto returning home, and tries to be respectful of his temporary weakness. She is also saddened by her brother's newfound attachment to Asuna. A couple of months after Kirito's return, Kirito challenges Suguha to a kendo duel. Though she wins after hitting Kazuto on the head, she is surprised at Kirito's unorthodox skills, and even more because he can keep up with her even though she's very good at kendo, yet she is also happy that Kirito once again shows interest in kendo.

After logging in on ALO, while flying with her party they are attacked by a Salamander hunting squad. As the battle progresses, she becomes the last survivor fleeing from three pursuers. She encountered a Spriggan after being forced onto the ground. She then agrees to help the Spriggan in his journey towards Alne. Later, Suguha learns that the Spriggan she had encountered was actually her brother. Unfortunately, Kirito doesn't realize that Leafa was Suguha until she calls his name. They had a duel and later she helps Kirito clear the Grand Quest and The World Tree and waits for him to log out.

She meets every one of Kazuto's friends from SAO in ALO and later in a party held to celebrate the clearing of SAO. That night she was depressed because she felt out of place with the survivors of SAO. Kirito talks to her and cheers her up before showing her the new Aincrad Castle and asking for her help to clear it this time.

Extra Edition
Suguha went to the SAO Survivors School to learn to swim from Asuna, Rika (Lisbeth) and Keiko (Silica) whilst Kazuto had his "emergency meeting". During breaks between learning to swim, she recounted meeting Kirito in ALO, as well as learning how the girls had met her brother. She later participated in the «Deep Sea Plunderers» quest.

Phantom Bullet Arc
After the preliminaries of the Bullet of Bullets, Suguha talked to Kazuto after finding out that his name had disappeared from her friend list. She then expressed her worries to Kazuto about him leaving her and going some place far away. Suguha, as Leafa, later joined Asuna and the others in Asuna and Kirito's rented home in Yggdrasil City in ALO to watch Kirito's performance in the Bullet of Bullets finals.

Caliber
She comes to Kirito to inform him that other players have found Excaliber's location. They then talk about the new quest that has appeared, where players are requested to kill the beast-type Evil God monsters. Kirito then decides its time to get the Excaliber, and forms a party of seven consisting of himself, Leafa, Asuna, Klein, Lisbeth, Silica, and Sinon. The party then proceeded to Jötunheimr, and proceeded to the dungeon holding Excaliber and successfully obtained it.

Gallery

 * See: Kirigaya Suguha/Image Gallery

Trivia

 * Suguha/Leafa usually refers to herself using the personal pronoun atashi (あたし).
 * As Leafa, she is one of the 5 fastest Sylphs and has won the Sylph fighting tournament various times.
 * In Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment, Leafa is the only main character to not appear with her real-life appearance.
 * Suguha was originally meant to be flat-chested, and Kawahara didn't care much for the size. However, his editor suggested the change in her chest size.