Ayano Keiko

Ayano Keiko (綾野珪子), known as Silica (シリカ) in «Sword Art Online» (SAO), «ALfheim Online» (ALO), and «Project Alicization», is a supporting character in the Aincrad Arc, one of the main characters of the Girls Ops spinoff, along with Kirigaya Suguha (Leafa) and Shinozaki Rika (Lisbeth), and a reoccurring character throughout the Sword Art Online series. Silica is one of the 10,000 players who were trapped in Sword Art Online, where she was a dagger-wielding Beast Tamer. She currently plays ALfheim Online as a Cait Sith.

Background
Despite Sword Art Online being the first Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online (VRMMO) game Silica had ever played, she became the first player to tame a Feathered Little Dragon, which she named Pina, after her cat in the real world. She was introduced as a character whose parties treated her as a mascot, and who was immensely popular on the middle floors due to her pet and her status as one of the rare Beast Tamers. She is in the youngest age group of SAO players that are still active.

Personality
Silica is very kind, bright, cheerful, and supportive of her friends. She also has developed a deep attachment to Pina to the point that she was heartbroken to see it die and overjoyed when told that there was a way to revive it.

At some point, Silica had become arrogant due to her fame, but realised her mistake after this led to her getting lost in the Forest of Wandering and losing Pina.

Silica is also easily embarrassed and flustered, especially when it comes to a romance scenario, such as grabbing Kirito's hand, spotting many couples around her, or having her skirt flipped by a monster.

The Black Swordsman
After a dispute with Rosalia over the distribution of healing items, Silica left the party in the middle of their hunt. She traveled the Forest of Wandering alone but quickly lost her way due to the dungeon's unique design, forcing her to exhaust her healing supplies. During an attack from multiple «Drunk Apes», her Tamed Monster Pina sacrificed itself by intercepting an attack aimed at Silica. In a state of rage, she defeated the ape that killed her partner and was about to engage the other two apes in a suicidal attack when the apes were suddenly defeated by Kirito. From him, Silica learnt of an item that could be used to resurrect Pina. Although the item was located in an area outside her level range, she resolved to go one day, but then discovered that she only had three days to do so before the time limit for reviving a familiar expired. As Kirito offered to help her get there, Silica asked for the reason why he was so helpful, and discovered that she resembled his sister, which Silica found hilarious. The two returned to town, where they decided to stay the night in an inn in order to discuss their plans to retrieve the «Pneuma Flower».

The next day, after an embarrassing moment over their sleeping locations, they journeyed to find the Pneuma Flower at the Hill of Memories. Despite encountering monsters such as the Garish Gerbera and Land Anemone, they reached their goal but were ambushed by Rosalia and members of the «Titan's Hand» guild on their way back. To Silica's surprise, Kirito was able to easily deal with the orange players and, after he sent them to the Black Iron Castle to be imprisoned and placed under the custody of «The Army», the two returned to Mishe, where they finally agreed to meet again, but in the real world. In the process of getting the flower, she gained feelings for him, but once she realized his skills, she realized that they could never be together in the game and began seeing him as a big brother figure, but continued to have feelings for him. Later on it was revealed that Pina was revived.

Fairy Dance Arc
After Asuna was rescued, Keiko and Rika (Lisbeth) made a pact that they would give Kirigaya Kazuto (Kirito) and Yuuki Asuna one month together without interfering before they made their individual moves on him; however they quickly regretted their decision. She joined Kirito and his friends in ALfheim Online soon after they met in the real world to explore the newly released New Aincrad.

Extra Edition
On July 25, 2025, Keiko joined Asuna and Rika in teaching Suguha how to swim, and talked about her first meeting with Kirito. Later that day, she joined the party for the «Deep Sea Plunderers» quest.

Phantom Bullet Arc
On December 14, 2025, Silica and the rest of the group gathered together in Kirito and Asuna's rented room in Yggdrasil City in ALO to watch the Bullet of Bullets tournament and support Kirito. As they watched the stream and speculated on Kirito's reasons for converting to Gun Gale Online and heretofore lack of appearances on camera, an ominously cloaked player paralyzed and apparently disconnected another competitor. When a shocked Klein identified the mantled player as a member of Laughing Coffin, Silica quickly explained to Leafa, who was the only one among them with no knowledge of the guild, the bloody atrocities the guild had committed and their eventual defeat at the hands of the Clearers.

Calibur
On December 28, 2025, Silica, along with Asuna, Klein, Leafa, Lisbeth, and Sinon joined Kirito's attempt to retrieve Excalibur.

Gallery

 * See:Ayano Keiko/Image Gallery

Trivia

 * With her avatar in SAO, she reminded Kirito of his sister, Kirigaya Suguha, despite looking very different.
 * As a Cait Sith, when Kirito grabbed her tail, she described the sensation as a "super weird feeling".
 * In the Blu-ray/DVD package volume 2, character song CD features Silica (Hidaka Rina) singing "☆Lovely Super Idol☆" as the 3rd Character Song in this series. This CD is bundled along with the 2nd Song, which is sung by Sachi (Saori Hayami)
 * Even though «Sword Art Online» is advisable for gamers above age 13, because of the age restrictions associated with the NerveGear, Silica started playing the game when she was 12 years old.
 * Keiko's family follows a tradition when naming their children. Since Keiko's grandfather was a chemist, he named his son Tetsuhiko after iron (鉄) due to Tetsuhiko being born on February 6 (2/6) and the 26th element in the periodic table being iron. Tetsuhiko continued this tradition and named his daughter Keiko after the 14th element, silicon (珪素), as Keiko was born on the 4th of October, but Tetsuhiko could not make a girl's name after the 104th element, Rutherfordium, thus resorting to merging ten and four to get fourteen.
 * Keiko's display name, Silica, means Silicon Dioxide (SiO2). She chose this name for her character due to her real name being based on silicon. The reason why she chose "Silica" instead of "Silico" was because "Silica" sounded cuter. She even ties her hair with two red ribbons to have two ring baubles which symbolize two oxygen atoms bound to her.
 * In a 4-koma non-canon spin-off, she had been stalked by Aaaa.
 * Keiko's Japanese voice actress also voices Kozuki Yuniko (Scarlet Rain) from Accel World.

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