Kirigaya Kazuto


 * The Black Swordsman redirects here. You may be looking for the light novel chapter or the anime episode.

Kirigaya Kazuto (桐ヶ谷 和人), born as Narusaka Kazuto (鳴坂 和人), and known as Kirito (キリト) in «Sword Art Online» (SAO), «ALfheim Online» (ALO), «Gun Gale Online» (GGO), and «Project Alicization», is the protagonist of the main Sword Art Online series.

Kirito was chosen to be one of the one thousand beta testers for the closed beta of Sword Art Online, the first ever Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG) for the NerveGear, and later joined the official version of the game. He thus became one of the 10,000 players who were trapped in Sword Art Online, where he remained a solo player for the majority of the game, willingly taking on the role of a Beater to reduce discrimination against other former beta testers, as well as actively taking part in Boss battles as one of the Clearers. Kirito temporarily became a member of the Moonlit Black Cats after helping them safely escape a dangerous dungeon, but returned to being a solo player when a fatal error resulted in the death of the other guild members. At some point in the game, Kirito became known as the «Black Swordsman» (黒の剣士) due to his tendency to wear black clothing. Near the end of the game, Kirito joined the Knights of the Blood due to losing a wager with its leader, Heathcliff. Kirito eventually put an end to the game by defeating the final boss, thus clearing the game.

As Asuna and a small group of Sword Art Online survivors was not logged out from Sword Art Online in the aftermath of the incident, Kazuto began playing ALfheim Online as a Spriggan due to seeing an in-game screenshot of what resembled Asuna, and thus wanting to investigate the matter. After freeing the three hundred remaining captives, Kazuto continued playing ALfheim Online, under new management, with his old friends from Sword Art Online, as well as new friends from ALfheim Online.

Due to the request of Kikuoka Seijirou, Kazuto temporarily converted his ALfheim Online avatar to Gun Gale Online via The Seed to investigate a series of strange deaths, rumored to be associated with a mysterious player, referring to himself as Death Gun. Thus, Kirito took part in the largest tournament in the game, the Bullet of Bullets, to attract the attention of the mysterious player.

In the aftermath of the incident, Kazuto returned with his avatar to ALfheim Online and continued playing it with his friends. Several months later, Kazuto was offered a part-time job to test a new FullDive machine known as the Soul Translator, but unbeknownst to him, he was actually helping with a military project known as Project Alicization.

Personality
Kirito is someone who is not good with words, as stated by Klein, and can be quite direct. This is due to him not having many friends and closing others off because of his love for computers. As such, he can come off as a rude person to others, such as Lisbeth and Sinon. Sometimes, he actually seems to enjoy angering and teasing people as well. Also, from time to time, Kirito can be quite overconfident thinking he can do things others cannot.

He is almost always a calm and collected character, rarely showing any signs of distress. When Kayaba Akihiko appeared in SAO and announced that it had become a Death Game, Kirito showed only a slight reaction and was able to quickly accept the new conditions of the game, while many others panicked. He has shown different moods throughout the series; at times being rather cheerful, while being gloomy at others. When in a battle, he becomes incredibly fierce and aggressive. Sometimes, his fierceness is up to the point where he loses control of himself and is even unable to recall what he had done.

However, Kirito is actually a kind person who is just misunderstood. Despite the general population opinion towards beta testers in SAO, he refused to abandon another player in trouble. This is only strengthened by the demise of the Moonlit Black Cats. He also comforts others who are scared or down such as Silica after she lost Pina. He claims to help a female player in SAO because she reminds him of his sister, whom he feels to have forced into kendo and feels guilty for that. These kinds of acts have earned him respect and affection from many girls. Kirito, unlike usual male heroes, is not very dense as he was able to tell that Lisbeth was going to confess to him before Asuna interrupted them.

Kirito is also a very emotional person and lets his emotions control him from time to time. The deaths of Sachi and the Moonlit Black Cats had haunted him until his marriage with Asuna in Sword Art Online. Sachi's death, in particular, had a huge effect on his personality and motives, making him very distant from others for a while. This worries his friends and allies as Kirito is someone who would let guilt ruin his life if not comforted. Kirito temporarily loses his will to live when Asuna's character was killed by Heathcliff. He also tries to hide his abilities, not wanting unneeded attention.

Kirito is a person with incredibly strong resolve who will do anything and everything in his power to accomplish something that is important to him without any hesitation. When Asuna was being held in ALfheim, Kirito was bound and determined to set her free and, when Yui confirmed that she detected Asuna being at the top of the World Tree, he immediately tried to fly up to the tree, which had already been found to be an impossible task, and tried to fight his way to the top by himself twice despite being annihilated the first time.

After escaping SAO, Kirito attempts to repair his relationship with Suguha, his cousin. This shows Kirito is now attempting to make up for his past mistake of ignoring her, showing a sense of maturity. Kirito, later in the series, is shown to be a calm and mature player who can be teasing as well.

Real World / Sword Art Online / Project Alicization Avatar
Kirito described the appearance of his avatar at the beginning of the game and the beta-testing phase as having the appearance of a ridiculously handsome protagonist from some fantasy animation, looking noticeably older than he actually was. His in-game height was equal to that of his height in the real world to prevent the extra height from hindering his movements.

In the full version of the game, during Kayaba Akihiko's tutorial, all player avatars were changed to reflect their real-life appearances. After this change, Kirito's SAO avatar had slightly long but neat black hair and black eyes. His delicate face showed no trace of masculinity, allowing people to easily mistake him for a girl.

At the beginning of Project Alicization, Kirito wore a hand-sewn pale blue short-sleeved shirt with a V-shaped cut on the chest which was tied with a light brown cord along with trousers and hand-sewn leather shoes. Two years later, after he became a valet in the Sword Mastery Academy, he wore the standard gray uniform, like all first years and non-elite swordsmen do. In the second year of the academy, after he became one of the twelve elite swordsmen in the academy and was allowed to choose a color for his uniform, he wore a pitch black uniform.

ALfheim Online Avatar
Kirito's initial appearance was that of a default «Spriggan», which he chose because of the race's black-themed equipment. Instead of the normal black forelocks hanging from his head, his black hair stood in natural spikes. His large eyes appeared mischievous, his ears were pointy, and he had dark greyish blue wings. He was equipped with a large greatsword, intended for larger players, like «Imps». He would occasionally dual wield using his experience from SAO.



On June 23, 2025, Kirito changed his previous spiky hairstyle into his old SAO style due to Yui complaining about it being hard to sit on the spiky hair. Later, he also acquired a new coat and switched his greatsword to a new long sword, with an extra one in his inventory.

On December 28, 2025, he obtained the «Holy Sword Excalibur», and used it as his second weapon when dual wielding, but only in extreme cases, as he promised himself not to use the sword for personal gain.

Gun Gale Online Avatar


Kazuto's avatar in Gun Gale Online belongs to the rare «M9000» series. It is an avatar that many male players dream of having, due to its feminine appearance. Kazuto's avatar in Gun Gale Online is both shorter and more slender than his spriggan avatar in ALfheim Online. Although the two avatars share the same black hair and eyes, his hair now flows down to his shoulder blades, while his eyes are larger and shinier. The innocently bewitching gaze from his eyes, framed by long eyelashes, was so different from the previous avatar that Kirito himself momentarily forgot that he was looking at himself when he inspected his appearance for the first time. The avatar also has pale white complexion and red lips. These characteristics often allow others to confuse him as being female. This often causes great confusion to people, such as Sinon. He is equipped with a 5.7mm «FN Five-Seven»handgun and «Kagemitsu G4» photon sword.

Background


Born on October 7, 2008, Kirigaya Kazuto was adopted by his aunt and uncle a year after his birth, when his biological parents died in an accident. Raised by his foster parents as a son, Kazuto was originally forced to train with his cousin in the neighborhood kendo dojo; however due to his aunt's influence as an editor for a computer systems magazine, Kazuto became more interested in computers and dropped kendo after two years. This decision earned him a heavy beating from his grandfather, prompting Suguha to defend him by promising to practice enough for both of them. At the age of ten, Kazuto discovered that he was adopted from erased Juki Net records and since then unintentionally began distancing himself from Suguha.

Sword Art Online Closed Beta
One of the lucky 1000 players accepted into the closed-beta, Kirito logged hundreds of hours of playtime. He, along with the other top players, were able to reach the 10th Floor before the beta had ended.

Aincrad Arc


Shortly after logging in to the fully released SAO, Kirito was stopped by a stranger. Klein, a new guy, asks for his help in learning how to play. After befriending each other and training in the fields for several hours, they were forcefully teleported back to the Town of Beginnings, to receive an announcement from Kayaba Akihiko. He revealed that the lack of a logout function, which they had recently realized, was a "feature" of his new game, and that forced removal of the Nerve Gear headpiece from the other side would fry the person's brain using microwaves.



The only means to escape was to clear the game, in other words, to successfully defeat all 100 floors of Aincrad and defeat the final boss. Kirito immediately took Klein and ran off, and after hearing that Klein would remain with his friends here, left him and headed off to the next town.

