Kibaou

Kibaou (キバオウ) is one of the 10,000 players who were trapped in «Sword Art Online» and the former leader of one of the two top clearing guilds in the early days of Sword Art Online, the «Aincrad Liberation Squad». In the aftermath of the 25th Floor battle, his guild merged with «MMO Today», and Kibaou became a sub-leader of the new guild that was named «Aincrad Liberation Force».

Appearance
According to Kirito, Kibaou is a short yet solidly built man with sienna, spiky (cactus-styled) hair. He also has a small sienna goatee and brown eyes and wears a scale mail armor with a rather large one-handed sword on his back.

Personality
Kibaou is a power-hungry person who abuses authority to accumulate more wealth and power by extorting taxes and items through intimidation.

Aria of a Starless Night
During the First Floor Boss Strategy Meeting on December 2, Kibaou addressed the crowd, blaming the beta testers for the deaths of the beginner players, and demanded that all the beta testers apologize for the deaths that they had allegedly caused, and relinquish all the items they had acquired to other players. However, Kibaou was silenced by Agil, who defended the beta testers by revealing that the free guidebook, which could be obtained for free at any store, was written using the knowledge provided by beta testers.

Kibaou was one of the players who were part of the boss raid of the 1st Floor and also the leader of group E, in charge of handling the sentinels, during the battle.

Concerto of Black and White
On December 15, 2022, Kibaou, along with Morte and three other members of the Aincrad Liberation Squad, entered the Queen Spider Cave as part of the guild creation quest. As they proceeded through the dungeon, Kibaou loudly expressed his shock at seeing all the chests looted before their arrival, unaware of the presence of Kirito, Asuna, and Kizmel, whom his party walked past. However, upon encountering Nephila Regina, the boss of the dungeon, on the second level of the cave, Kibaou and his group panicked and raced back to the entrance, where they were forced to engage in combat with several regular spiders, before returning to the dungeon.

During the strategy meeting later that evening in Zumfut, Kibaou and Lind announced the official establishment of the Aincrad Liberation Squad (ALS) and the Dragon Knights Brigade (DKB) guilds. They also unveiled their current member lists and their requirements for accepting new members into the guild; Kibaou's only requirement was for applicants to have reached a minimum of level nine. He then remained silent as Lind announced their decision to restrict Kirito and Asuna from both joining one of the two guilds, in the interest of balance. However, he took offense at Lind's implication that their combined strengths were only equal for the moment.

Once Lind had finished his part of the speech, Kibaou set a goal to clear the 3rd Floor within a week, which meant the clearers needed to reach the Labyrinth in four days and defeat the Floor Boss in two. Thus, he encouraged recruiting more people, as they could not keep their current pace with only about forty players. He also challenged the clearers to reach the next town the following day, reading Argo's strategy guide for the most important pieces of information. After announcing that whichever guild found the boss chamber first would assume leadership of the boss raid and seeing there were no further questions, he closed the meeting with a cheer, reaffirming their intention of beating the Floor Boss within a week.

After the Field Boss battle on December 18, Kibaou was told that the Elf War questline, which the Liberation Squad had disregarded, was crucial to defeating the 3rd Floor Boss. Thus, Kibaou and his guild quickly started clearing the quests for the Elf War campaign on the side of the Dark Elves that afternoon, and reached the Infiltration quest to steal the Forest Elf commander's order from the Forest Elf Camp in about twelve hours. However, at that moment, Kibaou and his guildmates came into conflict with Lind's party of six, who needed to reach the camp for their own quest. As the camp would be relocated to a random place once either of the two quests was completed, neither group was willing to let the other proceed first.

When Lind argued that his group arrived there first, Kibaou declared they had no obligation to follow the rules he claimed Lind had created, accusing him of withholding that the campaign was crucial for the 3rd Floor Boss raid. Kibaou refused to listen to Lind's claim that his guild was only doing the questline for the experience and rewards, and thus began advancing to the camp. At that moment, he was stopped by the Dragon Knights leader, resulting in their intense quarrel continuing for another five minutes. Just as Kibaou and Lind attempted to climb the path to the camp, each struggling to hamper the other along the way, the camp suddenly vanished, to everyone's shock.

Shortly after, the two guild leaders and their subordinates saw Kirito approaching them from where the camp had been and heard him announce they would have find the location elsewhere, as he had already completed the quest. Realizing why he had not seen the solo player in the past few days, Kibaou cursed Kirito for withholding the fact that the campaign was essential to defeating the 3rd Floor Boss, denounced him and the other beta testers for prioritizing their own advancement over clearing the game and rescuing the other players, and disparaged the beater and Lind for pretending they had a right to inherit Diavel's will. Ignoring Lind's inquiry on how he had received the information on the Elf War questline, Kibaou began accusing the DKB leader of monopolizing information, but the growing dispute was interrupted by Kirito, who declared he was only doing the campaign to strengthen his stats and equipment to better fight the Floor Boss, not for the rewards. When the ALS leader questioned the authenticity of his claim, Kirito proclaimed he would be stopping his progress in the questline and moving to clear the Labyrinth. Kibaou skeptically verified the solo player's actions, and ordered Joe to silence when the latter began accusing Kirito of diverting their attention from the Elf War campaign.

