Asada Shino

Asada Shino (朝田 詩乃), known as Sinon (シノン) in «Gun Gale Online» (GGO), ALfheim Online (ALO), as well as «Project Alicization», where she had temporarily used the Solus (ソルス) account, is the deuteragonist of the Phantom Bullet Arc and one of the main characters in the War of the Underworld sub-arc of the Alicization Arc. She is a skilled Virtual Reality game player, who began playing Gun Gale Online based on the suggestion from her friend, Shinkawa Kyouji, in an attempt to overcome her trauma concerning guns. After the events of the Phantom Bullet Arc, she began playing «ALfheim Online» as a Cait Sith archer, capable of hitting targets two hundred meters away with a bow that should only be able to shoot arrows accurately at a maximum distance of one hundred meters.



Real World
Similar to both of her VRMMO game avatars, Shino has thin hair tied in small ribbons by the sides of her face, with the back cut short. Unlike her avatars, Shino has dark hair in real life. She also wears a pair of half-rimmed glasses with oval-shaped lenses. Her skin is pale and she has black eyes. She has a black spot on her right hand, left there by gunpowder from the time she fired a gun in real life.

Gun Gale Online
Shino's avatar has thin, pale blue swaying hair that was casually short, but there was a tuft of hair tied up on both sides of her forehead, and indigo colored eyes. Her combat attire consists of a desert-colored military jacket, bulletproof armor of the same color, and combat boots, as well as a white muffler around her neck.

ALfheim Online
Shino's avatar maintains her blue hair from GGO, yet holds the appearance of a Cait Sith, her chosen race, with blue ears and a matching tail. She wears a green coat with white chest armor, a black choker and a belted quiver across her shoulders.

Project Alicization
Shino's avatar as Sun Goddess Solus has water-colored hair and blue eyes. She wears ornate azure armor and a long white skirt.

Background
In late December 2010,, Shino and her parents were involved in a motor vehicle collision on a secluded mountain road, which resulted in the death of her father as no help could arrive on time. Due to Shino's mother becoming traumatized by the ordeal, the girl started living with her grandparents and decided to become strong enough to always protect her mother.

In late 2020, Shino was accompanying her mother at a post office, when a man armed with a Type 54 "Black Star" handgun entered the building, demanding money from the staff. The moment the robber threatened to shoot Shino's mother if his demands were not met, the girl wrested the pistol from him and pulled the trigger, resulting in the man's death. As a result of the incident, Shino developed an intense fear of guns and a slight apprehension of men, leading to her being ostracized throughout elementary and middle school.

To escape the unwanted attention, Shino desired to move far outside her hometown. As Shino's grandparents forbade her from working immediately after finishing middle school, the girl settled for entering a fairly well-known high school in the Tokyo neighborhood where she had used to live with her parents. In June, 2025, Shino met a boy named Kyouji while reading a book about guns in a local library there, which led to her being introduced to Gun Gale Online by the boy when she heard that the gun she had used in the post office incident was present in the game.

Having created an avatar called Sinon for Gun Gale Online, Shino became very invested in the game as her way of attempting to overcome her trauma with guns. In September, 2025,, Shino triggered a trap while navigating a dungeon alone, which led to her encountering a powerful boss. By sniping it for countless hours from outside its attack range, she was able to obtain the rare PGM Ultima Ratio Hecate II anti-materiel rifle as a reward for defeating the boss.

Personality
Calm and cool are two words that best describe Sinon's personality. In battle and most of the time in the game, she keeps a cool head. It is actually said that Kirito is the first one to make her extremely angry. Despite all this, Sinon, while perhaps hard to approach, is generally a friendly person and does not mind helping others.

Shino, however, can be a fragile-minded character. This is due to her childhood incident that involved her killing a robber. If someone were to act as if they were shooting her in real life Shino would have a nervous breakdown and be on the verge of collapsing. People have used this to take advantage of Shino before. Not only this, but the guilt of taking another's life haunts Shino the same way killing Laughing Coffin members haunts Kazuto. After the Death Gun Incident, Shino has made progress with handling her trauma, as she did not have any serious reactions to seeing a model gun when Endou threatened to shoot her with one, and was even able to use it while feigning that she was not affected by it.

Shino is shown to have an uncommonly kind heart. Not only was she willing to forgive Shinkawa Kyouji, but still cared for him as a friend to the extent that she resolved to visit him in prison to try and help, if not save him as a person.