The First Day
Kirito spent the first day making his way to the next village. He decided to complete a quest, which he knew of from the beta period, to obtain a new sword. During this quest he encountered another player, a beta tester named Coper, who proposed forming a party and completing the quest together. After killing many «Little Nepenthes», two more Nepenthes, one with the required item and another with a fruit, appeared. Kirito killed the one carrying the flower while Coper intentionally kills the one with the fruit while triggering the fruit, which caused many Little «Nepenthes» to swarm on their position. Kirito managed to escape, but Coper, who did not know that his «Hiding» skill would not work against monsters that did not rely on sight, died. This caused Kirito's mortality to weigh heavily on him.

Aria of a Starless Night
At around 04:00 on December 2, 2024, nearly a month since the start of the official service of the game, Kirito encountered a hooded player fighting a Ruin Kobold Trooper on the nineteenth level of the 1st Floor's Labyrinth. While amazed by the player's brilliant skill with a rapier, the former beta tester hesitated before revealing himself to the fencer after the fight to comment on the inefficiency of using Sword Skills on a nearly dead enemy.

During his conversation with the hooded player, Kirito realized that he was speaking to a girl based on her voice, and was astonished by her disregard for her self-preservation, the time she had spent in the Labyrinth, and the condition of her equipment. When the player collapsed just before she could leave, the swordsman carried her to the forest outside of the Labyrinth and waited for her to recover. Seven hours later, the girl awoke, desiring to return to the Labyrinth again, thus Kirito suggested going to the First Floor Boss Strategy conference at Tolbana instead, if she truly wished to beat the game, instead of just dying pointlessly.

Having arrived at Tolbana, Kirito informed the hooded player that the meeting would take place at the town square at 16:00 before they momentarily parted ways. Immediately afterward, Kirito encountered the Argo the information broker, who notified him that the person interested in his «Anneal Blade+6» had raised his offer to 29,800 Cor; however, Kirito again refused to sell his sword, wondering why Argo's client was so persistent.

Kirito later found and joined the player from the Labyrinth, they both began to eat their bread. Kirito gave her a pot of cream and later explained how he had obtained the item and offered to give tips on how to gain the item efficiently, but the player quickly rejected his offer, stating that she did not come to the town to eat good food. Kirito questioned why she was in the town and listened to her explanation. After the clarification, Kirito began to apologize but was interrupted by the clock bell. The player realized that the meeting was about to start so they both headed to the conference.

The meeting was organized by a player named Diavel. Forty-four people went to the meeting and decide to try to defeat the 1st Floor boss, discovered in Argo's strategy guide to be Illfang the Kobold Lord. As the members gathered themselves into parties at Diavel's suggestion, Kirito and the mysterious fencer found themselves without a group. Kirito offered to form a party with the female player and was accepted, upon which he learned her name was Asuna. They were assigned to support E group, charged with clearing the monsters that accompanied the boss.

After the meeting, upon learning of Asuna's complete ignorance of MMO game mechanics, Kirito offered to explain MMO terms and strategies to her in detail so as to improve her chances of survival, but she requested the lesson to take place where they would not be seen. As Kirito considered several possible locations, Asuna revealed she had been sleeping in cheap inns that made sleeping less than ideal. Kirito disclosed that there were other rooms outside of inns that could be rented and described at length the details of his own rented room, but was suddenly seized by Asuna when he divulged that it had a bath. Confused at her response, he finally realized her intention when she requested the location of other such rooms with baths, but he had to reveal that there were no others, as he had rented the entire space and he could not cancel his transaction. At that moment, he was asked to lend his bathroom.

At the farmhouse where Kirito had rented his space, he showed the bathroom to Asuna and warned her that the NerveGear could not adequately recreate a liquid environment. As he waited for Asuna, he focused all his willpower to not look at the bathroom door and tried to read Argo's strategy guide. At that moment, he was visited by Argo, from whom he learned that her client had raised his offer for Kirito's Anneal Blade to 39,800 Cor. Shocked at how the buyer was willing to spend so much money on his sword when it would easier and cheaper to acquire a similar sword, Kirito requested the name of Argo's client and was surprised to learn it was Kibaou. Pondering on the reason behind Kibaou's actions, Kirito was late to realize that Argo intended to use the bathroom to change her equipment. A few seconds after the info broker entered the bath and Asuna exited, Kirito lost consciousness.

The next day on December 4, when the boss raid party gathered in Tolbana for the upcoming boss battle, Kirito was approached by Kibaou, who gruffly ordered him and Asuna to only engage stray Ruin Kobold Sentinels during the battle. As Kibaou was walking away, Kirito suddenly noticed that Kibaou had not spent the money offered for the former's Anneal Blade to upgrade his equipment instead, causing Kirito to become suspicious, but his thoughts were interrupted when, at that moment, Diavel began his speech to the raiding party.

Several hours later, the raid group finally reached the doors to the boss room. Before the battle began, Kirito reminded Asuna to aim her Sword Skills at the throats of the Ruin Kobold Sentinels after he secured an opening. Resolving to ensure Asuna's survival, he faced the doors and followed the other raid members as they charged into the boss room and commenced battle with Illfang and his guards.

All went well until Illfang's last hit point (HP) bar reached its last third. Instead of a talwar, as he originally carried in the Beta, he now carried a nodachi. In this turn of events, Diavel was heavily wounded and subsequently died, after Kirito realized that Diavel had been a beta tester as well. Kirito then reorganized the shocked players and, with Asuna, worked together to take down the boss. After an intense battle, one of the tanks made a mistake and triggered Illfang's Tsumujiguruma. Kirito quickly countered the attack with Sonic Leap, causing the boss to tumble and allowing everyone to attack in full force while the boss was recovering. However, just as the boss's HP neared depletion, it recovered while the tanks were still recovering from their post-motion delays, prompting Kirito and Asuna to finish off the boss themselves. Kirito finally managed to deal the Last Attack on the boss and gained a unique item from it, the Coat of Midnight.



However, as the raiding party celebrated their victory, someone from Group C brought up the death of Diavel and blamed Kirito for withholding information which led to Diavel's death. Kirito then realized that the beta testers needed to make peace with the regular players before the beta tester hatred went out of hand. Therefore, Kirito created a new category of players, called Beaters, who were the only ones withholding information for their own benefit and dubbed himself as one them, so that all of the hate and rage would be focused on him rather than upon all beta testers.

After this announcement, Kirito decided to open the 2nd Floor and activate its Teleport Gate. However, while he was enjoying the view of the floor, Asuna followed him to show her gratitude, as well as to relay two worded messages from Agil and Kibaou. After Kirito parted with Asuna once again, he received a message from Argo about his infamous speech. She wished to compensate him for the trouble she had caused by allowing a one-time free offer on any piece of information, thus Kirito mischievously replied by asking for the meaning behind her painted whiskers.

Reason for the Whiskers
Several minutes after parting with Asuna, Kirito reached the town of Urbus. While hiding from the players entering through the Teleport Gate that he had just opened, Kirito saw Argo running from two male players and decided to follow them using his Tracking mod. Once he reached them in an area outside of town, he identified that the two players were part of a guild from the beta test period that simulated being ninjas. Noticing that the two men were trying to forcibly obtain information from Argo, Kirito interfered, but before a conflict could escalate, a large cow mob approached and began chasing the two self-proclaimed ninjas.

In the aftermath, Kirito jokingly reminded Argo about his desire to know about her whiskers, but when it seemed that Argo would show him her whisker-less face, Kirito panicked and instead inquired about the hidden skill the two ninjas were interested in. After Kirito promised not to hold Argo accountable for the consequences of the quest, Kirito was led to the quest NPC for the Martial Arts Extra Skill. Only after Kirito accepted the quest giver did he discover that the goal was to break a rock that was near unbreakable and that whisker markers would be drawn on his face until he could complete the quest. Thus, he realized that the reason why Argo kept the markings, even after the beta test period, was because it had become a part of her image. After three days and three nights of working on the quest, Kirito finally completed it and obtained the Martial Arts skill.

Rondo of a Fragile Blade
While Kirito visited the town of Urbus looking for a blacksmith to enhance his «Anneal Blade» to +7, he found Asuna and the two of them watched a discussion between two players because one of them, the blacksmith Nezha, failed four consecutive times to enhance the other's weapon.

Kirito decided to help Asuna gather more materials to enhance her Wind Fleuret, so they made a bet to kill the most Windwasps faster, which Kirito lost and had to treat her to dinner. Asuna chose a restaurant that he knew, and after exiting, they found out that they had received a luck buff, so he took Asuna to the blacksmith to try to enhance her weapon. Although it had a 97% success, the enhancement failed and the weapon seemingly dissipated.

After calming Asuna and taking her to an inn, Kirito returned outdoors and followed Nezha into a bar, where he encountered him talking to some friends about business. Kirito noticed something, ran to Asuna's inn, abruptly entered her room, made her materialize all her items, and at the bottom of the item pile, he uncovered her Wind Fleuret.

Upon figuring out Nezha's scam, Kirito donned a suit of armor to conceal his identity, approached Nezha and asked for a weapon upgrade. After Nezha seemingly destroyed his weapon and began apologizing, Kirito revealed himself and retrieved his sword with the One-Handed Sword mod, Quick Change.

