Takamine Momiji

Takamine Momiji (高峰 紅葉), known as Kureha (クレハ) in «Gun Gale Online» (GGO), is an original Sword Art Online game character and one of the heroines in Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet. She is the Protagonist's childhood friend and is a well known Gun Gale Online player, even recognized by the top players in the game, such as Itsuki, for her reliability and good battle analysis skills.

Gun Gale Online
Kureha has a blue-eyed and pink-haired avatar, with a single ponytail to her right. Her black tanktop and white skirt is accompanied by her prominently pink jacket, along with her white gloves and boots. Her canon choice of weaponry is a Draque L Shamal submachine gun that resembles a real life Uzi as her primary, and an optical rocket launcher Deneb Kaitos as a secondary.

Personality
Kureha has a cheerful personality with a lot of energy and confidence in herself. She likes to take the lead when given the chance and is more of a solo type player, which is why she is known to jump from Squadron to Squadron. Zeliska refers to her as a carefree type as well.

In the real world, Kureha has a much more reserved personality, living under the shadow of her genius sister and trying her best not to disappoint anyone. While she claims she has the same personality in both the virtual and the real world, she actually feels a great burden on her shoulders in real life.

Background
Kureha is a long time childhood friend of the Protagonist. She was devastated when her family had to move away due to her parents's job, as well as her sister's schooling, but never blamed her sister for it. She did her best to meet the expectations and not disappoint her sister.

Fatal Bullet
When Gun Gale Online announced it would be holding a special update tournament with a hidden rare item, Momiji invited the Protagonist to assist her in the event. Having joined their friend shortly after the Protagonist logged into GGO for the first time, the girl gave the new player a brief overview of the history of VRMMOs and what made GGO unique before leading them to the tournament registration area. Along the way, the duo encountered Itsuki, leader of the renowned Alphard squadron, who complemented the gunwoman's reputation for reliability and combat analysis. After the man took his leave to enter the competition himself, Kureha ushered the Protagonist into the teleporter to the event dungeon to teach them the basics of combat.

Once Kureha felt confident the Protagonist understood GGO's battle system, the pair proceeded deeper into the dungeon in search of the rare item. However, they encountered Itsuki again, accompanied by his companion Python. Sensing they were outmatched by the top players, Kureha and the Protagonist acceded to Itsuki's request to handle a difficult monster further within the dungeon, in exchange for being allowed to leave unharmed. Having managed to vanquish the enemy, they parted ways with the top players at a fork in the road not far ahead. Shortly afterward, the two found a control panel, which the girl realized could help them progress further and began tinkering with it. However, this activated a dormant warp gate while the Protagonist was standing in the middle of the structure, teleporting the new player to a different area of the dungeon.

Unable to follow her friend through the warp gate, Kureha hurried through the dungeon until she reached the Protagonist's location, where she found them held at swordpoint by an enemy player while defending a mysterious person. The gunwoman attempted to force the enemy player to stand down but was in turn held at gunpoint by another enemy player from behind. Ultimately, the situation was defused when the first enemy player declared they no longer had a reason to fight due to the Protagonist's actions. Having settled down, Kureha learned from the enemy players, who revealed themselves to be Kirito the renowned Photon Sword Wielder and his partner Asuna, that the person the Protagonist had been attempting to protect was the rare item she had been seeking: an ArFA-Sys unit (Afasys), a player support Non-Player Character (NPC). Amazed she had clashed with such famous players without knowing it beforehand, the girl attempted to claim ownership over Afasys but was shocked to find the android had already permanently registered the Protagonist as their master. Although upset at the new player for accidentally stealing her chance at a special reward, she settled for joint ownership over their possessions.

While Asuna and Kirito took their leave to continue advancing in the tournament, Kureha and the Protagonist remained with Afasys until the NPC had finished starting up their main system, after which the girl spent the rest of the competition observing the new player as they practiced using the Ultimate Fiber Gun (UFG), an unimplemented grappling device. Once the trio was automatically transported to the SBC Glocken upon the tournament's conclusion, they were reunited with Asuna, Kirito and Itsuki, the first of whom invited them to a party to become better acquainted with each other and their circle of friends. Having accepted the offer, the gunwoman was surprised at the unusually high number of female players in the group and pleasantly relieved they did not treat her merely as a potential mascot.

