Takamine Momiji

Kureha (クレハ) 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 (GGO) 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 an Uzi as primary and an optical rocket launcher Deneb Kaitos as a secondary.

Personality
Kureha is 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 the reason why she is known to jump from Squadron to Squadron. Zeliska refers to her as a "happy-go-lucky" type as well.

In the real world, she has a much more reserved personality, living under the shadow of her genius sister, trying her best not to disappoint anyone. While she claims she has the same personality in both the virtual and the real world, later she opens up to the Protagonist about the weight she carries on her shoulder in real life.

Background
Kureha is a long time childhood of the Protagonist. When her family had to move away due to her parents' and her sisters schooling, she got devastated. While her sisters education was the main reason of their move, Kureha never blamed her for it. She did her best trying to live up to the expectations and tried to not disappoint her sister.

Fatal Bullet
One day, due to needing a partner for an upcoming tournament in Gun Gale Online, Kureha invited the Protagonist to join the game. After Kureha taught them the basics of Gun Gale Online, the two entered the competition, during which she accidentally sent the Protagonist through a warp gate by tinkering with a control panel. Upon reaching their position seconds later, she found the Protagonist under attack by Kirito. When she targeted Kirito to save her friend, she was promptly stopped by Asuna, who had approached her from behind. The situation settled as everybody realized the "item" had already registered to the Protagonist and Kureha realized having just missed her chance at getting a special reward in the form of an Afasys. Angry at the Protagonist, she scolded him, declaring that she had joint ownership rights over his possessions, causing Afasys to register her as the Protagonist's superior.

Having formed a connection with Asuna and Kirito during their first meeting, Kureha, along with the Protagonist, was invited to Kirito's quarters to meet his other friends. She was quite surprised at the high female-to-male ratio of his circle of friends, feeling quite glad that she found a group of people where she would not be regarded as the group's mascot due to being the only female player. Kureha thanked the Protagonist that they rubbed some of their luck to her and proceeded to give them a tour of SBC Glocken to show appreciation.

After a while, having learned that Afasys is the key to unlocking a brand new update area called SBC Flügel, Kureha joined the Protagonist and Afasys to collect Afasys parts that were scattered from the ship. While working on the Afasys parts quest, they defeated Bazalt Joe on two separate occasions in a bet and get vital information from him regarding the Afasys parts. During these encounters, Kureha realized despite his efforts of taking control of Afasys, Bazalt Joe was an honorable and trustworthy player.

When all parts were collected and the SBC Flügel update area was activated, Kureha claims a spot on the four-person squad, including the Protagonist, Afasys and Kirito, that would assault the ship. Upon reaching it, they faced the Gatekeeper protecting SBC Flügel. Having realized the boss was too powerful and possibly intentionally unbeatable, Kureha agreed with Kirito to stay back and distract the gatekeeper, in order to ensure the Protagonist and Afasys' safe escape, fearing what would happen to Afasys as an in-game-item if the Protagonist died in action. Shortly afterwards, Kureha, along with Kirito, returned to Kirito's quarters in SBC Glocken, where she explained how they managed to barely escape without dying.

After Afasys remembered a final requirement and granted them access to SBC Flügel, everyone decided to create a Squadron for ease of access to the area, provided by the system. Kureha felt uneasy letting the Protagonist be the Squadron leader, since she had always acted as the leader between the two when they were kids. Yet, not wanting to be granted the leadership by grace, she decided to challenge them to a duel to be the leader, followed by Kirito, Sinon and Yuuki also deciding to fight for the leadership in a battle royale. Kureha also offered Zeliska and Itsuki a chance to join the fight, but both of them rejected the offer. In the end, Kureha lost the battle royale, granting the Protagonist the right to be the leader.

Kureha felt uncomfortable, after challenging the Protagonist to a duel and losing to them in the only place where she did not feel useless, the world of Gun Gale Online. She therefore decided to take a break from the celebration and headed back out to SBC Glocken, where she shortly was joined by Zeliska. Kureha explained Zeliska, how she feels and she also had the impression that others had joined the fight, because they knew she would lose. She continued by talking about how she had always lived under the shadow of her older sister and she did not want to go down the same path with the Protagonist. Kureha was eventually comforted by Zeliska, reminding her that everybody needs to vent from time to time.