Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-5105419-20131208080434/@comment-1173941-20131212042135

Who knows, really?

It would have altered a LOT of things. Something that comes to mind is the first raid. He ended up pairing with Asuna because everyone else seemed to know each other. As such, when shit hit the fan, it was the two of them that regained order to the raid, and eventually took the Last Attack.

Asuna had little to do with the actual "Regaining order" part, though she did raise moral when she removed her hood, but that's beside the point.

It wasn't like Kirito had absolutely zero options. It was just that everyone else "seemed to know each other", so he would have acted as a third wheel with them. Regardless, if he joined one of them, and practiced with them for a day (it wasn't like it was impossible for him to play in a party after all), then he'd be fine in the raid. Of course, Diabel would still set the group he was in as support, for handeling the sentinels.

But this also means, that at the turning point of the battle, when Diabel will most likely still die, it's possible that his entire party would help in taking the Boss down. If that were the case, then it's possible anyone in his group could have ended up the person to Last Attack the Boss, and therefore he would never have the chance to "separate" the "Beaters" from the "other Beta Testers".

Or maybe his party would end up like the others, and be too scared to react, and he would have to attack alone? If this were the case, there's a possibility he would have died. But if not, then everything would play out the way it did originally.

Anything after this... It's hard to tell. Even what I've said till now is iffy. Though I think it'd be accurate enough. All I did was analyze Asuna's own effect on the story, and think about how a character like Kirito would interact with everything in her absence. Though the "Aria in a Starless Night" story began with Asuna, the over all events in it would have transpired regardless. But anything after that would be a fuzzy mess to predict. Chaos theory and all...

Edit: My god, I just realized the Wall of Text I just wrote, lol...