After the party, as thanks for the Protagonist's aid during the tournament and apparently sharing some of their unusually good luck with her, Kureha guided the new player and Afasys around SBC Glocken's urban district and the facilities therein, giving the former a brief summary of GGO's background setting and what they could acquire in the city. While browsing a shop as part of the tour, the three encountered a gruff gunman named Bazalt Joe, who saved the Protagonist and the android from being scammed by a merchant player. Not long afterwards, Kureha and the others were invited by Kirito to a tour of the governor's office and the unique features inside, where they met several of the photon sword user's friends that were not present at the party. Having finished exploring the lobby, the girl learned that Afasys lacked several functionalities and could not unlock the SBC Flügel, a new area to be implemented as part of the Gold Rush update, until their missing parts were recovered. Therefore, she accompanied the Protagonist into the Remnant Wasteland, where they quickly located the first component.

A short while later, Kureha, Afasys, and the Protagonist were confronted by Bazalt Joe, who demanded to be given the ownership rights to the ArFA-Sys Unit. Though exasperated at the lengths the man was willing to go to make the Protagonist's Artificial Intelligence (AI) companion his own, she accepted his challenge to a duel over the matter out of concern it would be more troublesome in the long term to refuse. Therefore, the gunwoman helped the pair defeat Joe and his allies in two successive battles, whereupon they respectively received as a reward an expensive item and information on the location of the other missing ArFA-Sys unit parts.

Not long afterwards, Kureha was in the Protagonist's residence with them, Kirito, Sinon and Yuuki discussing the SBC Flügel's upcoming implementation when they were unexpectedly visited by the mysterious Zeliska and her ArFA-Sys Unit Daisy, who had found a lost Afasys and escorted them home. To the girl's astonishment, the Uncrowned Queen addressed the Protagonist in a familiar manner, as if they already knew and had gotten close to each other. Jealously remembering how she had seen Itsuki similarly treat the new player during an earlier encounter, Kureha confronted the Protagonist on how they had met Zeliska once the woman and Daisy had taken their leave. However, the gunwoman decided to put those concerns aside so as to focus on preparing for a deeper expedition into the Remnant Wasteland, where the group used the information they had won from Bazalt Joe to collect the second missing ArFA-Sys unit component.

While wandering the streets of SBC Glocken sometime later, Kureha, Afasys and the Protagonist noticed two players harassing another. Although she emphasized with her companions' desire to intervene on the beleaguered player's behalf, the girl advocated notifying a game administrator first. However, they were interrupted by Itsuki, who forced the bullies to retreat and took measures to prevent the incident from repeating itself. Amazed by how the man had handled the situation, Kureha and the others accepted his invitation to Alphard's headquarters. There, they discussed what motivated each of them and other players to start playing GGO, which eventually resulted in Itsuki deciding to accompanying them on their adventures whenever needed, to the girl's shock.

Following an encounter with Spiegel, Sinon's friend from real life with whom the sniper had a complicated history in Sword Art: Origin, Kureha, Afasys, and the Protagonist were advised by Zeliska on where to find the last of the missing ArFA-Sys Unit parts. To that end, they liberated the Remnant Wasteland by defeating its field boss in order to access the Solitary Sands, where they repeated the feat to enter the Old South. Though the trio needed to purchase information from Argo to progress further, they eventually managed to unlock a sealed dungeon in the city ruins, where they collected the third and last component. With Afasys's functionalities fully restored, Kureha assisted the Protagonist with vanquishing the remaining area bosses in the region in order to access the Forgotten Woods, where the SBC Flügel would be implemented.

Immediately afterward, Kureha was conversing with Zeliska over the Protagonist's accomplishments when she received an official announcement that the SBC Flügel had finally been released, whereupon the girl gathered in Kirito's residence with the others to discuss their next course of action. Since the group still only knew little about the ship, she drew lots with everyone else to determine who would accompany Afasys and the Protagonist on a mission to first scout the new area to ascertain the difficulty of entering it, winning the position alongside Kirito. Having reached the SBC Flügel's gate, the party was surprised to be designated as intruders by the Gatekeeper boss guarding the entrance, contrary to what the ArFA-Sys Unit had assured them. Despite their best efforts, they were unable to deal any meaningful damage to the Gatekeeper in the ensuing fight, prompting them to realize they must have missed an important condition for accessing the ship. Unwilling to retreat but reluctant to risk the Protagonist's ownership over the android should they die in their current situation, Kureha and Kirito distracted the boss so the other two could escape back to SBC Glocken.

Despite experiencing some success against the Gatekeeper after Afasys's and the Protagonist's retreat, Kureha and Kirito were ultimately unable to defeat the boss, forcing them to reluctantly return to the latter's quarters. Even though the girl reassured Afasys that they were not at fault, she was surprised to find the android had vanished while everyone else was occupied debating what to do next. Sensing the ArFA-Sys Unit still blamed themself for failing the entry quest into the SBC Flügel, Kureha decided to help the Protagonist search SBC Glocken for them with the others.