Concerto of Black and White
Following the defeat of Asterius the Taurus King, Kirito and Asuna climbed up to the 3rd Floor. After messaging Argo that the 2nd Floor had been cleared and the 3rd Floor would be opened shortly, Kirito turned to his partner, proposing to take a detour through the forest instead of going straight to the main city. After a brief encounter with one of the forest's denizens, the two followed the sound of clashing blades to the southwest of their position for under five minutes under Kirito's request.

There, the duo found two NPCs, a Forest Elven man and a Dark Elven woman, locked in combat. Kirito explained to Asuna that the two characters were questgivers for a campaign quest that lasted until the 9th Floor, but warned that they could choose only one of the questlines, with no possibility of changing their choice afterward. The two decided to follow the same route Kirito had chosen in the beta and assist the Dark Elf named Kizmel. Before entering the battle, Kirito informed Asuna that it was impossible for them to defeat the Forest Elf, thus he recommended focusing on defense until the Dark Elf used a special attack to end the battle upon half of their hit points being depleted, withholding the fact that the Dark Elf would die in the process.

However, contrary to Kirito's recommendation, the two focused on offense during the battle and, twenty minutes later, defeated the Forest Elf just before their hit points could reach the halfway point.

Barcarolle of Froth
On December 21, 2022, upon ascending the spiral staircase to the 4th Floor, Kirito paused for several seconds when he noticed that the carved relief on the doors to the floor was different from the beta test version, likely indicating a modification to the floor's terrain. The swordsman followed Asuna as she pushed the doors open, and found that the crisscrossing web of sandy canyons from the beta had been changed into rivers.

Scherzo of Deep Night
On December 27, 2022, after reaching the 5th Floor and recounting the rampant player killing on the floor in the beta, Kirito and Asuna arrived at Karluin to activate the town's Teleport Gate and spent the night at an inn. The next day on December 28, the pair committed most of the day to fulfill quests. As dusk fell, Kirito was requested by Asuna to teach her the basics of player versus player combat.

Red-Nosed Reindeer


One day, when Kirito was walking in the labyrinth area of a lower floor, he met Sachi and the others in the Moonlit Black Cats guild. After rescuing them from the labyrinth, he hid his higher level from them and was invited into the guild. He helped them reach higher levels, taught Sachi how to fight and, had fun with them. One day, Sachi ran away from the group and Kirito used his Tracking skill to find her. He talked with her and made her forget her fear of dying, while she helped him clear his conscience of lying to the other members of the guild. One day, the group decided to hunt for treasure while their leader, Keita, was off to buy their guild base. In a Labyrinth on a higher floor, they activated a trap, causing a multitude of Dark Dwarf Miners and Granite Elementals to spawn. The members, unable to use teleport crystals due to the room being an Anti-Crystal Area, were all killed one by one, except for Kirito. He returned to their temporary headquarters in Taft to inform Keita, who committed suicide out of shock at the loss of his friends and the reveal that their newest member was a Beater.

With the approach of Christmas Eve, all of the NPCs started talking about a mysterious monster which would appear on Christmas and drop rare items if defeated, causing players to look for clues regarding its future location. However, nobody could find a good lead, as the NPCs said that it would spawn at "a certain fir tree". Originally, Kirito and Klein had not cared about the boss until they learned that it would drop a resurrection item.

When Kirito found the spawn location of the boss within the Forest of Wandering, Klein and his guild Fuurinkazan followed him there so that they could fight the boss. Moments later, the Divine Dragon Alliance (DDA), who had followed Klein and his guild, showed up. Klein told Kirito that the alliance would do anything to obtain any rare items and then told Kirito to defeat the boss while they distracted the DDA. Kirito then arrived at the correct tree, and when the bell announced midnight, the event boss, Nicholas The Renegade, spawned and was about to begin its speech, but Kirito attacked it without listening to him. After a long struggle and barely surviving, Kirito defeated the boss and obtained the Divine Stone of Returning Soul. But, to his disappointment, the item only revived players up to ten seconds after they had died. After several minutes of mourning, Kirito then gave the item to Klein and slowly walked back to his inn. He stayed up until early morning, planning to die trying to solo the floor boss once dawn broke. However, at seven o'clock, when he was about to leave, he heard a strange alarm ring in his ear and noticed an item left in his shared inventory with Sachi. Once he took out the item, a recording crystal, he heard a message left to him by Sachi before her death, urging Kirito to survive.

The Black Swordsman
Upon encountering Silica in the Forest of Wandering, Kirito saved her from a party of attacking «Drunk Apes». He apologized for being unable to save Pina, Silica's Tamed Monster, and told her that it was possible to revive Pina. After explaining the item needed, and that she needed to come with him, Kirito gave her new equipment to supplement the level needed to clear the quest. After having dinner with her and showing her the location of the Pneuma Flower, they slept and departed to the floor the next day. Kirito revealed that he was helping Silica because she reminded him of his sister.



The next day, they departed to the 47th Floor to find the Pneuma Flower on the Hill of Memories. On their way back after retrieving the flower, they were ambushed by Rosalia and the Titan's Hand guild. They attacked Kirito but were forced to surrender due to his higher level. Kirito revealed that he was looking for them because of a request from a leader of another guild, whose members were all killed, with the exception of the leader, by the Titan's Hand guild. Kirito then threatened the bandits until they agreed to voluntarily go to the prison managed by the Aincrad Liberation Force (The Army). After returning to Floria, Kirito and Silica promised to meet again in the real world.

The Progressors
Around the end of February 2024, Kirito and the other Clearers spent a week attempting to determine a way to circumvent the GeoCrawler, the Field Boss of the 56th Floor blocking the path to the local Labyrinth, as frontal attacks against it were ineffective, while its position prevented flanking the monster. On March 6, 2024, after another failed attempt to bait the GeoCrawler, Kirito entered a quarrel with Asuna due to the latter proposing to lure the boss into the village and allow it to slaughter the villagers to give them an opportunity to attack the monster while it was occupied.

A Murder Case in the Area


Kirito was taking a quick nap while enjoying the day because of the good weather until he was interrupted by Asuna, who scolded him for wasting time while the other front liners were clearing the Labyrinth. However, Kirito convinced her to lie down next to him. Later, Kirito woke up and noticed that Asuna was completely asleep, so he remained near to protect her. When she woke up, she became angry but then recalled what had happened and she realized that he had been waiting for her to wake up and protected her from any potential orange players. She then offered to buy him dinner at a restaurant of his choosing. While having their dinner, they heard a scream from the courtyard only to find a player being killed within the safe zone using a new unknown PK method.

Generally speaking, it was impossible to kill someone within the «Area». Two exceptions to this rule were known to exist: one was to challenge a sleeping opponent to an all-out duel and to move their finger to accept the duel. The second was to drag a sleeping opponent outside of the safe zone using a «stretcher» where they could be targeted normally. After witnessing a man being hung by a noose and then dying from being impaled by a piercing weapon which caused damage-over-time, Kirito and Asuna began to investigate how such a thing could have happened if it was not a duel, and why it happened. This mystery touched upon the past of a long-forgotten guild, Golden Apple, and the reason behind the death of its female guild leader, Griselda.

They first ask around for the witness who first spotted the crime and a girl, named Yolko, stepped up and revealed that she was a friend of the killed player, called "Kainz" and that they were planning to meet up for a meal.

Warmth of the Heart


Due to Asuna's referral, Kirito visited Lisbeth's Smith Shop and requested Lisbeth to create him a sword that is on par with his «Elucidator». After allowing Kirito to see her best sword, he unintentionally broke it during a Durability test run. Thus, the two traveled to the West Mountain to obtain a «Crystallite Ingot» to forge what would eventually be known as «Dark Repulser».

October, 2024
After two years into SAO, Kirito was currently on the front lines which were now located on the 74th Floor on October 17, 2024. As he left the Labyrinth, Kirito found and killed a Ragout Rabbit, the meat of which he later gave to Asuna to cook. He was then forced on a mapping run with Asuna. After defeating Kuradeel, Asuna's bodyguard, in a duel, the two departed for the Labyrinth the next day on October 18. Together they found the boss room. While resting in a nearby safe zone, they encountered an elite unit of the «Aincrad Liberation Force» (The Army), whom Kirito and Asuna assumed would try to challenge the boss. They chased after them in case the platoon did something unreasonable, but «The Army» platoon started fighting the boss before they could reach them. Kirito told them to teleport out, but one of the soldiers told him that their crystals would not work in the boss room as it was an Anti-Crystal Area.



Upon arriving, Asuna impulsively ran in to help them, and Kirito quickly followed her. He was forced to activate his «Dual Blades» secret skill to save Asuna and the others. After the boss fight, a word about Kirito's ability spread throughout Aincrad. Asuna asked for a temporary leave of absence from her guild and Heathcliff, the leader, said that he would only allow permission if Kirito defeated him in a duel. If Kirito lost, he would have to join the Knights of the Blood guild. Kirito accepted the challenge and was on the verge of winning, but, at the last moment, Heathcliff moved with impossible speed. The duel ended with Kirito's loss, forcing him to abide by their deal. He was given a KoB outfit, and after a few days, sent to a mandatory training session with Kuradeel on October 23. After the latter killed Godfree, the vanguard who wanted to see Kirito's skills, and revealed his plan to kill him, Asuna quickly came to Kirito's aid. After Kuradeel successfully feigned a surrender, he attacked Asuna after she lowered her rapier, and almost killed her. Kirito quickly intercepted, and though he lost his left arm in the process, he killed Kuradeel using the Martial Arts Sword Skill, Embracer.

