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Karatachi Nijika (枳殻 虹架, Karatachi Nijika?), known as Rain (レイン, Rein?) in ALfheim Online (ALO), Sword Art: Origin (SA:O), Gun Gale Online (GGO) and Project Alicization is a character original to the Sword Art Online Game Series. She first appeared in Sword Art Online: Lost Song as one of the main characters. Nijika's Avatar in ALfheim Online is a Leprechaun, who can dual wield like Kirito; however, she is actually a multi-wielder.
Background[]
Before logging into ALfheim Online, Nijika lived a happy life with her parents and younger sister, Nanairo Arshavin (Seven), in Russia. However, when it became apparent that her sister's genius was blooming, her parents argued about the future they wanted for her, their father wanting to nurture her genius, and their mother wanting her to live a normal life. The family eventually divorced, with Nijika moving back to Japan, while her father gained custody of her sister, who lost all memory of her mother and sister as she grew up in America.
While living in Japan, Nijika became infatuated with pop culture and had a part-time job working for a maid cafe in Akihabara. She dreamt of becoming an idol, to one day stand alongside her younger sister with pride. Despite the love for her, her sister's success sparked jealousy in her heart. Nijika eventually became one of the 10,000 victims of Sword Art Online (SAO), and survived the game on her own. In the aftermath, she met with Kikuoka Seijirou, whom she asked for information regarding her younger sister.
Chronology[]
Lost Song[]
As Kirito and his friends went about their adventures through the first two islands, Rain was secretly spying them and became more and more impressed with them. Kirito only started noticing her around Wellgunde, the desert island, despite having strange feelings of being watched throughout his travels.
When Kirito, Asuna and Leafa travelled to Wellgunde after the others had logged out for the day, they heard Rain's scream, and hurried to save her from attacking harpy monsters. Afterwards, Kirito easily identified her as their stalker, despite her lies that she was a newbie player, by exposing that her equipped boots matched those of the footprints she had previously left behind. With the truth exposed, Rain finally introduced herself to them, and shared that she had learnt about Kirito's and Asuna's skills from reading about them on web forum boards, calling Kirito the hero of Sword Art Online. In the aftermath, Rain was invited to join them by Kirito, a decision that Asuna and Leafa later agreed to as well.
As they continued their mission to clear Wellgunde, Kirito eventually became able to sense when Rain was nearby, thus he would call out to her even though she was hiding. As time passed, Rain began meeting the others in his group each time this happened. It was not until Flosshilde that Rain came out of the shadows to help her new friends and joined the party, noticing that Shamrock was beating them to the treasures in the dungeons. With aid from Rain, Kirito's party managed to complete a quest ahead of Shamrock. However, it was not long until Shamrock's de-facto leader, Sumeragi, realised the truth. When Kirito chose to duel Sumeragi, the latter publicly identified Rain as "Rain the Liar", a former Shamrock member who joined the guild by means of deception. She was later expelled for it, but still managed to use her remaining access to the group to steal information from them. Following the accusations, Kirito and the others returned to town.
When confronting Rain about this, Sinon was the first to oppose her. However, Kirito and Yui both realized that what Sumeragi said about her could not be true, as she would have lost her access the moment she was expelled from Shamrock. And thus, she could not have truly done what she was accused of. Kirito then convinced everyone to allow Rain to stay in the group.
Rain continued to support Kirito and the others as they made their way through the game, until they eventually reached the final dungeon, Niflheim. She was present when Kirito refused Seven's invitation to join Shamrock and help with her plan to create the Cloud Brain. She was somewhat shocked when she heard Kirito speak of a person in real life, later revealed to be Nijika, expressing her innermost feelings with songs in public, but was ultimately ignored, compared to the attention Seven gained from her fans.
As Kirito's party traversed the final dungeon on Niflheim to confront and stop Seven's plans, Rain's complete history was revealed when Kirito once again exposed her in front of Asuna and Leafa, after having contacted Kikouka Seijirou in real life. Rain revealed that she wanted to join Shamrock in order to get closer to her sister, and to start rumors that would instigate trouble. However, when that plan failed, she sought out Kirito's group in hopes that their power would be enough to defeat Shamrock and help her reach her sister. With Rain having revealed her motives to the group, they welcomed Rain as one of their own.