To Kureha's relief, Afasys and the Protagonist soon returned with the announcement they had discovered the final entry requirement and vanquished the Gatekeeper, thus granting the Protagonist the right to freely enter and leave the SBC Flügel. Her confidence further bolstered from learning Daisy and Zeliska would be joining them in exploring the ship, the girl decided to create a squadron with everyone else for convenience of access to the new area. However, Kureha expressed mild unease over letting the Protagonist be the squadron leader, as she had always acted as the leader between the two ever since they were children. Nonetheless, the gunwoman refused to be given the position by grace, instead declaring they would determine leadership in a duel. When Kirito, Sinon and Yuuki requested to also participate, Kureha changed the challenge into a battle royale, with Zeliska refereeing. Despite her best effort, she lost the fight and the role of leader to the Protagonist.

Despondent over her defeat and suspecting that Kirito and the others had only entered the duel because they foresaw it and wanted to soften the sting thereof, Kureha quietly snuck away from the celebration of the new squadron's establishment to be by herself in SBC Glocken's streets, where she was eventually found by Zeliska. Plagued by her complex of living in her sister's shadow, the girl admitted to the woman her concern of being overshadowed by the Protagonist as well, and her fear she would become useless in both real life and the virtual world. However, she was comforted by Zeliska's assertation that she was worth more than she thought she was, along with her encouragement to not repress her feelings.

Shortly afterwards, Kureha joined the other members of the Protagonist's squadron as they began their expedition into the SBC Flügel, where they encountered a sealed door that blocked access to the deeper areas of the dungeon. Impatient to complete the SBC Flügel quest before any other players could, she purchased information from Argo that revealed they needed to gather three keycards from the other zones to unlock the door. Having obtained two of these key cards from the Solitary Sands and the Old South, the girl and the others decided to briefly return to SBC Glocken for a break. As they entered a bar for refreshments, they noticed one of the bar's monitors streaming an MMO Stream broadcast featuring XeXeeD. While watching the program, the group witnessed a cloaked player approach the holo-panel and accost XeXeeD for his haughty attitude, before shooting at the screen with a pistol. To everyone's surprise, XeXeeD abruptly disconnected with a pained expression almost immediately afterwards, as if he had been killed by the mysterious player's bullet. Although Kureha was unsettled by the entire affair, she uneasily dismissed it as just a coincidence.

Sometime later, Kureha was contacted by Kirito to visit him in his room, where he requested her and the rest of the Protagonist's squadron to discontinue playing Gun Gale Online for a while. When they pressed him for an explanation, they learned that XeXeeD and another player named Usujio Tarako had died in real life while apparently in FullDive. Remembering what she had seen with XeXeeD earlier, Kureha relayed the event to Kirito, who further disclosed that Usujio Tarako had also disconnected right after being shot by the same cloaked player, who called himself Death Gun. With the cloaked player seemingly behind XeXeeD's and Usujio's real-life deaths, Kureha was shocked at the prospect that people could be killed from within a game, but she refused to temporarily stop playing GGO, as she wished to complete the SBC Flügel quest.

Having retrieved the final keycard in the Forgotten Woods, Kureha and the others returned to the SBC Flügel to unlock the door, through which they proceeded to the dungeon's depths, frequently returning to SBC Glocken for resupplying. During these breaks, the girl grew closer to the Protagonist, reminiscing on the time they spent with each other prior to her family's move and confiding in them her insecurities over living in her sister's shadow. This culminated in the duo watching a sunset in GGO together, where she reaffirmed their friendship.

Soon, Kureha and the rest of the Protagonist's squadron reached the lowest part of the SBC Flügel's depths. There, they eventually found the mainframe of Mother Claudia, the corrupted AI governing the ship's core system, being guarded by the final boss of the SBC Flügel questline. Unwilling to hurt Afasys by following the intended strategy of clearing the quest via formatting the system, which would delete Mother Claudia, Kureha agreed with the Protagonist's decision to instead fight the Wary Hierophant boss so the ArFA-Sys Unit could physically connect to the mainframe. Once they had vanquished the boss and repaired Mother Claudia, the group returned to SBC Glocken to celebrate being the first ones to complete the quest series.

Throughout the party, Kureha steadily grew disconcerted by everyone's constant praise of the Protagonist, feeling increasingly insecure over how seeming the entirety of GGO's playerbase now considered her friend to be the best of the game's top players. These emotions persisted even after she and all the other players were suddenly disconnected from GGO's server after the festivities. Having managed to log back in the next day, the girl assembled with the rest of the squadron in the Protagonist's room for a hunting expedition, in an attempt to distract herself from her thoughts and the wave of disconnections. In the middle of discussing where to go, however, several agitating comments from Itsuki exacerbated Kureha's insecurity over the Protagonist leaving her behind in obscurity, to the point where the gunwoman challenged her friend to a duel in a desperate effort to prove she was still stronger than them. Distraught when she lost, she left the squadron and removed everyone from her friend list so she could be alone for a while.

