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.

Moments later, both groups noticed Kirito approaching them from where the camp had been, announcing that they would have to find the camp elsewhere, as he had already completed the quest. Realizing that Kirito had been focusing on the campaign the past few days, Kibaou cursed, claiming that he was also withholding the importance of the questline to defeating the 3rd Floor Boss. Ignoring Lind's inquiry on the source of his information on the Elf War questline, Kibaou began accusing him of monopolizing information. The growing dispute was interrupted by Kirito's declaration of having no specific interest in the campaign's rewards. Kibaou questioned the honesty of his claim, but was shocked when the black swordsman responded by proclaiming he would be halting his progress in the questline to start clearing the Labyrinth. When one of his guild members, Joe, began accusing Kirito of attempting to distract them, Kibaou ordered him to be silent.

When Asuna entered the scene, causing another wave of accusations from Joe, Kibaou irritably silenced him again. Confused by the turn of events, Kibaou argued that they could still complete the quest to verify whether it was truly crucial. However, as the two guilds had made too much progress on the quest, neither was willing to abandon it, despite this measure allowing to avoid conflict. The stalemate was broken by the sudden revelation of Kizmel's presence. At that moment, Kibaou was warned by an intimidated Lind of her extremely dark cursor, causing Kibaou to complain about the two having such a powerful ally.

Due to Kizmel's power adding weight to Kirito's claims, the two guilds held a discussion on their course of action and agreed to both abandon the Elf War questline, deciding to have Kirito's group verify its significance instead. When Kirito enquired about their plans, Kibaou declared they would be mapping the Labyrinth, as he would not forgive himself if a player accidentally died. After Lind scheduling the next strategy meeting on the twentieth at 5 o'clock P.M. and leaving the area, Kibaou criticized Lind's aloof and condescending attitude, before ordering the Liberation Squad to not let the Dragon Knights have a lead on locating the boss room. As the ALS began moving to their base in the west, Kibaou paused to address Kirito. Although refusing to thank him due to stealing their quest, he reluctantly admitted that it might not be all that detrimental to have someone like him among the clearers. Having shared his opinion, Kibaou followed his guildmates, leaving 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 the former, Kibaou was forced to concede the roles of raid leader and master of ceremonies to Lind at the strategy meeting. That evening, Kibaou heard Kirito's report on the Dark Elf commander's warning about the Floor Boss's poison attack, as well as the 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.

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, his Aincrad Liberation Squad 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.
 * In an official character popularity poll hosted by Dengeki Bunko for the cover of abec Art Works, Kibaou ranked eighth.

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