Prior to the final battle with Seven, Rain could not stand the kind of person Seven was becoming, thus Rain slapped her. Rain then asked whether Seven's actions as an idol were honest, or if she had just been acting for her plan, like how she stole the Original Sword Skills of fallen Shamrock members for her own usage. When Seven's avatar became corrupted from the overwhelming mass of Original Sword Skills, Rain joined the battle but became unable to fight as she did not want to hurt her sister any further. When the battle was over, Rain easily deduced that it was the overwhelming stress of expectation that finally broke Seven's spirit, thus she embraced her sister, letting Seven cry on her elder sister's shoulder.
Days later, Nijika decided to pursue her dreams of becoming an idol. It was not long until Kazuto found her in the real world and spoke to her about her reasons for quitting ALfheim Online. Eventually, he persuaded her to return to ALO, and they met at the Island of Meadows. There, Kirito challenged Rain to a duel, knowing that she was holding back somewhat due to being a Sword Art Online survivor, who survived the game on her own. During the battle, Rain showcased her «Thousand Rain» skill, which was only possible by using her Leprechaun magic to draw out numerous weapons from her inventory simultaneously. Despite this great skill, Kirito still managed to defeat her.
It was at this point that Seven appeared, having been invited by Kirito. As the victory condition of their duel, Kirito wished for Rain to speak with Seven, as he desired for his friends to be happy, knowing all along that Rain wanted to tell Seven the truth sooner. At that moment, Rain finally told Seven about their life as sisters, reminding her of how she had taught Seven the greeting words that she had used. As Seven processed Rain's words, she eventually remembered her life with her family, hugged her older sister, and both introduced themselves to each other. Rain thanked Kirito, who responded by telling her that she was welcome to join his friends in ALO anytime.
Rain joined the party for one final post-game event battle, where the entire group headed to Niflheim to challenge a new event quest boss. Throughout their journey in the dungeon, a voice spoke to them telepathically, asking how the players had managed to reach the point that they were at that day. Upon reaching the end, Rain and Seven both speak about how their lives had changed for the better after meeting Kirito and his friends. The voice then introduced itself as «Lost Song», the most powerful event boss of the game. After defeating it, the group returned to Agil's cafe, where Seven revealed that Rain and her mother were coming to visit her in America very soon.
Fatal Bullet[]
Dissonance of the Nexus[]
Sometime after the events of the Death Gun incident and the case of stolen NerveGear units, Rain was requested by Seven to help her investigate rumors that YUNA had appeared in Gun Gale Online (GGO). Shortly after beginning their hunt, the duo encountered Fukaziroh, Kureha, LLENN, M, Pitohui, and the Protagonist, who were about to explore the Winter Frontier in search of a rumored rare item. As the pair had failed to find any leads, the girl persuaded her sister to invite the others to assist with their investigation. Once they had prepared themselves, Rain and Seven followed the others as they entered a blizzardy region within the Winter Frontier, where they eventually found YUNA.
When YUNA explained she needed to complete a quest in the Winter Frontier, the group probed deeper into the area, eventually encountering a building that was apparently generating a blizzard plaguing the entire region. After spending some time studying the structure and the area around it, Rain learned she and Seven would need to sing atop a sonic-amplifying machine in front of the building to deactivate the snowmaker in order to complete the quest. Though initially hesitant to give an impromptu performance in the presence of others, the idol-in-training joined her sister on the machine while everyone else defended the duo from monsters attracted by the song, with YUNA's participation in the performance providing the last bit of effort needed to terminate the blizzard. Afterwards, the girl followed the others in exploring the rest of the Winter Frontier while Afasys, the Protagonist, and YUNA left to pursue their own goals.
Later, Rain and everyone else noticed the Protagonist and several other players battling multiple monsters attracted by YUNA's singing. Sensing this was an urgent matter, they decided to join the fight and eliminate several of the enemies, after which most of the team stayed behind to handle the remaining monsters so Kureha and the Protagonist's other companions could reach the AR idol's position.