When Lind inquired the beater on the whereabouts of the latter's partner, prompting the two guilds to begin making accusations, Asuna revealed her presence and moved to Kirito's side, announcing her support of his plan and reminding the guild leaders of the rule that whoever found the boss chamber first would be the raid leader. Joe renewed his accusations that the two would be incapable of reaching the boss room by themselves, but Kibaou irritably repeated his order to be quiet, before questioning Kirito and Asuna's willingness to attack the boss without the Elf War quest rewards, and declaring it was not too late to determine whether the items were really necessary for the raid. After Lind stated that both groups had made too much progress on the campaign and voiced his doubts on the capabilities of the two to actually reach the boss, Kizmel revealed her presence at that moment and proclaimed her support of Kirito and Asuna's efforts in the Labyrinth. Kibaou was warned by an intimidated Lind of the Dark Elven Knight's high level, signified by her extremely dark cursor, and complained about the beater and his partner obtaining such a powerful ally.

After Kibaou and Lind discussed with their followers for several minutes, they agreed to both have their guilds abandon the Elf War questline and request Kirito's group to ascertain whether the campaign actually held information on the 3rd Floor Boss. When Kirito accepted and asked on their course of action, Kibaou declared they would be mapping the Labyrinth, as he would not forgive himself if a player accidentally died. He and the other Aincrad Liberation Squad members listened in silence to Lind's reminiscence on Diavel's speech in Tolbana, Kirito's reveal of the late knight's last words, and Lind's schedule of the next strategy meeting on the twentieth at 5 o'clock P.M. After watching the Dragon Knights Brigade leave the area, Kibaou criticized Lind's aloof and condescending attitude, before announcing he had his own share of Diavel's will to fulfill and ordering the Liberation Squad to not let the DKB have a lead on locating the boss room. As the ALS moved to their base in the west, Kibaou paused to address Kirito; though he refused to thank the beater due to the latter's stealing the quest from them, he reluctantly admitted that it might not be all that detrimental to have someone like him among the clearers. Acknowledging with a wave Kirito's request to drop the formalities next time, Kibaou followed his guildmates out of the scene.

On December 20, the Aincrad Liberation Squad and Dragon Knights Brigade had finished mapping the Labyrinth and located the boss chamber; as the latter had reached the door before them, the former was forced to concede to Lind the roles of raid leader and master of ceremonies at the strategy meeting. That evening, Kibaou listened to Kirito's report on the events and results of the Elf War questline, including the Dark Elf commander's warning to prepare plenty of poison antidote potions against the Floor Boss's poison attack, as well as the beater's clarification that the boss did not have such an attack in the beta. While the other players discussed the merit and importance of the information, Kibaou once again silenced Joe when his subordinate began urging everyone to resume the campaign in hopes of learning more knowledge on the boss, and followed Lind's lead as the DKB leader concluded the meeting with a rousing call for their victory.

The Day Before
Kibaou was mentioned to have been regarded as the leader of the clearing group. Fed with the false information regarding the 25th Floor boss, the clearing group suffered massive casualties.

Kibaou retired from the front lines after the debacle. «Knights of the Blood» took charge of the clearing group afterwards.

Morning Dew Girl
Kibaou's faction was well known to be very corrupt as they abused their authority even on children by extorting taxes and items. With the growing displeasure of him being on the sidelines too much, he ordered the army squad led by Kobatz to take on the 74th Floor's boss, The Gleam Eyes, to prove that he was still contributing to clearing the game. After their slaughter, he was placed under a lot of heat. It was at this point that he staged a coup, stranding the guild's leader, Thinker, in a very high level dungeon and used his influence to stop the rest of «The Army» from interfering. At the end, after Thinker was rescued by Kirito and Asuna from the dungeon, he was finally overthrown.

Kibaou was logged out after Kirito killed Heathcliff, prematurely clearing the game.

Gallery

 * See: Kibaou/Image Gallery

Trivia

 * Kibaou speaks in a Kansai dialect.
 * Kibaou's name may literally mean "Fang King".
 * In the original story, the topic of Diavel's death after the defeat of Illfang the Kobold Lord was brought up by Diavel's party member, named Lind, while Kirito's status as a beta tester was brought up by a member of Kibaou's party. Kibaou himself remained silent during the scene. In the anime adaptation, Kibaou was the one who brought up the topic of Diavel's death, as Lind's role was cut out from the episode.

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