Phantom Bullet Arc
At around sunset in Gun Gale Online on December 7, 2025, Sinon, as a recent member of a player killing squadron led by Dyne, was waiting in ambush for the arrival of a monster hunting squadron. Ignoring the other players' conversations, she focused on gathering enough information on them to assist her in defeating them easily someday. When their targets finally arrived around 2,500 meters within range twenty minutes later, the sniper used her Hecate's scope to examine their prey. Noticing the group had a new member who was wearing a large cloak, Sinon suggested sniping him first due to her unease about the man but reluctantly acquiesced to Dyne's order to prioritize on eliminating the enemy squadron's Minimi user.

As the other members of her team moved into position for an ambush, Sinon spent the following several minutes maintaining her own position and preparing mentally for the battle. Once Dyne's squadron was ready and gave her the order to begin, she successfully sniped the Minimi user, before immediately turning her sights to the cloaked man. However, as her new target dodged her next shot and her position was revealed, Sinon switched to the role of an observer. To her surprise, the girl witnessed the cloaked player removing his mantle and thus revealing a GE M134 Minigun in his possession, which he used to effortlessly annihilate one of her squad members. Struck by the minigun wielder's confident smile during his counterattack, as well as how he had calmly evaded her shot, Sinon vowed to defeat the man in order to strengthen herself, as she raced to regroup with her team.

Dodging the enemy team's gunfire, Sinon rejoined her squadron, where she was informed of the identity of the minigun user, Behemoth. Sensing Behemoth's ammunition was nearing depletion, she proposed the idea that the minigun user might hesitate in his assault if they all launched a simultaneous counterattack on him from multiple directions. Once their plan was enacted, Sinon evaded the enemy squadron's salvo and fired a shot at Behemoth, which only succeeded in destroying the man's goggles. As the girl steeled herself for the minigunner's impending retaliation, she was saved at the last second by Dyne, who managed to detonate a plasma grenade before being defeated.

Taking advantage of the dust cloud generated by the grenade, Sinon rushed to a nearby building and climbed the stairs within. Upon reaching the end of the stairs a few floors up, she approached a window where she could prepare to take aim without drawing attention for several seconds. Due to Behemoth having predicted her movements, however, Sinon was forced to jump from the window when he launched a volley at her. Despite losing a leg, the sniper managed to position herself directly above the man, where the minigun was unable to reach, and fired a decisive shot that defeated her opponent.

Two days later, after a typical day at school, Shino went shopping at around 15:30 on December 9, whereupon she was accosted by Endou and her cohorts, three fellow students whom Shino used to be friends with until she discovered that they had only been exploiting her. When the trio demanded ten thousand yen from Shino to supposedly pay for their train fare, the girl refused to give them any money, prompting Endou to retaliate by imitating a gun with her hand. Although Shino was rendered helpless by almost suffering a panic attack due to the gesture, a timely arrival and intervention from her friend Kyouji forced the bullies to flee the area. Thankful for his assistance, she accepted her friend's offer to treat her to a drink at a nearby cafe, where they discussed her recent victory over Behemoth in GGO, as well as the upcoming Bullet of Bullets.

Having returned to her apartment later that day, Shino decided to test herself by handling the Procyon SL real-world model gun she had received from Zaskar as a prize for reaching twenty-second place in the second Bullet of Bullets two months prior, hoping that her encounters with Behemoth and Endou had allowed her to make progress in her endeavour to overcome her fear of guns. However, holding the toy gun triggered another panic attack, to her dismay. Believing that winning the Bullet of Bullets would be the key to healing her psychological scars, she logged into GGO once again.

Sometime after 13:00 several days later on December 13, Shino logged into Gun Gale Online to register for the Bullet of Bullets (BoB) tournament. En route to the Governor's Office of SBC Glocken, however, she was suddenly approached by a feminine-looking player who asked her for directions. Assuming the player was a girl who had just started playing the game, Sinon empathetically helped them purchase their equipment. Once they were finished with the beginner's shopping, the two managed to reach the Governor's Office to register for the tournament on time, despite only having ten minutes before the Bullet of Bullets registration deadline arrived at 15:00, by renting a three-wheeled buggy.