Another Heroine Inverter[]
When Kirigaya Kazuto's (Kirito) location on the Ocean Turtle was discovered after he had been critically injured by Kanamoto Atsushi, Rain and the others waited as Strea and Yui continued to monitor the situation while Asada Shino (Sinon), Ayano Keiko (Silica), Kirigaya Suguha (Leafa), Shinozaki Rika (Lisbeth), and Yuuki Asuna (Asuna) used the Soul Translators to enter Underworld to assist Kirito. Shortly after the five logged into Underworld, the girl learned a connection had been formed between the Ocean Turtle and the Gun Gale Online (GGO) servers, through which a massive amount of player data had been downloaded. Realizing it was likely the only opportunity they had to help Kirito, the group followed Strea's, Yui's, and Zeliska's instructions in infiltrating the hidden area of an underground dungeon in GGO that contained an emergency control console for Zaskar employees. Once Rain and Seven destroyed the last of three in-game surveillance servers guarding the console, the sisters reported their success to the other teams handling the other surveillance servers, before moving to rendezvous with them in the control room.
After Rain and Seven assembled at the console with Kureha, Philia, and Zeliska, they were soon joined by Premiere, Strea, Tia, and Yui, the last of whom revealed the Ocean Turtle had mysteriously lost all communication with the outside world. At the same time, Strea explained she and her sister had created an Inverter, a reverse-conversion device which could send them to Underworld. As the Inverter could only be used on one of them, Rain and the others were persuaded to vote who to send by sharing what they felt about Kirito. Just after the crew finished divulging how much they cared for the boy, however, the system detected the surveillance servers' inactivity and began shutting the console down. Although Strea attempted to activate the Inverter, the server was rebooted into repair mode before she could succeed, forcing everyone to retreat.
When Rain and the rest of the group returned to Kirito's residence, they learned Strea and Yui had misled them about the Inverter. The device was actually designed to compile a player's thought pattern data into an Artificial Intelligence (AI) copy of their personality and send it into Underworld; having all the girls discuss their emotions regarding Kirito were simply a means to generate enough of that data, but the connection was too small to accept any of the copies before the system shutdown. Although embarrassed they had been tricked into divulging their private thoughts concerning Kirito, everyone else did not resent the pair for the deception. Instead, they expressed faith their efforts that day would contribute to eventually getting their AI copies successfully sent to help the swordsman and his companions in their stead.
Skills[]
ALfheim Online[]
As a playable character, Rain has access to all Skills within the three weapon categories she uses. The only exception being Thousand Rain, which is a Skill unique to her.
Dual Blades[]
- Final Revolution
- Specula Cross
- Cygnus Onslaught
- Starburst Stream
- The Eclipse
- Thousand Rain (Original Sword Skill)
One Handed Sword[]
- Sharp Nail
- Rage Spike
- Horizontal Square
- Radiant Arc
- Vorpal Strike
- Nova Ascension
Rapier[]
- Stinger
- Quadruple Pain
- Pierce Territory
- Sonic Impulse
- Shooting Star
- Star Splash
Gun Gale Online[]
Throughout the events of Fatal Bullet, Rain has access to all Skills within the two weapon categories she uses. This means she will often change her equipped Skills. The following is a list of Skills she uses in Hero Quest Mode and Hero PvP Mode, since these never change.
Hero Quest Mode[]
Weapon 1 (Dual SMG)[]
- Concentration 4
- Tactical Roll 2
- Healing Field Shot 2
- Sliding Shot 3
Weapon 2 (Shotgun)[]
- Conceal 3
- Human Fortress 2
- Trigger Happy 2
- Gunstinger 3
Gadgets[]
- Anti-AR Veil
- Frag Grenade
- Anti-Ailment Kit
- Plasma Grenade
Hero PvP Mode[]
Weapon 1 (Dual SMG)[]
- Power Form Shot 3
- AED Shot 1
- Healing Bullet 3
- Scatter Wheel 2
Weapon 2 (Shotgun)[]
- Healing Field Shot 3
- Armor Form Shot 3
- Curing Field Shot
- HP Recovery Shot 3
Gadgets[]
- Anti-AR Veil
- Anti-Ailment Kit
- First Aid Kit
- Plasma Grenade
Trivia[]
- The name Nijika (虹架) comes from the Japanese phrase "rainbow formed" (虹が架かた, Niji ga kakata?), as her mother saw a beautiful rainbow on the day she was born.[2]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Rain's measurements revealed on an official birthday post on SAO Beater's Cafe
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Poll held during Dengeki PlayStation's August 30, 2018 video game livestream to decide Rain's birthday and the origin of her name.
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg4xjj2So5k&t=222s
- ↑ Sword Art Online: Lost Song end game credits
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