After this, Kirito announced his feelings for Asuna, and the two asked for another leave after the incident, which Heathcliff accepted.

The Day Before
After proposing to Asuna at 21:00 on October 23, 2024, Kirito considered where to live quietly for their honeymoon. Thus, he recalled an isolated log house on the 22nd Floor that he had encountered a year and a half prior, at a time when he had lacked the funds to purchase the estate. Wishing to spend his newlywed life with Asuna there, the boy proposed the option to the girl.

Morning Dew Girl


While Asuna and Kirito were on their honeymoon on the 22nd Floor, they heard of a rumor of a ghost in the forest and decided to go check it out on October 30, 2024. In the forest, they found a young girl who went by the name of Yui, who they suspected was a traumatized player who had regressed into a baby. However, they were unable to find a Color Cursor on her, meaning she was not a player, NPC, or monster. Despite this finding, they deduced that it was most likely that she was a player. After taking her to their home and reading the Lost & Found/Q&A section of the newspaper for possible people searching for this mysterious player with no luck, they decided to go to the «Town of Beginnings» to find her parent/guardian, if they were still there. Upon their arrival at the «Town of Beginnings» the next day on October 31, they traveled around town in hope of finding her parents and were eventually led to a nearby church, serving as an orphanage for kids who were trapped in SAO. Even here, there were no signs of Yui's parents.



Then on November 1, they went to a Hidden Dungeon to save Thinker, the nominal leader of the Aincrad Liberation Force (The Army), who was trapped within its deepest levels. Yui watched Kirito easily handle the Scavenge Toads and was amazed by his fighting skills. After reaching the safe area in the dungeon, Kirito told Yulier to take Yui into the safe area. The safe area contained a GM module, and after touching it, Yui suddenly remembered what she was. As the boss, The Fatal Scythe, was about to deal the final blow on Kirito and Asuna, Yui went in front of them. To their shock, the boss's attack on her was deflected due to her «Immortal Object» status, and Yui defeated The Fatal Scythe with the «Object Eraser». The two discovered that Yui was actually a Mental Health Counseling program and that the Cardinal System would delete her. When this happened, Kirito used the still active console to save her data into his NerveGear in the form of Yui's Heart. Kirito and Asuna planned to recreate her as Yui once they escaped from SAO.

November, 2024
During the second week of their honeymoon on November 6, 2024, Kirito and Asuna received a call: the boss room of the 75th Floor had been found. They returned to the front lines the next day on November 7 and participated in the battle. During the battle, Kirito, Asuna, and Heathcliff managed to hold back the incredibly powerful boss while the rest of the players attacked it. Afterward, Kirito had an intuitive realization; he first attacked Heathcliff, revealed his "Immortal Object" status, and concluded that Heathcliff was none other than Kayaba Akihiko himself. Kayaba lauded Kirito and announced that he would be waiting on the 100th Floor as the final boss. A KoB member attacked Heathcliff, prompting him to paralyze everyone in the room. After that, Heathcliff offered Kirito a chance at a one-versus-one duel, declaring that defeating him would clear the game, and the surviving players would be logged out of SAO.

Kirito agreed despite Asuna's pleads to fall back. After a few minutes of fighting, Kirito became enraged and used a Sword Skill, and Kayaba, knowing the system all too well, took advantage of the post-motion delay to finish him off. However, Asuna intercepted the blow, despite her paralysis, and died from the attack. Kirito, filled with despair, attacked Kayaba thoughtlessly and was quickly struck down.



Through a final push of his will, before his body was deleted by the system, Kirito stabbed Heathcliff in the chest with Asuna's Lambent Light. Heathcliff and Kirito both vanished and were transported up to an area located above Aincrad, along with Asuna. Akihiko explained his reasons as for why he created SAO before vanishing along with his castle. During these final moments, Asuna and Kirito revealed their names: Yuuki Asuna and Kirigaya Kazuto, to each other. Shortly after, Kazuto woke up in a hospital bed, his body frail and weak. He rose from the bed and vowed to find Asuna.

After SAO was cleared and Kazuto woke up in a Tokyo hospital, he wandered off to find Asuna but failed. Soon after, he was visited by Kikuoka Seijirou, a representative of the «SAO Case Victims Rescue Force». Kazuto inquired about Asuna's whereabouts in exchange for sharing information about the SAO incident with him. After knowing Asuna's condition, he later attempted to return to the world of SAO via his NerveGear to find her, but the SAO servers had shut down.

January, 2025


Two months after SAO was ended, Kazuto returned home to his family and had completed his rehabilitation, which allowed him to move freely again. Thus, he started to visit Asuna on occasion. During one of such visits on January 19, 2025, Asuna's father, Yuuki Shouzou, and Sugou Nobuyuki came into the hospital room. After Nobuyuki was introduced, he told Asuna's father that he planned on having Asuna wear her bridal gown the next week. After Asuna's father's departure, he revealed his true nature and started stroking Asuna's hair while stating that he had the right to marry her, as he was in charge of maintaining the servers that hosted her conscience. He invited Kazuto to the wedding, leaving the boy helpless to do anything.



That evening, Kazuto's sister Suguha found him alone in his room in a state of deep despair and self-loathing. After telling his sister that Asuna was out of his reach and how useless he felt, he began crying like a child in front of her. After closing the window, Suguha comforted her brother and encouraged him not to give up so easily, and then gently lowered him onto his bed, where awhile later, his cries ceased.



When Kazuto awoke the next morning, January 20, he found Suguha sleeping next to him in her pajamas. He then recalled what had happened the night before and, due to Suguha's encouragement, had renewed his resolve to save Asuna. Shortly after, he received an e-mail from Agil that contained a picture of a virtual world, where a bird cage could be seen in the foreground. In that cage was a girl who looked exactly like Asuna. Kazuto immediately left to meet Andrew Gilbert Mills, Agil's real-life identity, at the Dicey Cafe. Andrew brought out a package of a client for the new VRMMO game called ALfheim Online and told him about the AmuSphere, the successor of the NerveGear, and the game. He then told Kazuto that the picture with the girl that looked like Asuna was taken inside of the game, at the top of the World Tree. After noticing that the game was designed by RECT Progress Inc. and remembering that Nobuyuki, who worked there, said that he was in charge of the SAO servers, he realized that it could not have been just a coincidence. Thinking to himself that contacting the Ministry of Internal Affairs without concrete evidence was a bad idea, Kazuto asked Andrew to let him have the game client to personally confirm whether Asuna really was trapped in ALO.



Upon returning home, Kazuto inserted the ALO client into his NerveGear and dove into the game. At the character creation screen, he inserted his character name and then continued to choose his character's race. Due to being pressed for time and not planning to play the game too seriously, he selected the Spriggan race because of its initial black-themed equipment rather than based on the race's strengths and weaknesses. Kirito was then sent into a vortex of light and entered the game world, floating in the air above the Spriggan capital. However, while free falling towards the Spriggan capital, a glitch occurred, and the area below Kirito collapsed into darkness.



After a seemingly endless descent and landing on his face instead of his feet, he found himself in the Ancient Forest. Due to some bad feeling, Kirito tried to open the main menu and finally realized that commands in ALO were controlled with the left hand, instead of the right hand as it was in SAO. While the logout function was available and his HP and MP values were normal for a starting character, his avatar had over 8 skills already learned, most of which were nearly or fully completed. However, those skills seemed strangely familiar to him, and he realized that all of the skills he had were identical to his SAO skills, except his Dual Blades skill.



Hoping to find more clues about what was happening, he checked his item window, only to find dozens of lines consisting of enigmatic numbers and characters. That being said, all the items that he had in SAO, though no longer usable, confirmed that his SAO save data was brought over to ALO for some reason. Realising this, Kirito hoped that one specific item would be among the various unusable items and soon found the item he was looking for: MHCP-001, in other words, Yui's Heart. After he tapped the crystal twice, Yui appeared.



After Yui checked the system, Kirito learned from her that the ALO server was a copy of the SAO servers, using the same graphics engine, but an older version of the Cardinal System and different game components, and that the game used an almost identical save data and skill proficiency format to the one SAO used, which was why he was able to inherit his skills, with the exception of data denoting HP and MP. She also warned him that his items were corrupted and should be disposed of before the system's error detection protocol detected them. As for his abnormal skill values, Yui told Kirito that he should be fine unless a GM checked them directly. Kirito asked Yui what was she supposed to be in the game, and she took the form of a Navigation Pixie. Later, Kirito learned how to fly with a controller from her. Soon after, they found that some other players were approaching, one being chased by three others. Hearing that, Kirito decided to go take a closer look at it and used his controller to fly to the scene of the battle.



Once there, due to not having practiced landing, he crash-landed near the 3 Salamanders and a Sylph, named Leafa, who the Salamanders were hunting. While Leafa told Kirito to run away as she noticed that he was using starting equipment, he only reproached the Salamanders for ganging up on the girl, angering the Salamanders. Two of them moved in to sandwich him, but Kirito easily stopped the first strike and threw the Salamander into his teammate who was still airborne. After confirming with Leafa that it was alright to kill the Salamanders, Kirito drew his sword, and charged at one of the Salamanders and killed him in one swing. The other Salamander has mercilessly bisected shortly after. Looking up at the leader of the party, Kagemune, Kirito relaxed and asked whether he was going to fight as well, but Kagemune only smiled as he refused.