Upon the pair completing their registration for the tournament, Sinon led the new player to the changing room to prepare for the preliminaries by equipping their gear. When Sinon started changing her attire, however, she learnt from the beginner's belated self-introduction that he was actually a male, and thus she slapped him in embarrassment. Irritated at being deceived and at herself for lowering her guard, the girl had Kirito promise her that he would survive until the final match in the preliminary rounds of their block, where she would defeat him on the battlefield.

Upon returning from her first battle, Sinon found a shaken Kirito already sitting in the waiting room after achieving victory against his opponent. Annoyed at seeing him in such a weak state, Sinon slammed her fist on his shoulder as she reminded him about his promise. To the girl's shock, however, her hand was suddenly grabbed by the boy dragged to his chest. As the state the boy was in reminded her of her own trauma, the two of them stayed in this position until Kirito was teleported to his next match.

After defeating Stinger in her semi-final match and thus obtaining the right to participate in the main tournament the next day, Sinon was teleported to the «Intercontinental Highway» stage to take part in a bonus friendly match against Kirito, the other victor of the semi-finals. Taking position at a bus, the girl planted herself near an open window and scoped with her Hecate, only to discover Kirito slowly approaching her position with his head down and no will to fight. Angered by this, Sinon shot at Kirito several times, but missed each round. She then ran out to meet him and demand an answer as to why he would not fight her. After remembering how he disliked his opponents dropping the fight, Kirito asked her for another chance and proposed to have a duel version battle, which Sinon accepted. Sinon and Kirito lined up and got ready, with Kirito throwing a bullet into the air, waiting for the bullet to hit the ground. As soon as the bullet hit the ground, Sinon shot, but Kirito was able to slice the bullet in half and get to her, asking her to resign as he did not like to cut girls.

The next day, on December 14, three and a half hours before the start of the Bullet of Bullets finals, Shino complained to her friend Shinkawa Kyouji about Kirito, stating that Kirito infuriates her. Kyouji commented on how she was acting, saying that he had never seen her bad-mouth someone so much, as she had never really taken interest in anyone. Later on, she returned home and Dived into GGO before the BoB finals started. After she Dived in, Sinon noticed the betting area, and, looking at both hers and Kirito's odds of winning, noticed that both hers and Kirito's odds were quite high. She then met Spiegel, Kyouji's GGO avatar, who started to confess his feelings for her. She stopped him from doing so, telling him she needed to concentrate for the finals. She then met Kirito, who was also on his way to register for the finals, and then gave him information on how the BoB finals worked, and how the thirty participants had to work with it. Kirito also asked her which of the players in the finals she did not know, to which she named «銃士Ｘ» (Jūshi X), «Pale Rider» and «Sterben». While they were talking about Kirito's reasons for wanting to know who they were, Sinon worked out that Kirito is one of the survivors from Sword Art Online. As they left to get ready for the tournament, Sinon told Kirito that she would repay him for the humiliation he caused her in the Semi-Finals with interest, pointing her finger into his back as if holding a gun to him before she left Kirito.



Nearly thirty minutes into the tournament, Sinon was in a sniping position, watching a player run, noticing he had no weak points due to his heavy armor. But she then noticed he had Plasma Grenades on his belt, which she calmly aimed at and shot, reducing the opponents Hit Points (HP) to zero. Sinon then picked her Hecate up and ran into shrubs due to her position most likely having been given away after her shot. When she stopped to check the Satellite Scan Terminal, she noticed that there were three other players nearby: «Dyne», «Pale Rider» and «Lion King Richie». She chose to leave Richie alone, and watch Dyne and Pale Rider who were nearby and were most likely running towards the river.

As Sinon watched Dyne and Pale Rider, she felt a presence behind her, and turned around to see Kirito, with his gun held up to show that he wouldn't shoot her. He stated that he wished to watch how the fight between Dyne and Pale Rider ended to see if either was «Death Gun». Sinon and Kirito then watched as Pale Rider was stunned by an unseen enemy, who turned out to be «Death Gun», hidden under a «Metamaterial Optical Camouflage». Sinon tried to shoot «Death Gun» at Kirito's urging, however when she shot him, her bullet passed right next to him, not harming him at all. She then came to the conclusion that «Death Gun» had known where she was and had kept checking on her location. As she was thinking whether to shoot «Death Gun» again, he shot «Pale Rider» with his pistol. Sinon then watched as «Pale Rider» jumped up after the Stun Bullet's effect wore off, and waited for his counterattack, which never happened, as «Pale Rider» was disconnected. Sinon then spoke about how «Death Gun» had cheated as he had forcefully disconnected «Pale Rider», but Kirito told her that he had not been forcefully disconnected, but in fact killed in real life.

