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Non Canon: Some or all events and details given in this article, may be considered non-canon to the main story. |
Premiere (プレミア, Puremia?) is a game adaptation-original character in Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization. Unlike the other main characters, she is a Non-Player Character (NPC), born from the creation of Sword Art: Origin.
Appearance[]
Premiere looks almost identical to her younger[4] sister Tia, the only identifying difference between the twins being the presence of a small mole right under the corner of the former's right eye. Like Tia, Premiere has blue eyes and short black hair, with two dull gold decorations around the forelocks framing her face. Her outfit consists of a light blue-green shirt and a white skirt with light purple edging that exposes much of her legs above and below the knees. The shirt and skirt are connected to light purple sleeves that cover her wrists and the back of her hands, which in turn are covered with a set of wide sleeves of the same color as her shirt. Additionally, over her shirt she has four dark blue-green and light purple strips of cloth, reminiscent of religious clothing, that are attached by three dull gold buckles on the front to each other, and a white collar covering her shoulders and part of her neck. She wears brown leather sandals covering her toes and heels that leave the sides of her feet exposed, with a circular leather strip wrapped above her ankles, and a silver metal decoration on the toe box. After requesting fighting lessons from Kirito, she began wielding a rapier.
Personality[]
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Originally, Premiere had no pre-programmed settings to determine her behavior or interactions with players. However, after meeting Kirito's group, she began to develop an inquisitive and childlike nature, often learning and utilizing words and phrases she heard from other players.
Chronology[]
Hollow Realization[]
Premiere was first seen staring unwaveringly at Kirito from among the players in the main plaza of the Town of Beginnings on the day of the beta opening of Sword Art: Origin. When Kirito noticed and tried to reach her, Premiere turned away, saying something inaudible, and disappeared into the crowd.
The next day, Premiere was encountered by Kirito again, who discovered that she was a quest giving NPC, albeit one without a name. However, the quest only consisted of bringing her to a location outside the town and fighting several boars, and ended with a reward of a single Cor on completion, as well as an utter lack of background content. Upon conclusion of the quest, Premiere was accompanied by Kirito on her immediate return to the town, where they encountered the latter's friends. After Yui revealed that Premiere was an NPC with no original coding telling her how to act, Premiere was given her name by Kirito's group. She accepted the name with equanimity, and was taken under their care until they could learn her original settings.
By the time Premiere met Kirito, Leafa, Silica, and Lisbeth again while wandering the streets aimlessly, very few players had any interest in her quest anymore due to her insignificant rewards, thus Premiere received help from Kirito's group. At the end of the quest, after the players invited Premiere to call upon them if she ever needed help, she thanked them for their assistance.
Some time later, when Kirito met with Asuna to complete a special event quest, Premiere appeared and silently gave them the impression that she desired their assistance with her quest line, thus the two agreed to forgo the special event. Along the way to their destination, the trio stopped to eat some homemade sandwiches, which Premiere enjoyed as she had felt hungry in a sense. After the meal, Kirito suggested taking a scenic detour from Premiere's usual route, during which they decided to explore a cleared cave.
However, upon reaching the end of the cave, the group was surprised to find a path existing in the place of a wall. Wondering what could have caused such a change, they proceeded further into the dungeon and defeated a skeleton miniboss, before finding themselves in a long hall with a mysterious stone on a pedestal at the end. As they approached the stone, Premiere folded her hands in a praying gesture. At that moment, the stone began glowing, only growing doubly brighter when Kirito and Asuna directly handed it to Premiere, who simply commented on its beauty. Stunned at the turn of events, Kirito and Asuna decided that the stone's reaction to Premiere's touch was part of her true quest, and allowed her to take possession of it before returning to the Town of Beginnings to report their findings to their friends.
At a later time, when players were misinformed that killing NPCs would earn them great rewards, Premiere was assaulted by another player, who was only stopped due to the intervention of Kirito and Argo, outside of town. After the player was forced to retreat by an attracted monster, Premiere was warned by Kirito of the possibility that other players might repeat the stunt on her, thus she was asked to allow him to protect her, to which she agreed.
Later, while Kirito, Asuna, and Sinon were discussing how to advance Premiere's quest further, Premiere unexpectedly approached them and personally requested Kirito to teach her how to protect herself. After Kirito hesitantly agreed to train her, Premiere was taken to the fields outside the Town of Beginnings, where she was taught how to wield a rapier, though she initially experienced difficulty performing Sword Skills. She offered to terminate the lesson, as it was merely a personal request, but Kirito encouraged her to continue. With a little more persistence, Premiere finally executed a successful Sword Skill, much to her satisfaction, and they proceeded to practice her techniques on several boars. After the lesson, the fencer was allowed to join Kirito's party in battles outside of town.
