Spoiler Alert: This article or section contains details about plotlines not covered in the anime. Do not proceed unless you wish to be spoiled.
Airy (エアリー,Earī?) is a minor character in the Alicization Arc. She is a young-looking girl who was assigned to operate the elevating disk between the 50th and 80th floors of the Central Cathedral in Underworld, then known as Elevating Operator (昇降係,Shōkō-gakari?).
Airy looks like a young girl who wears a plain, black, long skirt, with a modest, see-through hem knitted onto the white apron, which hangs from her chest to below her knees, and no other accessories on herself.
Her light brown hair, slightly grayed, is cut straight at her eyebrows and shoulders, with hardly any distinguishing facial features on her pale complexion. The hair is well-ordered but without even a shred of emotion. She also has deep, indigo-blue eyes, much like the blue skies at the height of summer. Her voice possesses the minimum level of vocal intonation and reveals no sort of emotion at all.
Personality[]
Airy is mostly an emotionless person as she was assigned a mind-numbing task which she had been doing for over a hundred of years and, thus, most likely has not had much, if any, contact with the outside world, as, she herself admits that she knows nothing about the world aside from the disk she was assigned to operate and, when asked about what she wanted to do if she was freed, she replied that she wanted to fly freely on her elevating disk in the skies.
Background[]
The girl was given the Sacred Task of being the operator of an elevating disk in the cathedral with no other instructions to follow. To be able to make continued use of her services, Quinella had the natural degeneration of the Elevating Operator's «Life» frozen ever since then, enabling the girl to work continuously for 107 years since then, being allowed to rest for lunch and during the night.
She was also likely granted a large System Control Authority and is skilled at using Sacred Arts, as she is able to generate 10 elements in one chant, which is a rather difficult feat to achieve.
After Eugeo and Kirito defeated Fanatio Synthesis Two and her «Four Oscillation Blades», the two entered through the grand door that the knights were guarding, only to discover that there were no stairs, ladders or even ropes that could be used to climb up. Just as they were wondering how they would have to reach the higher floors, the Elevating Operator descended with her elevating disk and offered to bring them up to the floor of their choosing. After finding out that the girl had no other instructions other than to operate the disk, Kirito accepted the girl's offer and asked her to take them to the highest floor she could. The girl then generated and then burst ten Aerial elements, which created an explosive downward wind gust, the force of which raised the disk upwards. Along the way, while the girl was periodically generating and bursting Aerial elements, the two swordsmen found out how long she had been operating the disk and that the only desire she could imagine was to fly freely on the disk in the skies. At that point, the disk finally reached the 80th floor of the cathedral and the boys got off the disk. The girl then bowed, as the disk began descending downwards.
Moon Cradle[]
After the War of Underworld, the Elevating Operator assumed the name Airy and began working with Sadore as a mechanic. Airy also helped charge Machine Dragon v.2 with Aerial Elements before Kirito's first trip inside the vessel.
Gallery[]
Elevating Operator with Alice, Cardinal, Charlotte, Quinella, and Scheta on an illustration from the If You Were Here side story.
Trivia[]
The Elevating Operator uses the personal pronoun watakushi (わたくし,watakushi?), written in hiragana, to refer to herself. This pronoun is an extremely polite form of "I" in Japanese and is practically never used in modern Japanese, aside from certain very formal situations.
In Volume 19, the Elevating Operator's name is revealed to be Airy (エアリー,Earī?).