As soon as Kagemune had flown away and the Remain Lights of the two other Salamanders disappeared, Leafa asked the boy about what he expected her to do now, to which he responded by joking about her hugging him. Before Leafa was able to retaliate, Yui emerged out of Kirito's breast pocket, telling Leafa that she would only let Mama and herself stick to Papa. Kirito reacted by wrapping both of his hands around the Pixie, not knowing how to explain what she was to Leafa, who then asked whether Yui was a Private Pixie, a prize of a lottery that took place at the launch of the game, which Kirito confirmed to cover Yui's true nature. Leafa, who had already loosened up after the encounter with Yui, then found out that Kirito got lost and decided to thank Kirito by treating him to a drink, which Kirito planned to use as an opportunity to find out more about ALO, especially about the World Tree. At Kirito's request, the duo decided to travel to the nearest town, Swilvane. Before they depart, Kirito noticed that Leafa was about to take flight without using the controller and asked her how she was able to do it, therefore she showed him the trick to Voluntary Flight.



After a humorous first attempt at flying without a controller, with Leafa's help, Kirito soon got the hang of Voluntary Flight and they proceeded with flying towards Swilvane at high speed. Unfortunately, Kirito realized he still did not know how to land and crashed into the Tower of Wind. At the city, after a brief encounter with Recon, Kirito and Leafa entered an inn and pub where they ordered their refreshments.



Kirito then asked Leafa about the World Tree, as he wanted to get to the top of tree, and learned that it was the Grand Quest of ALO, as the first starting race to reach the top of the tree would be turned into the legendary race of ALFs and that nobody had managed to complete this quest yet, even though the game had been online for a year now. Surprised by Kirito's determination to reach the top of the tree as soon as possible, no matter how difficult of a task it was, and seeing the familiar despair in his eyes despite his smile, Leafa volunteered to take him to the capital of Alfheim, Alne, where the entrance to the World Tree lay. As there was no method of instantaneous travel in ALO, they had to fly to the city, which would take hours. As Leafa had to log out already, they agreed to meet up again the next day and Leafa told him that he can use the inn room to log out, as logging out instantly can only be done inside the player's home territory, by using a tent, or an inn if outside of the player's home territory.



Puzzled by Leafa's actions, though grateful for her help, Kirito decided to follow her advice and use the inn room to log out. As a sudden change from standing to a lying down caused a strong sense of vertigo, he decided to use the "sleep off" approach to log out, literally falling asleep, which would automatically log him off. As he laid in bed, Yui returned to her original form and asks whether she could sleep with him before he logged out. Although surprised by the request, understanding Yui's wish to be exposed to new data, he agreed and made room for her. He fell asleep as he promised to Yui that, as soon as Asuna was safe, they would purchase a house in-game and live as a family again.



As Kirito and Leafa left for the World Tree the next day on January 21, under Leafa's advice, Kirito decided to buy some new equipment to replace his starting equipment. He replaced his beginner's sword (stating that it was too light) and purchased a sword as large as him. Both departed Swilvane by the Tower of Wind to gain an altitude boost. After fighting some aerial monsters, both eventually took a rest after their wings' flying time was depleted. They then decided to rotational logout to have one of them protect the other's body while the other took a short break in the real world.

Kirito and Leafa fought through many orcs while heading towards the neutral mining town of Legrue. As Leafa explained to Kirito about Spriggan magic, she also told him to remember the chanting, as it could save their lives one day. Yui detected many players coming behind them, and so both fairies hid in a gap in the wall, and Leafa cast a hiding spell to cover the gap up. After a short time of waiting, Kirito noticed a bat coming towards them, and Leafa realized that it was a high-level tracer. She quickly destroyed it and told him to run, stating that the bat was a fire-attribute familiar, and therefore Salamanders were pursuing them.



As the two tried to reach League, the Salamanders cast a high-level Earth Wall spell to block the entrance of the town. Kirito asked Leafa to be supported to heal him when he was hit while engaging the enemy head-on. The Salamander party cornering them consisted of three tanks and nine mages. Kirito tried to attack the tanks, dealing some damage, but three healer mages quickly healed them while the other six offense mages then cast offensive fire spells at Kirito, greatly injuring him. As the fight progressed, he tried to get close to the tanks and tried to move their shields, but was forced to jump back after the mages cast another set of fireballs on him. As Leafa provided Kirito a magic-protection shield by Yui's advice, Kirito transformed into a Gleam Eyes-like creature and easily ruined the Salamanders' formation, sparing one to interrogate. After being bribed with the items Kirito had received for killing the other Salamanders, the mage told them why they had gone after the two. After the mage was given the items and happily left, Leafa wondered why Recon was sending messages and under Kirito's advice, logged out. After logging back in, she told him what the problem was and that he should work for the Salamanders, but he refused and decided to assist Leafa with her problem.



After rushing past groups of Orcs, they exited the caves, and headed towards Butterfly Valley to try to stop the Salamander attack force from killing leaders of Cait Sith and Sylph that are going to sign treaties. As the leader of the Lancers, Eugene, was about to order the lancers to attack them, Kirito landed with a boom and expressed a wish to speak with the commander of the attack force. After Kirito told the commander that he was an ambassador to the Spriggan-Undine alliance, being there for "trade" reasons and that the Salamander attack would be considered as a war declaration against the four races, Eugene thought that he was bluffing because of his gear and having no guards with him. Thus Eugene challenged Kirito, which he accepts and both began to fight. By taking advantage of his Dual Blades proficiency in SAO, a Smokescreen magic, and opponent's expectancy, he quickly defeated Eugene and left players who watched the battle were in a state of shock at the fact that a Spriggan had managed to defeat the strongest player in ALO with weapons inferior to Eugene's Demonic Sword Gram that have magical ability. Under Kirito's request, Eugene was revived, and, after being revived, he contemplated on Kirito's statement of the Spriggan-Undine alliance. Kagemune then came out from the Salamander ranks and lied about Kirito having ties with an Undine, "confirming" this alliance, thus Eugene and his troops left on good terms, as they did not want to wage war on 4 races simultaneously.

After the fight, the two leaders attempted to seduce Kirito into joining their respective army, however, he declined their offers, stating that he needed to get to the World Tree to see someone. As the alliance had just started and the group was low on money to buy gear, he gave them a large package of coins each worth 100,000 Yrd, which they gratefully accepted. He quickly left with Leafa and both flew towards Alne.

Before they could reach Alne in the early morning hours of January 22, the two triggered a trap that forcefully transported them to Jötunheimr, a large and high-difficulty maze. There, they found and helped Tonky against a group of Undine players and left the place successfully with it to reach Alne. After that, Kirito and Leafa decided to take a rest. After being notified by the system that maintenance was shutting the servers off for three hours, they decided to log off at an inn not too expensive, as Kirito was now broke. He asked Yui to find a cheap inn, and she pointed them to one and they both logged off.

In the morning in the real world, Kazuto greeted Suguha and they decided to go the hospital together. Kazuto then told his sister that the government plans to use a local school to hold the students from SAO. The two later arrived at the hospital where Asuna was being cared for. After the visit, they go back to ALfheim. While walking through a street of Alne, Yui told Kirito that Asuna was right above them. In a desperate act to reach her, he blasted off to the World Tree, hoping to find her there.

As Kirito was flying towards the World Tree, Leafa tried to warn him of a barrier the admins had put after several players nearly managed to reach the top of the Tree that way. He tried to attack the barrier but to no avail. Yui then used her Warning mode to contact her, and Asuna eventually heard her voice. She then dropped an admin card, and Kirito caught the card, not knowing what it was but knowing that Asuna had heard them. As Kirito went to the base of the World Tree to get to the top, two Guardian statues blocked the door and asked if he was willing to challenge the Grand Quest.



Kirito quickly accepted the challenge and ascended towards the top of the tree. As he flew upwards, multiple Guardian Knights spawned and tried to stop him. After killing several of them, he tried to speed up and reach the top but got hit by a ranged guardian. More ranged guardians appeared and tried to stop him, however, he ignored the arrows and tried to get to the top. The melee guardians then started throwing their swords at Kirito, successfully hitting him and causing him to stop and bleed out from the damage, turning into a Remain Light.

He began to doubt his strength, having flashbacks from SAO. He was then rescued by Leafa, who revived him outside the World Tree. As he apologized to Leafa and told her that he needed to rescue Asuna, Leafa suddenly realized that Kirito was actually Kazuto, and called him big brother. Kirito then realized that Leafa was actually Suguha, who logged out in disbelief. Kirito quickly logged out of the game and tried to comfort Suguha, but to no avail. Afterward, Kazuto leaned against the door before falling in sorrow.



After some thinking, Kazuto got back up and told Suguha that he would be waiting for her on the north terrace of Alne. Suguha logged in shortly after and met up with him. They had a duel to express their feelings. During the battle, Suguha fell and let her sword go, intending to be slashed by Kirito, but instead, he caught her, shocking both of them. Kirito then told Leafa that he wanted to apologize to her, but he did not know what to say and wanted her to have a free hit on him. After both quickly apologized to each other, they met up with Recon and the three begin their second attempt on the World Tree.