Sinon told Kirito to watch the bridge so that she could check Death Gun's name, as the third satellite scan was about to take place. However, when she looked at the map, the player did not appear on the scan, thus Kirito and Sinon guessed that he was hiding underwater. As Kirito began pursuing Death Gun, Sinon trailed the former and insisted on coming with him, sharing her disbelief that he would survive the battle, and thus would not fulfil his promise to her. When Kirito warned her of the danger involved, Sinon argued that the danger was present regardless of whether she was with him due to Death Gun's position being unknown, a fact that Kirito reluctantly agreed with. At that moment, the two were ambushed by Kakouton, thus Sinon was ordered to shoot the attacker while Kirito covered her. Sinon watched as Kirito parried Kakouton's bullets and found herself longing to understand his strength. After the opponent was defeated with one shot from her Hecate, Sinon and Kirito assumed that Death Gun would favor cover as a sniper, and thus he would head for the Lost City to the north.

As they reached the outskirts of the abandoned city without seeing any sign of their target, Sinon reminded Kirito that they were still ignorant of Death Gun's actual character name. While they reviewed their remaining suspects, Sterben and Jūshi X, Sinon hypothesized the latter to be the most likely candidate, as the name Jūshi X had a kanji that was a homonym of the Japanese word for "death", while the X vaguely resembled a cross. With no other ideas, they decided to focus on Jūshi X if both suspects were in the city, with Sinon providing covering fire while Kirito drew their target's attention.

When the satellite scan began one minute later, the two found only two users in the city: Jūshi X in a stadium and «Licolo» slightly to the west of it. This seemingly confirmed their suspicion, thus they headed closer to the stadium, where they managed to catch a glimpse of Jūshi X's sniper rifle. At that moment, Sinon was persuaded by Kirito's to provide supporting fire with her sniper rifle while he attacked Jūshi X from the rear.

However, while Sinon was approaching her sniping position, she found herself collapsed on the road due to being hit by a stun bullet from her blind spot. As she bewilderedly attempted to determine what had occurred, she discovered that Death Gun, who was revealed to be Sterben, had been using an Metamaterial Optical Camouflage Mantle to conceal himself to ambush her. Realizing that Sterben had been using the mantle to snipe his quarries and avoid the satellite scan, Sinon could only listen as he drew closer to her and declared that he would kill her.

Having recovered from her shock, Sinon struggled to move her right hand to her H&K MP7 submachine gun on her waist before Sterben could fire. However, just when she managed to draw her sidearm from her waist, the girl noticed to her horror that Sterben's handgun was a Type 54 "Black Star", the same gun she had used to kill the bank robber five years prior. Losing her grip on her submachine gun in shock, the sniper hallucinated the bank robber under Death Gun's cloak, which resulted in her resigning to death. To her surprise, however, Sterben was abruptly shot by another player, who also threw a smoke grenade in-between her and Sterben. Under the cover of the smoke, Sinon's petrified avatar and her equipment were retrieved by Kirito.

After the duo commandeered the only serviceable buggy at a nearby rental point, Sinon was asked to destroy the only other vehicle at the rental point to prevent Death Gun from using it to overtake them. Much to her shock and distress, however, she found herself unable to even touch the trigger. As Sinon began suffering a panic attack upon seeing Sterben pursuing them, the two were forced to retreat without decommissioning the horse, which allowed Death Gun to continue pursuing them on horseback. With some encouragement and assistance, Sinon managed to fire a shot from her Hecate, which accidentally hit the fuel tank of a truck instead and triggered an explosion that destroyed the horse, allowing the duo to escape.

Having driven some distance out of the city and into the desert, the pair eventually took shelter in a cave, where they would be hidden from the satellite scan and be able to detect if Sterben attempted to ambush them again. Although still shaken by the encounter, Sinon refused to remain behind when Kirito declared he would continue fighting Death Gun by himself before the mantled player could kill anyone else. While discussing why they both needed to stop Sterben despite his seeming power to kill people from within the game, the girl remembered how the mantled player had ignored Dyne after dispatching Pale Rider. Realizing Sterben was being selective with who he targeted, the two pondered any possible commonalities between his victims and Sinon.

