Ayano Keiko

Silica (シリカ) 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 and is one of the main characters of Girls Ops, along with Kirigaya Suguha (Leafa) and Shinozaki Rika (Lisbeth). Her real name is Ayano Keiko (綾野珪子).

Background
In SAO, Silica became the first player to tame a Feathered Little Dragon, which she named Pina (the same name as her cat in the real world), despite SAO being the first VRMMO game she had ever played. 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 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 lead 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, Silica left the party in the middle of their hunt. She went through the forest alone and got attacked by multiple «Drunken Apes». Her Tamed Monster, Pina took a hit for Silica and died but she got saved by Kirito as she resembled his sister. Kirito told her about a way to resurrect Pina. Though it was outside her level range she resolved to go one day, but found out she only had three days to do so. Kirito offered to help her get there, so they set off and returned to town. They ended up staying in an inn in order to discuss their plans to retrieve the flower.

The next day, she sets off with Kirito to find the flower at the Hill of Memories. Despite encountering a few monsters, they reached their goal but on their way back they were ambushed by Rosalia and members of the «Titan's Hand» guild. Kirito revealed his real motive, sending the Titan's Hand guild to prison, and dispatched them easily. 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 is revealed that Pina was revived.

Fairy Dance Arc
After Asuna was rescued, Keiko and Rika (Lisbeth) made a pact that they will give Kazuto (Kirito) and Asuna one month together without interfering before they made their individual moves on him, however they quickly regretted it. She joined Kirito and his friends in ALO right after they meet in the real world and they often go together in quests. She plays ALO as a Cait Sith beast-tamer along with her partner Pina.

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
She and the rest of the gang gather together to watch the Bullet of Bullets tournament, and cheer on Kirito.

Calibur
She, along with Asuna, Klein, Leafa, Lisbeth, and Sinon join Kirito's attempt to retrieve Excalibur.

Gallery

 * See:Silica/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) since Tetsuhiko was born on the 6th of February and the 26th element (2nd month and 6th day) in the periodic table is 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 couldn't make a girl's name after the 104th element, Rutherfordium, so he resorted to merging 10 and 4 to get 14.
 * 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 14th element in the periodic table. 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 2 ring baubles which symbolize 2 oxygen atoms bound to her.
 * In a 4-koma non-canon spin-off, she had been stalked by Aaaa.

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