As Yui told Kirito that he could reach the top because of his speed, he decided to be the attacker, while he told Recon and Leafa to support healers. Guardian Knights began to spawn again, and Kirito easily killed many of them, amazing Recon in the process. As Kirito tried to reach the top, a large number of Guardians blocked him, and while healing Kirito, a few Guardians began to target Recon and Leafa. Recon quickly took some out, and then used the Sacrifice spell to remove a large number of Guardians. Kirito then tried to get to the top again, but another large group of Guardians blocked him and they quickly refilled the gap caused by Recon's Sacrifice spell. The Guardians began to charge towards Kirito, impaling him multiple times and prompting Leafa to heal him.



As Leafa was about to be attacked, the Sylphs and a squad of Cait Sith Dragoons arrived on time. They stated that they had come to help Kirito as he had helped them with their preparations greatly earlier. The combined forces destroyed many Guardians, and Leafa tossed her sword to Kirito. Kirito then used the two swords to wipe out many Guardians with his slashing speed and ended up at the top of the World Tree. As Kirito tried to open the door, he was unable to because, as Yui told, the door was not locked by the quest, but by admins instead. As the Guardians spawned and surrounded him, he suddenly remembered about the admin card Asuna had dropped to him earlier. He gave it to Yui, who transferred the code to open the door, reaching upper levels of the World Tree.



As Yui and Kirito explored the area, Kirito realized that the Floating City atop the World Tree had been a lie along with the quest. Yui then found Asuna's location, and, after they reached the location, removed the gates, allowing Kirito and Asuna to meet again. Kirito suddenly drew his sword as he sensed an enemy coming, and Yui disappeared. The scene then transformed into a black space, and Oberon appeared, binding them both with gravity magic. Oberon then stabbed Kirito with his sword, and then sets the Pain Absorption level to 8, causing Kirito to feel some of the pain.



As Kirito helplessly watched Oberon abuse Asuna, Kayaba appeared and told him to re-think the fact that human will could overcome the system and give him his admin ID and password. Kirito then came to his senses and got back up. When Oberon tried to kick him back down, Kirito stopped the blow midway and accessed Kayaba's ID "Heathcliff" and then revoked Oberon's admin privileges. Enraged, Oberon tried to spawn Excalibur, but the system ignored his request. Kirito then repeated the same command to spawn one and gave it to him, while setting the Pain Absorption level to 0, which made Oberon panic. Kirito then told him not to run, as Kayaba had never run from him during their fight. Oberon cursed Kayaba for interfering with him, even after his death, and he tried to attack Kirito, but Kirito parried his attacks with no effort and then quickly sliced and dismembered him which let Oberon started trembling from the pain and tossed him up to stab him in the right eye, killing him, and then freed Asuna.



Kirito then logged Asuna out, and after he was the only one left, Kayaba came out and talked with him again. Kayaba gave Kirito «The Seed», and then told him he could do whatever he wanted with it. He then disappeared, and Kirito called for Yui and promised her that the two would come back to ALfheim and start again. Kirito quickly logged out and was met by Suguha, who was worried about him. Then he told Suguha that Asuna was back in the real world and Suguha let him went to the hospital so that he could meet her again, which he quickly agreed to. He got his bike and started riding towards the hospital where Asuna was being taken care of.



As Kazuto ran towards the entrance of the hospital, he was cut by an attacker. He then realized that his right arm was bleeding, and identified his attacker as Nobuyuki, who, despite being in a lot of pain, declared his intent to kill him. As Kazuto was unable to defend himself from Nobuyuki because of his bleeding arm, Nobuyuki tried to kill him but missed because of his eye being blurry. As Nobuyuki tried to perform the finishing blow again, Kazuto's thoughts of Asuna gave him the willpower to stop Nobuyuki and disarm him. Kazuto then smashed Nobuyuki's face into a van and put the knife to his neck. Thinking of all the things Nobuyuki had done to him and Asuna, Kazuto almost killed him but in the end, let him live.

Kazuto headed towards the hospital, where he reported Nobuyuki and got some of his wounds treated, before grabbing a guest card so that he could go to Asuna's room. He then met Asuna for the first time in real life and, hugging each other, they shared a kiss.

May 2025


Months later, in school, Kazuto had just finished a class and headed outside to meet up with Asuna. Kazuto told her about all the recent news, also mentioning the arrest of Nobuyuki and the end of his inhumane experiments. After a while of chatting, Kazuto quickly spaced out while thinking about Kayaba and his seed. After Asuna got Kirito out of his train of thoughts, the two enjoyed the sandwiches Asuna had made for lunch.



After school, the two and Suguha head towards the Dicey Cafe to attend the Aincrad Capture Commemorative Party. As they opened the doors of the cafe, they were surprised that everyone was already there. Shortly afterward, everyone congratulated Kazuto for completing SAO. Kazuto then went to the bar, where he was joined by Klein, Thinker, and Agil. Agil showed the progress of «The Seed» to the three.



Kazuto later logged into ALO, which was now owned by a new company, to bring Leafa to the afterparty. After he caught her falling from the sky, Leafa asked him to dance with her. Later, Kirito grabbed Leafa's hand and took her near the World Tree, where he showed Leafa the Floating Castle New Aincrad and told her that they were going to clear all one hundred floors this time. More players showed up, heading towards New Aincrad and Kirito muttered something that surprised Leafa and Asuna, before encouraging them to start moving.

Phantom Bullet Arc
On December 7, 2025, Kazuto was called by Kikuoka Seijirou, the man in charge of net crimes division, to a pastry shop to chat. Kazuto learned about the GGO players found dead in their homes, as well as the play calling himself «Death Gun» who harassed them prior to their disconnection from the game. After hearing about the potential threat to MMO game security Kazuto agreed to investigate GGO for a fee and notified Asuna of his decision to convert his avatar, though he kept the reason secret.

Six days later, a hospital room was set up for Kazuto to FullDive in, with Aki Natsuki, the nurse who had taken care of him during the SAO incident, assigned to observe him for any abnormalities in his condition during the dives. Upon entering GGO at the hospital, Kirito was stunned at the extremely feminine appearance of his avatar. Though initially disappointed and discomforted at its lack of intimidation and aggressive aura, Kirito determined it would still help him be conspicuous among the players of GGO and attract Death Gun's attention.

Having become lost while trying to find the location where registration for the Bullet of Bullets was being held, Kirito attempted to ask another player for directions. Upon realizing that the person was female, he became concerned that the girl would think he was just flirting with her, rather than being genuinely lost. However, being mistaken for a girl due to his appearance, Kirito was instead offered her assistance. Kirito decided to make use of the misunderstanding and inquired on the location of the administrative office and an equipment store. As the girl was heading for the administrative building as well, Kirito was escorted to the marketplace along the way.



At the marketplace, the two realized that Kirito only had starter funds after his conversion. When Sinon offered to lend some credits, Kirito declined the offer due to guilt and instead inquired about gambling within GGO as a way to quickly earn money. Thus, he was directed to the bullet dodging game named Untouchable!, the objective of which was to get as close to an NPC cowboy gunman as possible while dodging his gunfire. After learning the mechanics of Bullet Lines from Sinon, Kirito decided to try the game himself. Using his previous experience with NPC targeting, he managed to evade the cowboy's shots by following his eyes and touch the NPC's chest, winning the jackpot.



Kirito used all his funds in buying a photon sword, a Kagemitsu G4, an FN Five-Seven and some equipment to participate in the 3rd Bullet of Bullets event. After a rush through the city, he and Sinon entered the tournament. During the tournament, Kirito used an original battle style of deflecting incoming bullets with his sword. Kirito and Sinon managed to get into the finals held the next day, although Kirito was shocked by his encounter with Death Gun.



The next day, Kazuto was confronted by Suguha, who discovered that he was mentioned in a video games news site as one of the participants of the Bullet of Bullets tournament. Kazuto waited for the afternoon to head to the hospital. Before he logged into GGO, he shared his guilt of having killed three Laughing Coffin members to stop them from harming others and then forcefully forgetting about their deaths. In response, he was comforted by Natsuki, who reminded him of his right to save others and himself. Upon entering the game, where he saw Sinon and asked her to tell him more about the finals. In the tournament finals, while trailing Pale Rider by hiding underwater, he was able to avoid the Satellite Scan and thus unintentionally sneak up on Sinon. He and Sinon then witnessed Death Gun dispatching Pale Rider despite their efforts to stop him. Afterward, they trailed Death Gun to the central city on the stage, where Kirito took out Musketeer X, mistaking her for Death Gun, and returned just in time to save Sinon from the real Death Gun, who had been hiding with a Metamaterial Optical Camouflage Mantle. They managed to escape and hid in the desert, where Sinon told him her past, which Kirito responded to by comforting her.