After Sinon recalled how she and XeXeeD had the opportunity to receive a physical model gun for their participation in the previous BoB due to registering their real-world addresses, the duo eventually determined Death Gun was actually comprised of two people. Having stolen their quarries' real-life residential information by spying on them in the regent's office, one member would shoot their target in-game while the other infiltrated the target's home to inject them with a lethal drug at the same time. Though horrified at the thought that the real-world accomplice was already poised to kill her, Sinon was reassured they could still disrupt the killers' plan by defeating Sterben before he could shoot her.

Calibur
Shortly after the «Death Gun» incident was solved, Shino was invited by Asuna and Lisbeth to join «ALfheim Online». She created a new account and chose a Cait Sith as her avatar, due to the race having the best eyesight of the nine races which would be very useful for using a bow for long-range attacks. Two weeks later, when the location of Holy Sword Excalibur was found by everyday players, Kirito decided that it was time to retrieve the sword. Sinon was one of the five players invited to join Kirito and Leafa on their quest to recover the sword. When Klein demanded Kirito to help him acquire the «Spirit Katana Kagutsuchi» in return for his services, Sinon in turn requested Kirito for his aid in obtaining the «Light Bow Shekinah», as, despite the excellency of the bow Lisbeth had crafted for her, she desired a weapon with more range.





In the tunnel leading to Jötunheimr, Sinon had her tail pulled by Kirito as a joke, to which she responded by threatening to attack him with a fire arrow. When they entered the dungeon, she was relegated to the back lines due to having low health and long-range attacks. After Kirito was forced to drop Excalibur, Sinon retrieved it using a Retrieve Arrow. She returned the sword to Kirito, but jokingly gave him the condition that he had to always think of her when using it.

Girls Ops
Some time after the start of 2026, Sinon joined Silica, Lisbeth, Leafa, and Lux to enjoy some tea and sweets with Sakuya and Alicia Rue in Swilvane. When the girls started talking about the Excalibur quest, Sinon interjected to remind them of her role in retrieving the sword. After Sakuya received a message about recent fanatical player killers in the middle of the conversation, Sinon and the other girls expressed shock when they learnt the extent of the damages engendered in Sylph territory, as well as the failed efforts to stop them.

A few days later, due to Sakuya having been attacked by the player killers the other day, Sinon was requested by Alicia to act as her bodyguard while the Lord discussed with the other Fairy Lords how to handle the problem. En route to meet with Sakuya, the pair encountered Silica, Leafa, and Lisbeth. The archer informed them that the attack on Sakuya had recently inspired more players to participate in player killing.

Gun Gale Online

 * «Hawk Eye»

Notable Achievements

 * Co-winner of the third Bullet of Bullets (alongside Kirito) in «Gun Gale Online».
 * 2nd place in the fourth Bullet of Bullets.

Trivia

 * Shino has no memories of her father or his appearance, as he died when Shino was only one year old, while her mother erased all photographs and videos of him after the traffic accident.
 * The glasses Shino uses do not have any prescription and are not meant for correcting eyesight. Instead, the lenses are made from an NXT polymer which is said to make the glasses able to withstand even the impact of a bullet. This gives her a modest sense of security and allows her to stay calm despite her trauma from the past.
 * The visual acuity rating for both of Shino's eyes in real life are 2.0, which is twice as good as the average person.
 * Asuna has nicknamed Shino as "Sinonon".
 * Sinon's avatar in ALfheim Online was originally supposed to be a Sylph archer. This was changed with the creation of the Calibur side story.
 * Sinon appears in multiple Sword Art Online game adaptations as an archer, even though she was not an SAO player and archers did not exist in SAO in the original story.
 * Shino aspires to become a policewoman.
 * Shino's motto is "One Shot, One Kill". In the real world, this saying is popularly known as the "Sniper's Creed", and is often quoted by real-world military snipers.
 * While discussing about the designs of the series heroines, the light novel illustrator abec felt that the glasses factor in the series was too low at the time and suggested making Sinon a glasses girl. This idea ended up being adopted.
 * In an official character popularity poll hosted by Dengeki Bunko for the cover of abec Art Works, Shino's GGO avatar ranked third, her ALO avatar ranked sixteenth, while her real life persona ranked eleventh.

Gallery

 * See: Asada Shino/Image Gallery

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