Ayano Keiko

Ayano Keiko (綾野珪子), known as Silica (シリカ) in «Sword Art Online» (SAO), «ALfheim Online» (ALO), and «Project Alicization», is a supporting character in the Aincrad Arc, one of the main characters of the Girls Ops spinoff, along with Kirigaya Suguha (Leafa) and Shinozaki Rika (Lisbeth), and a reoccurring character throughout the Sword Art Online series. Silica 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.

Background
In Sword Art Online, 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 kind, 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 led 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 over the distribution of healing items, Silica left the party in the middle of their hunt. She went through the Forest of Wandering alone and quickly got lost due to the dungeon's unique design, forcing her to exhaust her healing supplies. During an attack from multiple «Drunken Apes», her Tamed Monster, Pina took a hit for Silica and died. However, Silica was saved by Kirito. 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 as she resembled his sister, which Silica found hilarious, so they set off and returned to town. They ended up staying in an inn in order to discuss their plans to retrieve the «Pneuma Flower».

The next day, after an embarrassing moment over their sleeping locations, they journeyed to find the Pneuma Flower at the Hill of Memories. Despite encountering monsters such as the Garish Gerbera and Land Anemone, they reached their goal but were ambushed by Rosalia and members of the «Titan's Hand» guild on their way back. Kirito revealed his real motive was to send the Titan's Hand guild to prison as a request from one of their victims. Silica and the orange players were surprised to learn that Kirito was actually the «Black Swordsman», a prominent member of the Clearing Group, and were further shocked when they discovered that any damage the latter could deal to him were easily negated by his level and skills. After Kirito sent the orange guild to the Black Iron Castle to be imprisoned and placed under the custody of «The Army», he and Silica returned to Mishe, where 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 was revealed that Pina was revived.

Fairy Dance Arc
After Asuna was rescued, Keiko and Rika (Lisbeth) made a pact that they would give Kirigaya Kazuto (Kirito) and Yuuki Asuna one month together without interfering before they made their individual moves on him; however they quickly regretted their decision. She joined Kirito and his friends in ALheim Online right after they met in the real world and they often went together in quests.

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
On December 14, 2025, Silica and the rest of the group gathered together in Kirito and Asuna's rented room in Yggdrasil City in ALO to watch the Bullet of Bullets tournament and support Kirito. When they watched an ominously cloaked player paralyzing and apparently disconnecting another competitor, a shocked Klein immediately identified the mantled player as a member of Laughing Coffin. At Leafa's confused inquiry, Silica quickly explained to her the rise of the red guild, the bloody atrocities they committed, and their eventual defeat at the hands of the Clearers.

Calibur
On December 28, 2025, Silica, along with Asuna, Klein, Leafa, Lisbeth, and Sinon joined Kirito's attempt to retrieve Excalibur.

Gallery

 * See:Ayano Keiko/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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