After talking for a while, they figured out the secret behind Death Gun: he attained the addresses of some of the players by using his mantle to peep on them while they were using the in-game terminals and inputting personal details. His accomplice would then kill the selected targets in the real world by injecting a lethal dose of a drug. Realising this, Kirito and Sinon prepared a plan to defeat Death Gun, using Kirito as bait. Initiating their plan, Kirito stepped out of the cave while Sinon prepared her equipment. Trusting Sinon to take care of their other opponent, Yamikaze, Kirito focused on sensing for Death Gun's location. After Sinon defeated Yamikaze and destroyed Death Gun's sniping equipment, Kirito engaged with him in battle, in which Kirito discovered the identity of his opponent. During the battle, Kirito had a difficult time gaining the upper hand. However, he later sensed Asuna's hand which reminded him of the existence of his pistol, which he then used to imitate the «Double Circular» Sword Skill with the gun and his sword, finally killing Death Gun. Once they were the only two competitors left, Kirito and Sinon exchanged personal details and planned what to do next. The tournament then ended when Sinon used a gift grenade to have them both killed at the same time, thus ending the tournament as a tie.

After logging out, Kirito hurried over to Shino's house and arrived just in time to save her from Death Gun's first accomplice. Two days later, he visited Shino's school and took her to meet Seijirou. After discussing the recent incident, he brought her to the Dicey Cafe, where they met with Asuna and Rika, as well as a woman Shino had saved during the incident in the post office.

Calibur
At 09:30 on December 28, 2025, Kazuto was shown by Suguha an article detailing the discovery of the Holy Sword Excalibur. As the weapon had not actually been acquired yet, Kazuto resolved to retrieve the blade before anyone else, and thus gathered Asuna, Keiko, Rika, Ryoutarou, and Shino for an expedition to Jötunheimr.

Mother's Rosario
After seeing both Lisbeth and Leafa relatively easily defeated by «Absolute Sword Yuuki», Kirito decided to try dueling her himself, using only a single sword. Midway during the duel, he had a suspicion about his opponent and asked her whether she had completely become a resident of the virtual world. Instead of a response, Kirito was assaulted with a high-speed attack and lost the duel.

Kirito later appeared in front of the 27th Floor boss room to prevent a large guild from interfering with the Sleeping Knight's attempt at beating the Floor Boss. As the guild attempted to launch various spells at him, Kirito revealed his Outside System Skill «Spell Blast» - using Sword Skills to strike the center of the incoming spells to neutralize them. He then drew his second sword, the «Holy Sword Excalibur», to distract the guild long enough for the Sleeping Knights to enter the boss room. He, along with Klein, held off the guild for three minutes before succumbing to the overwhelming numbers.

Several days later, Kazuto pointed Asuna to the hospital Yuuki was in when Asuna told him she wanted to meet her again. He then helped the Sleeping Knights clear the 28th Floor with his friends. Sometime later, he faced against Yuuki in the ALO Duel Tournament finals using only a single sword but ended up losing again.

Alicization Arc
Recruited by Kikuoka for an experiment with a new form of VR system, developed by the mysterious company Rath, Kirito awoke in a fantasy style forest with no memory of how he got there. There, he met a teenage woodcutter named Eugeo, who seemed too lifelike to be an NPC.

Alicization Beginning
Kazuto met Shino at the Dicey Cafe, where they talked while waiting for Asuna to arrive. When she arrived, they showed Shino that Asuna was able to monitor Kazuto's pulse via the monitor he had implanted for his part-time job. They proceed to talk about Kazuto's part-time job, which involved FullDiving using a new generation FullDive machine. After Kazuto's long explanation about the theory of the new generation device, they departed and Kazuto insisted to accompany Asuna to her house. But just before arriving, he noticed that they were being followed, and faced the stalker, Kanamoto Atsushi (Johnny Black). He defended Asuna, but was injected with Succinylcholine and was later taken in an ambulance. Although Kazuto managed to survive, he suffered severe brain damage. Secretly, Kazuto's body was intercepted by the Kikuoka Seijirou as he was supposedly being transferred to a different hospital. Kazuto's body was taken to the Ocean Turtle where he was connected to the Soul Translator to treat his damaged neural pathways.

Kirito awoke in a forest in an unknown place, wondering where he was. He heard a strange noise and at the source of the noise, he met a boy called Eugeo, who explained to him the basics of the world and took him to his hometown, Rulid Village. In the town, he met other people and decided to stay there. Kirito unintentionally caused Selka Zuberg to run into a certain cave and get captured, causing Kirito and Eugeo to go after her. They defeated the Goblins, but Eugeo was heavily wounded. Kirito awakened Selka, who was lying in a cart, and Selka, with Kirito's assistance, saves Eugeo. They all returned back to the village. Eugeo finished his current Sacred Task and chose his next: to be a swordsman.

Alicization Running
Several months had passed since Kirito and Eugeo had left Rulid Village and had been working as stable boys for a family of farmers. On the 28th Day of the 8th Month they participated in the Zakkaria Sword Arts Tournament, where he faced Egome Zakkalight, a sixth class noble, who used a stronger sword to have an advantage against Kirito, but the latter used his «Snake Bite» Sword Skill to break Egome's sword and win.

Months later he, along with Eugeo, enrolled in the Norlangarth Sword Master Academy and became valets for the elite swordsmen. One day, Kirito was training with his mentor, Sortiliena Serlut, and after the practice, he returned to his dorm and spoke to Eugeo, who reminded him that the next day, after a complete year, he would receive the sword that was carved from the branch of the Gigas Cedar.

When he returns to the Academy with his new sword, he practiced his Sword Skills to show them to Sortiliena later, but when he attempted to perform a five-hit Sword Skill in the forest to challenge the limit of his new sword in secret, he lost control and stained the shirt of Uolo Levanteinn, the head elite swordsman who was watching him, with mud. As punishment, he had to spar with Uolo, who tried to win in one hit as always, but Kirito stopped him with the four hits of «Vertical Square». A supervisor intervened and declared a tie, thus ending the duel.

Alicization Turning
Kirito had become an elite-swordsman in the academy, and thus, he now had a valet. One and a half months in the new school year, on the 17th of the 5th Month, he entered his and Eugeo's room from the window with a bag of honey pies, took a pair for Eugeo and himself, and gave the rest to their respective valets, Tiese Shtolienen and Ronye Arabel. Eugeo reminded him that they have a test on Sacred Arts that he was not good at, so he stayed in his room studying while Eugeo practiced.

Days later, he went to a picnic with Eugeo and their valets, where the latter reveals to Kirito and Eugeo about Humbert Zizek's mistreatment of Frenica Szeski, his valet. Since Eugeo was flustered, Kirito accompanied him to Raios Antinous and Humbert's room to discuss the matter with them; the nobles played dumb and the matter was left as such.

Days later, Kirito was maintaining his sword with Eugeo, and both were waiting for their valets to arrive. They became worried when it turned out that the valets were running late and Kirito decided to look for them, exiting through the window. When he returned to his room, Frenica informed him that Ronye, These, and Eugeo were in Raios and Humbert's room. He arrived at the scene just in time to stop Raios from killing Eugeo. As they faced each other, he inexplicitly transformed his sword from a one-handed to a two-handed one and used Whirl Current to beat him, and, at the same time, cutting his arms off.

Kirito and Eugeo were arrested for breaking the Taboo Index and were given into Alice's (now an Integrity Knight) custody the following day. They were then taken to the prison under the Central Cathedral by Alice.

They managed to escape from the prison and arrive at the courtyard of the Cathedral, where they faced the Integrity Knight Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-one. After an intense battle, Eugeo recalled that Eldrie was the winner of the Four Empires Unity tournament held the previous month. Noticing that this revelation could highlight some peculiarities in Eldrie's memory, Kirito joined Eugeo in awakening Eldrie's memory, which caused the Knight to enter a state of shock. As more and more of Eldrie's life details were revealed, a purple prism began to protrude out of Eldrie's forehead. However, at this point, another Integrity Knight attacked the youngsters by firing arrows at them with a bow from atop a flying dragon. Kirito and Eugeo then began to retreat into the Cathedral's garden, while getting directions from Charlotte pulling Kirito's hair in a certain direction at every crossroad. Once they arrived at what seemed to be a dead end, they were called by a young looking girl to escape through a door which Kirito had not noticed before. Thus they entered the Great Library Room, where the girl introduced herself as Cardinal.

In the library, he was separated from Eugeo by Cardinal for her to tell him her story and what had happened in Underworld before requesting his help to overthrow Quinella.

Alicization Rising
After Cardinal finished her story, he said that he wanted to save her and the people of Underworld. After reuniting with Eugeo, Cardinal helped the two swordsmen create their own Armament Full Control Arts before the two headed out into the Central Cathedral again.

Once they were back in the Central Cathedral, they made their way to the Equipment Vault where the Blue Rose Sword and Kirito's black sword were being kept. Upon finding their swords, they were then found by Deusolbert, whom they then fought against and defeated.

After Deusolbert was defeated, he asked them to kill him, as he had failed his task, and therefore he would be punished accordingly. However, they rejected his request, until Eugeo heard the knight's name, and remembered that he was the one that took Alice away. Eugeo then wanted to harm him, however, he was then stopped by Kirito.

They then continued on their way up to the top of the Cathedral. On the way to the 29th floor, they met Fizel and Linel, who claimed to be "Sister Apprentices" which was soon proven to be false, as the girls paralyzed Kirito and Eugeo with poisoned daggers while revealing that they were, in fact, Integrity Knights. The girls then made their way up to the 50th floor, dragging the paralyzed duo with them so that they could be executed in front of the other Integrity Knights.

