Protagonist (Fatal Bullet)

The Protagonist (主人公) is the player's character in Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet. The Protagonist began playing Gun Gale Online (GGO) due to the request of their childhood friend Kureha.

Appearance
In the gameverse canon, the Protagonist is a male with short black hair and blue eyes. He wears a battle jacket with a blue collar and black pants with metal knee pads. The alternative female version of the Protagonist, by default, has long black hair and green eyes. She wears a white battle jacket and red and black skirt. The Protagonist is depicted using a FAMAS G2 model assault rifle as well as a pair of Beretta 93R machine pistols in promotional art and pre-rendered cutscenes.

Personality
The Protagonist is an untalkative person, even having a unique aura of both friendliness and unsociability, according to Kureha. According to Kirito, the Protagonist is similar to Kirito's solo player self in the way he has zero friends.

Fatal Bullet
The Protagonist was invited by Takamine Momiji (Kureha) to assist her in a special update tournament in GGO, which was rumored to have a hidden rare item. Having been joined by Kureha almost immediately after logging into GGO for the first time, the new player was given a brief overview of the history of VRMMOs and the unique characteristics of GGO before heading to the tournament registration area. Along the way, the two encountered Itsuki, a top player and leader of the renowned Alphard squadron, who praised the Protagonist's resolve to participate in the competition despite their inexperience. After the man took his leave to enter the tournament himself, the Protagonist followed Kureha into the teleporter to the event dungeon to learn the basics of combat.

Once the Protagonist felt they understood GGO's battle system, they and Kureha proceeded further into the dungeon in search of the rare item. However, the duo encountered Itsuki again, accompanied by his partner Taipan. Sensing they were outmatched by the top players, the Protagonist and Kureha agreed to Itsuki's request to handle a difficult monster deeper within the dungeon, in exchange for being allowed to leave unharmed. Having managing to defeat the enemy, they parted ways with the top players at a fork in the road not far ahead, with the Protagonist given the privilege of choosing their path first. Shortly afterwards, the pair found a dormant warp gate. While Kureha fiddled with the controls, the Protagonist unwittingly stood in the middle of the structure when the girl accidentally activated it, which teleported the new player to a large room in a different area of the dungeon.

In the middle of exploring their new surroundings, the Protagonist's attention was drawn towards a strange capsule at the far end of the room. Curious, the new player touched the capsule, triggering the device to register them as some sort of master. Then the capsule opened to reveal a person inside, who slowly levitated out of the pod before collapsing. The Protagonist rushed to catch the falling person, narrowly avoiding a gunshot from an enemy player behind them. Immediately afterwards, they spotted the enemy player's partner charging at them with a photon sword, whereupon the new player instinctively moved to shield the mysterious person from the attack. However, they were spared when the mysterious person addressed the Protagonist as their master, causing the photon sword user to stop their ambush at the last moment.

Having been joined by Kureha, the Protagonist learned from the photon sword user and his partner, who respectively revealed their names as Kirito and Asuna, that the mysterious person they had attempted to protect was an ArFA-Sys Unit (Afasys), a player support Non-Player Character (NPC) companion who had just permanently registered the new player as their master. While Asuna and Kirito took their leave to continue advancing in the tournament, the Protagonist and Kureha remained with Afasys until the android had finished starting up their main system, after which the new player spent the rest of the competition learning how to use the NPC's first gift to them, the experimental Ultimate Fiber Gun (UFG). Once the trio were automatically transported to the SBC Glocken upon the tournament's conclusion, they were reunited with Itsuki, Kirito, and Asuna, the first of whom the Protagonist thanked for enabling them to meet Afasys before accepting the Photon Sword Wielder's invitation to a party to become better acquainted with each other.

Trivia

 * The Protagonist is highly skilled at non-VR games. This ends up contributing to their quick learning of GGO despite it being their first VRMMO game, allowing them to even block bullets with a photon sword like Kirito.
 * The Protagonist has high real life luck, contributing to finding their Afasys (ArFA-sys) unit as well as various high rarity items.
 * The Protagonist is skilled in riding a motorcycle. Whether that is from video games, having a real license, or some other reason is up to the player.