Sometime later, Kureha received a message seemingly sent by Death Gun, who challenged her to fight him. Deciding that capturing the mysterious gunman would finally earn her the recognition she wanted and expecting no one would actually miss her in the event of her death, the girl accepted the challenge, after which an invitation and a NerveGear were sent to her real-world address with the threat her friends would be targeted if she failed to follow it. Having equipped the NerveGear, Momiji followed the instructions to log in at a designated date and time. To her shock, she found herself in an unfamiliar place seemingly in GGO, with Afasys and the Protagonist nearby. Confused and piqued at their presence, Kureha ordered the other player to leave, but they were quickly joined by Zeliska and Itsuki, who revealed the logout button was disabled. After calming down, the girl learned that everyone else had also received threatening messages and NerveGears from Death Gun. Realizing her choice to confront the mysterious gunman was poorly thought-out and unwilling to risk anyone else, the gunwoman implored the others to hide while she fought him by herself so they could escape. Nevertheless, she reluctantly acquisced to accompany the Protagonist in searching the area for Death Gun.

During their exploration, Kureha confessed to the Protagonist that she originally turned to virtual reality games to escape the pressures of living in her sister's shadow and be recognized as her own person, as well as how the other player surpassing her in GGO had inflamed her insecurities. In spite of all that, she could not bring herself to want to hate her sister or the Protagonist or see them die. Relieved to find that their friend still valued her even after their quarrel, the gunwoman accepted their plan to confront Death Gun and survive his death game trap together. Therefore, she followed the Protagonist deeper into the area, where they were teleported into an arena with a powerful boss monster, The GM.

To Kureha's surprise, they managed to defeat The GM without serious injury. While the group contemplated Death Gun's conspicuous absence, they were suddenly contacted by Yui, who revealed they were actually in a separate VR space from GGO. Then Kirito was transported to their location, who explained that the real Death Gun and his accomplice, whose actual names were Shinkawa Shouichi (Sterben) and Kyouji (Spiegel), had already been arrested; the Death Gun who had sent them the messages and NerveGears was only an imposter. To the team's shock, Itsuki announced he was the one who orchestrated the creation of the death game area with Python's assistance; his entire plan was to manipulate the Protagonist into relying on him alone. Then everyone else was forced to contend with the appearance of Last Judgment, an even stronger variant of The GM.

With the arrival of the rest of the squadron reinforcing them, Kureha and the others succeeded in vanquishing the boss, whereupon they confronted Itsuki, who had retreated to a safer, elevated position in the meantime. The girl attempted to convince the man to surrender, appealing to his sense of friendship. However, when he refused, she could only watch as the Protagonist used the UFG to reach and engage in a standoff with Itsuki, which only ended once the system began an emergency shutdown of the death game area, logging everyone out.

Shortly afterward, Kureha, Afasys, the Protagonist, and Zeliska were debriefed by Kirito on how Itsuki and Python had constructed the death game area, as well as how the former had purposefully given everyone misinformation about his real life, so his current whereabouts were still unknown. In addition, the devices Kureha and Zeliska had been given were just disguised AmuSpheres, meaning only Itsuki and the Protagonist were in any real danger. Despite still feeling incredulous over Itsuki's attempt to kill them, the gunwoman acknowledged he must have had his reasons for his actions, as she had put them in danger before for selfish desires as well. Nonetheless, she expressed her gratitude that they had all survived. After the Protagonist took a moment to rest, the girl followed them and the others to Kirito's home for a party celebrating their safe return.

Sometime later, Kureha joined Asuna and the rest of the Protagonist's squadron on a mission to ambush a large company of player killers. After their surprise attack had commenced, the girls announced their presence and lured their targets deeper into their trap. Once everyone was in position, the gunwoman tauntingly pulled her eyelid and stuck her tongue out at the enemy players as she and everyone else teleported to safety on top of a nearby ruined skyscraper, where they watched Kirito and the Protagonist launch their counterassault.

Trivia

 * Kureha had two cameo appearances in Sword Art Online Alicization Episode 01. In one scene, she was playing billiards with Zeliska. In the other, she was listed as the tenth-ranked player of the 4th Bullet of Bullets tournament.
 * Takamine Momiji's avatar name "Kureha" is an alternative reading of her real life name, Momiji (紅葉).
 * Momiji's birthday was chosen to be November 10 due to that date being the Day of the Japanese Maple Tree (紅葉の日), the tree of her birth day flower.

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Momiji Takamine Kureha