Once they reached the 50th floor, it was revealed that Kirito had determined that the girls were lying before they paralysed Eugeo and himself and noticed that they were carrying blades made from «poison steel from Rubery», so while Eugeo was chatting with them, he had chanted an antidote Sacred Art to counter the effects of the poison. He paralyzed both Fizel and Lionel and then requested to battle with Fanatio Synthesis Two in an individual duel. However, Fanatio declined the offer, thus Kirito was forced to fight four other Integrity Knights while Fanatio recited her «Armament Full Control Art».

Kirito defeated the four Integrity Knights, and leaped at Fanatio with «Sonic Leap»; however, as he reached the peak of his jump, she finished her «Armament Full Control Art» which upset the trajectory of Kirito's Secret Move as it hit him with a powerful ray of light. Kirito continued to defend against Fanatio, and after getting an upper hand, he found out that Fanatio was a woman. Eugeo took a hand in the fight and used his Blue Rose Sword's «Armament Full Control Art» to freeze Fanatio. Even though Fanatio was frozen for a few moments, she broke through the ice with her Heaven Piercing Sword. She activated her «Armament Full Control Art» once again, which Kirito countered with his own «Armament Full Control Art».

Due to the fight, Fanatio was mortally wounded, so Kirito decided to use the dagger, which Cardinal had given to him to use on Administrator, on Fanatio to save her life. After Cardinal took Fanatio to save her, Kirito and Eugeo made their past the door that the knights were guarding, where, instead of stairs, they found the Cathedral's equivalent of an elevator and met a young girl who was known by the name "Elevating Operator". She took Kirito and Eugeo to the 80th floor where they met Alice, sitting in the «Cloudtop Garden» waiting for them.

Alice spoke to the two boys, telling them that she had thought Eldrie would be sufficient to cope with the two prisoners in the off chance that they escaped; however, they had surprised her by defeating him, as well as Deusolbert and Fanatio, who possessed Divine Objects. Alice placed her hand on the tree, stating that she would have to fight them, and her Fragrant Olive Sword appeared in her hand, revealing that the tree was her sword in its original form. As Kirito began to attack, the Fragrant Olive Sword split into several petals, capable of killing with ease. Kirito suggested a fair fight, and Alice agreed. Kirito attacked in hopes of surpassing the knight with chain attacks but failed. Due to the Fragrant Olive Sword's high level of Priority, Kirito could only defend himself until Eugeo intervened and froze Alice. Alice broke herself free but, before she could reassemble her sword, Kirito unleashed his Armament Full Control against her sword to keep Alice occupied while Eugeo used Cardinal's dagger. However, the clash of between the two Armament Full Control Arts resulted in a torrent that struck the supposedly indestructible wall and created a hole, which sucked Kirito and Alice out of the Central Cathedral.

Relationships

 * See Kirigaya Kazuto/Relationships

One-Handed Sword

 * Horizontal
 * Horizontal Arc
 * Horizontal Square
 * Rage Spike
 * Sharp Nail
 * Slant
 * Spinning Shield
 * Sonic Leap
 * Vertical
 * Vertical Arc
 * Vertical Square
 * Vorpal Strike

Martial Arts

 * Senda
 * Gengetsu
 * Embracer
 * Meteor Fall
 * Meteor Break
 * Escape

Dual Blades

 * Double Circular
 * Starburst Stream
 * The Eclipse
 * Cross Block

Outside System Skills

 * Arms Blast - The act of destroying a weapon by attacking one of its weakpoints with a powerful blow.
 * Hypersense - The act of sensing the "killing intent" of another player.
 * Mislead - The act of tricking a monster's learning function to burden them.

One-Handed Sword

 * Deadly Sins
 * Howling Octave
 * Lightning Fall
 * Savage Fulcrum
 * Vertical Square
 * Vorpal Strike

Outside System Skills

 * Spell Blast - The act of intercepting a spell using a Sword Skill.
 * Skill Connect - The act of chaining multiple one-handed weapon Sword Skills to avoid the post-motion delay imposed by the use of Sword Skills.
 * Hypersense - The act of sensing the "killing intent" of another player.

Outside System Skills

 * Bullet Deflect - Using a photon sword to block bullets.
 * Distinguish - Eliminating background noise by concentrating on an unnatural or certain sound to detect another player's movement.
 * Hypersense - Being able to sense the "killing intent" of another player.
 * Sword Skill imitation - Imitating the use of Sword Skills from Sword Art Online and ALfheim Online without the system assistance.

Aincrad style

 * Horizontal
 * Rage Spike
 * Sharp Nail
 * Snake Bite
 * Sonic Leap
 * Spinning Shield
 * Vertical Square
 * Vorpal Strike
 * Majority of other Sword Skills from Sword Art Online.

Serlut Style

 * Whirling Current (Cyclone)

Notable Achievements

 * Cleared the death game, «Sword Art Online»
 * Reached the top of the World Tree, «ALfheim Online»
 * 2nd Place in «ALfheim Online» Cross Territory Race
 * 2nd Place in «ALfheim Online» Swordsman Tournament (without Dual wielding)
 * Co-winner of the Third «Bullet of Bullets» (alongside Sinon), «Gun Gale Online»
 * Owner of the legendary sword «Excalibur» in «ALfheim Online»

Gallery

 * See Kirigaya Kazuto/Image Gallery

Trivia

 * The name Kirito is a contraction of his real name, Kirigaya Kazuto ("Kiri" from Kirigaya and "to" from Kazuto).
 * Kazuto currently lives at Kawagoe City in the Saitama prefecture with his family, though his uncle is frequently away from home.
 * Kazuto has notable skill with computers, managing to build a computer from parts during elementary school, finding his erased records in the national registry at the age of ten, as well as managing to stop the SAO server from deleting Yui by converting her program into an object and storing her into his NerveGear as environmental data.
 * Kazuto rides a bike which has also had a multitude of passengers including Asuna, Suguha, and Shino.
 * Kirito is a two-time first place winner for the Top 10 Male Characters in the Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! awards (for 2012 and 2013). He placed third in 2011 and 2014.
 * Kirito/Kazuto usually refers to himself using the personal pronoun ore (俺).
 * Kirito likes calculating random things, like the volume of the cake that he is going to eat.
 * Kirito has a tendency of using a window instead of a door to exit the room more quickly, usually when he senses danger or in awkward situations, though sometimes just for convenience.
 * Kirito's favorite skill is fishing. He even continues raising his fishing skill in ALO.
 * Kirito has attempted to climb Aincrad via its outer wall. However, his ascent was halted by a system barrier, nearly causing him to fall to his death.
 * Kirito uses a self-made PC with a 24 GHz octa-core CPU.
 * If Kirito were to be an animal, he would be an orange wolf.
 * Kirito's favorite food is Teriyaki chicken burgers.
 * Kirito used to dislike spring onions until Asuna cooked it for him.
 * Kirito said he would have went after Asuna sooner, if she had not been cute, and also regretted not going out with her sooner, as he only ate good food in SAO after getting along with Asuna.
 * Kirito tried wielding three swords but gave up since. Apparently, it felt like his teeth would fall out.
 * Kazuto/Kirito likes to poke on the cheeks of sleeping girls. He has already done that with Asuna, Yui and Suguha.
 * Kirito said that it seemed that everyone in SAO, including Asuna, viewed him as being older than he really was and, since he had never denied it, he had trouble admitting it to her at some point in the story.
 * Kirito suspected Asuna to be older than him but thought she probably viewed him older than he really was.
 * Kazuto got an extremely average IQ score in the test he took during middle school.
 * Ever since the second year in SAO, Kirito has been known to sleep a lot. His sleep also seems to be an "AOE" skill, as people looking at him sleeping, with Pina and Yui sleeping on him, get sleepy themselves. He himself states that sleeping when one can is the 2nd most essential point of the Aincrad-style.
 * Kirito was an ideal person whom Kawahara wanted to become. Kawahara commented that he always hesitates to act, pointing out that it took him seven years to finally apply for the Dengeki Award.
 * Kirito's preference for black clothing began with the first rare item he obtained from a boss drop: the black coat called the «Coat of Midnight». After that, he began to like colour black and, by the end of the game, all of his clothes were mainly black.
 * According to Yui, Kirito's in-game yawns last about eight seconds on average.
 * When doing Kirito's GGO character design, abec first drew him with breasts to not think of him as being male and then erased the breasts when the designs were done.
 * Kazuto's GGO avatar is informally referred to as «Kiriko» . The series' author acknowledged this as a commonly used name.
 * In Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet, a non-canon game adaptation set in Gun Gale Online, Kirito's secondary avatar, with his canon Gun Gale Online appearance, was registered in the game as «Kiriko» by Kikuoka Seijirou, when he created the avatar for Kirito to use for the Bullet of Bullets.
 * In an official character popularity poll hosted by Dengeki Bunko for the cover of abec Art Works, Kazuto's SAO avatar ranked fourth, GGO avatar ranked nineteenth, his Alicization avatar ranked twenty-eighth, while his real life persona ranked twenty-second.
 * In the web version, Kazuto's avatar in SAO's beta was twenty centimetres higher than his actual height and with long, mint color hair.

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