Nagata Shinichi

Nagata Shinichi (長田伸一), known as Recon (レコン) in «ALfheim Online» (ALO), is a Sylph player who excels at using daggers, stealth and dark magic in combat. In real life, he is a friend and classmate of Kirigaya Suguha. As Recon, Shinichi acted as Leafa's in-game character's mentor, until she surpassed him.

Real Life
Nagata Shinichi is a bespectacled boy of average height with short black hair. He has a tendency to wear a brown trench coat over his school uniform that consists of a black long-sleeved shirt with yellow buttons and a matching pair of pants. He also wears a pair of blue sneakers.

ALfheim Online Avatar
Though his appearance was randomly generated, Leafa notes that Recon looks similar to his actual self. He is a teenage Sylph with yellow-green bob-styled hair and green eyes, the colour of which he adjusted after paying an additional fee to match his sense of aesthetics, as he thought that their balance was off. Recon also has a delicate body, and long pointed ears. He usually wears an expression that makes him appear to be on the verge of tears.

Recon wears a hooded long-sleeved green cardigan, under which he wears a long dark green shirt covered by a dark blue vest. He wears a pair of brown pants with armor around his shins and a pair of dark gray shoes. He also wears a belt with his dagger strapped to its back.

History
Shinichi was approached by his classmate Suguha who asked him to teach her to play Virtual Reality games. When Suguha revealed that she could not afford to cut down her time for kendo and studying, Shinichi suggested ALfheim Online since it was not time-intensive and was based on player skills. He then proceeded to play the game with her, acting as her mentor and partner.

Fairy Dance Arc


After being ambushed by a group of Salamanders, Recon began to suspect their party leader, Sigurd, as it was unlike of him to act as a distraction. Having parted with Leafa at the Tower of Wind, Recon decided to follow Sigurd by using his «Hollow Body» transparency spell to remain hidden, initially to look for a chance to assassinate Sigurd with poison for saying bad things to Leafa in the Tower of Wind. However, when Recon witnessed Sigurd using an invisibility cloak in front of an ally in an alley, he decided to follow him into the sewers of Swilvane.

In the sewers, Recon observed Sigurd's meeting with two Salamanders, during which he heard Sigurd commanding the Salamanders to attach a Tracer on Leafa, as well as conspiring with them to have a large attack force of Salamanders attack an alliance conference between the Sylphs and the Cait Siths taking place in a neutral territory that day. Recon understood that the Cait Siths would most likely hold the Sylphs responsible for the death of their Lord, thus sabotaging the alliance and possibly instigating a war between the two races.

As Recon attempted to leave the sewer and warn Leafa, he accidentally kicked a stone, thus revealing his presence to the Salamanders and prompting them to use Searchers to counter his spell. Before Recon could manage to escape, he was shot at with a poison arrow, which paralysed him and allowed the Salamanders to capture him. As he was now unable to warn Leafa or the Sylphs at the conference in-game, he resorted to calling Suguha in real life to notify her about Sigurd's conspiracy. Because of Recon's warning, Leafa and Kirito managed to reach the conference just in time to save the Lords, preventing the possible war between the Sylphs and Cait Siths, if the attack would have succeeded.



Once his paralysis had expired, Recon killed the two Salamanders with poison. Having escaped from the sewers, Recon decided to travel to Alne, which required a full night to pass through the mountain range. After reaching the city, Recon reunited with Leafa at the south terrace, just outside the dome to the World Tree. Hearing that Leafa was planning to disband her party with Kirito, the young Sylph confessed his love for her, only to receive a punch to the solar plexus.

Some time later, Recon was persuaded by Leafa to help her and Kirito attempt the Guardians of the World Tree quest. Initially, Recon was supposed to stay near the ground with Leafa and help her in chanting healing spells to keep Kirito, who went for the gate, alive. It was expected that the guardians would focus on attacking Kirito, as monsters usually did not attack players who were not in the detection range of the mob and did not use long-range weapons or offensive spells, so using only healing magic from afar should have guaranteed safety to both Leafa and Recon.

However, as the attack pattern of the guardians was different from that of normal monsters, some of the guardians started targeting the two Sylphs. Realizing the importance of the mission and likely wanting to protect Leafa, Recon changed from using healing spells to using wide area wind attribute offensive spells to draw the attention of the stray guardians, with the amount of guardians chasing Recon increasing each time Leafa used a healing spell, while dodging their blows as much as possible. He ultimately decided to sacrifice himself by using a high level Dark attribute self-destruction spell, despite knowing that it would entail a high death penalty. His spell killed a large number of guardians and gave the Sylph and Cait Sith reinforcements enough time to arrive.

New Aincrad
Recon later accepted an offer from the Sylph Lord, Lady Sakuya, and became a member of the Lord manor staff.

Mother's Rosario
Recon appeared once again at the barbeque held at Kirito and Asuna's Forest House, showing jealousy when Leafa talked with Tecchi. Later on, he appeared when Asuna summoned many players throughout ALO to keep Yuuki company in her final moments.

Magic
Aside from the Wind Magic that his race specialize in, Recon is a master of stealth magic and is one of the few Sylphs known to be able to cast Darkness attribute magic.
 * «Hollow Body» - Due to him possessing a high level of stealth magic and being gifted in covert operations, Recon is capable of using Hollow Body, his most adept transparency skill that makes him invisible to both players and monsters alike.
 * Healing Magic - An unnamed healing spell that allows him to heal a certain percentage of a target's HP.
 * Vacuum blades magicWind Blade.png - A weak, unnamed wind-attribute spell that affects multiple enemies in a wide area. When cast, several green blades would spread from the caster in a fan-like fashion and attack those in a specific area. Recon is somehow able to enhance the spell, changing the spell's usual 5 boomerang-shape wind blades into 5 wind gust-like blades.
 * Self-destruct magic Sacrifice.png - An unnamed, high-level, darkness-attribute self-destruction spell. When activated, this spell causes a massive explosion that causes a huge amount of damage to the surrounding area, obliterating those around the target. Due to the sheer power of this spell, the player would sacrifice his life in order to activate it and would suffer a death penalty several times worse than the normal one.

Trivia

 * Shinichi/Recon usually refers to himself using the personal pronoun boku (僕), written in kanji.
 * Recon's name (pronounced as Rekon, although the English word is supposed to be pronounced as Rīkon) is spelled in English and refers to the U.S. military reconnaissance team.
 * Living up to his name, Recon is considered to be one of the best trackers among the Sylphs. Because of this, he takes up the role as lead tracker during hunting expeditions.
 * Despite his somewhat unreliable attitude, Recon is a veteran in ALfheim Online and has mastered the use of daggers in combat. However, his inability to use Voluntary Flight makes him incapable of fighting effectively in midair.

Gallery

 * See: Nagata Shinichi/Image Gallery

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