A while after Lisbeth's Blacksmith Shop was opened, Premiere approached Asuna and Kirito while they were discussing a dungeon which was possibly linked to the glowing stone they had found earlier, prompting their invitation to have Premiere join them. About halfway to their destination, a quest marker appeared above Premiere's head just as she requested to take a detour to another location. As the two players agreed to do so, the quest cursor changed color, causing Premiere to wince when the cursor disappeared as if the occurrence had hurt her. The three followed the quest marker and found the Divine Tree that they had to receive protection from for the quest. Premiere walked past her companions toward the tree, bowed her head, and serenely folded her hands in prayer for several minutes. Once the sound indicating the completion of the quest resounded, Premiere had no objection to the resumption of their journey, though she insisted on having lunch before proceeding.
At the dungeon, the three discovered they had wandered further than the map data they had purchased from Argo had recorded. Deducing they had entered another secret area, similarly to their previous adventure, due to Premiere being in their party, they continued deeper into the cave and faced a ram miniboss. After the monster was dispatched, the group found themselves in a hall similar to the first, with a second mysterious stone on another altar at the end. As Asuna cheered over the accuracy of her finding, Premiere extended her hands and briefly hesitated before taking the stone, whereupon it began to glow like the first one. An inscription described the item as one of six sacred stones bestowed by the Goddess. As the two players speculated on the identity of the Goddess, Premiere confessed she had eaten more than her share of Asuna's lunch, prompting them to laugh. With Premiere in possession of the stone, the group returned to town.
While Premiere attempted to subtly manipulate Kirito into escorting her to another location after the defeat of the boss of the Oldrobe Forest, Leafa, Silica, and Lisbeth informed them of a place in the swamps that was potentially related to the former's quest. Premiere and Kirito were led by the girls to the area in question, where they located an ancient dungeon holding the third Sacred Stone in a secret room at the back. Premiere retrieved the stone, which began to glow upon contact, and thanked the others for coming with her. The group searched the site for clues to location of the next quest, but to no avail. After they discussed how the questline felt as though it was unfinished, Premiere was requested to help Silica acquire materials for a quest, to which she agreed.
Once enough materials were gathered, Premiere followed Kirito's group as they trailed a large party that was using NPCs as bait to distract a powerful dragon boss, and joined them when they volunteered to take the NPCs' place. After the other party left at the conclusion of the battle, Premiere wondered about Kirito's pleased expression and the reason for the argument among the other players before the start of the fight. After discovering that Kirito was glad about the avoided casualties and conflict with the other party, Premiere pondered on Kirito's wish to protect lives, including those of NPCs, as they began returning to town.
Some time later, Premiere accepted the invitation of Kirito, Asuna, and Yuuki to visit a large tree, similar to the one she had prayed to earlier. However, nothing indicating any advancement on Premiere's quest occurred when they reached the tree. Thus, the group decided to return, encountering Genesis along the way.
Premiere was later invited to investigate a place potentially relevant to her quest with Kirito and Asuna. Having defeated a lion miniboss in the dungeon, the trio found the fourth Sacred Stone held in a secret room in the back. After taking the stone, Premiere thanked her companions for their assistance and patience. At that moment, she discovered an inscription that spoke of two Goddesses, who would descend when the land was covered in chaos to eradicate the darkness.
After Kirito's group uncovered the true nature of Premiere's quest and the modifications the Cardinal System had performed on it to reenact the events of the Great Separation, Premiere approached the group with an active quest marker hovering over her head. After a few seconds of surprise from the others, Premiere accepted their request to have her follow them to the location marked in the quest log.
Having reached the location of the quest, where they defeated a minotaur miniboss, Premiere found a cave dungeon with a hidden room in the back. Strangely, the cave lacked any traps or difficult monsters, as if someone had found the place before her and Kirito. Despite diligently combing the entire area at the end of the cave, they could not find the Sacred Stone. After their unsuccessful search, Premiere wondered where else to look but was persuaded by Kirito to abandon the pursuit and return to the Town of Beginnings.
At that moment, Premiere and Kirito encountered Genesis, who unveiled his possession of the fifth Sacred Stone and his control of a girl identical to Premiere, revealed to be her twin and the Other Goddess. As Premiere stood face to face with her sister, she listened to Genesis' speech on his desire to complete the altered Ground Quest, which would destroy Ainground and Aincrad in the process. After the greatswordsman and her sister departed from the cavern, Premiere inquired Kirito on what Genesis had meant but received no answer.
Not long thereafter, Premiere encountered Kirito in town while the latter was concerned about the Other Goddess' situation with Genesis. Sensing subtle differences from his usual thinking pose, and feeling concerned, she clung to his arm, a technique she heard Asuna often used to make him happy. After they were approached by Sinon and Leafa, Premiere released her hold on Kirito upon hearing his claim that his emotional state had improved. She then followed the girls to a forest camp that supposedly held the sixth and last Sacred Stone but was inaccessible without her presence.
With Premiere in the party, the group was able to enter the instanced location of the encampment from the woods. At Kirito's cue, Premiere introduced herself to the NPCs guarding the location as a Goddess; however, in order to confirm her identity, she was requested to present her twin to them before they would give them the stone.
Shortly after the defeat of the boss of the Kurjiez Desert, Premiere observed that Kirito was still constantly and visibly worried, as well as tense. Resolving to enhearten and make him smile again, she proposed having a picnic with him, Asuna, Yuuki, Philia, Strea, and Yui. While the other girls busied themselves with preparing the materials for the event, Premiere and Kirito were charged with locating the ideal spot for holding it, Premiere being pleased that the latter was no longer dejected.
While Premiere and Kirito were testing one of the possible locations and having a conversation about happiness, a quest marker appeared over the former's head, and she was asked to set aside finding a perfect picnic area and return to the location of the last Sacred Stone. Arriving at the encampment, the duo were disquieted at seeing an utter absence of presence of the guardian NPCs in the area. Upon hearing a sound, they ran toward the source, where they witnessed the last of the NPCs being executed by the Other Goddess. Premiere watched as Kirito, and later Asuna, fought to protect her from being taken to complete the final part of the questline by Genesis. After the greatswordsman and the Other Goddess were forced to retreat, Premiere, Kirito, and Asuna returned to the Town of Beginnings to discuss the incident with everyone else.
Some time later, Premiere accompanied Kirito deep into the Oltrum Bastion, where they found Genesis and the Other Goddess waiting for them at the Temple of Prayers. Premiere expressed her concern when Kirito accepted Genesis' challenge to fight him but was told not to worry and to stay out of harm's way. When a victorious Kirito realized the absence of the Other Goddess in the aftermath of the battle, Premiere reported her twin had fled deeper into the temple.
Premiere and Kirito raced to the Altar of Prayers at the heart of the temple, where they found the Other Goddess awaiting them. There, Premiere was asked by her sister, who revealed her name to be Tia, to help her complete the Ground Quest. However, Premiere declined, stating she had no desire to end their world, as it was not their place to judge it on a whim. She argued passionately in favor of preserving the future they and everyone else had, asserting they would be accepted by others, contrary to her twin's claims. Despite her attempts, Premiere was unable to dissuade Tia from her course, thus she could only watch in shock as her sister forcibly summoned the Sacred Stones to float around her, teleporting from the temple to initiate the Great Separation.
Forced to aid in finishing the Great Separation by Tia's influence, Premiere disappeared from the Town of Beginnings later that day. Despite Premiere's attempts to resist when Kirito found her that night, a quest marker materialized over her head, signifying the system's control of her. However, Premiere continued to hesitate and, with Kirito's encouragement, managed to regain control of herself, shattering her quest mark.
Upon returning to town, Premiere silently observed the group's anxiety at her disappearance to calculate an appropriate response. After learning they bore no grudge for her actions, she apologized for causing their agitation and expressed her gratitude for finding her.
When Kirito and the others learned of Tia's plan to crash the incomplete Aincrad into Ainground, Premiere led them to a Teleport Gate connecting to the floating castle. After defeating the giant treant miniboss guarding the gate, the girl offered a brief prayer to activate the structure, before the group returned to the Town of Beginnings to prepare for the upcoming fight.
Not long afterwards, Premiere joined Kirito's party in raiding the unfinished Aincrad. Fighting their way through the numerous monsters and barriers blocking their path, they reached the direct center of the castle, where they found Tia sleeping within the Prayer Conduit, a giant mecha construct coding the destruction of Aincrad. Despite her twin's awakening and efforts to stop them, the fencer and the others succeeded in destroying the Prayer Conduit, stopping the castle's descent.
When Tia attempted to commit suicide in despair over her defeat, Premiere pleaded with her to stop. She refuted her sister's claims that the weak deserved to die, proclaiming everyone had an inherent right to live. She further extolled the potential within every heart and mind to grow, describing all she had experienced with Kirito and his group. When Tia expressed her uncertainty over the future, Premiere asked her to place her trust in her honesty and friends, and to hope for the best. After her twin, contemplating her words, teleported away to an unknown location, Premiere voiced her hope that they would be reunited, reaffirming her wish to remain with Kirito and his friends, before leaving Aincrad with them.
Several days later, Premiere followed the group on a picnic to celebrate their victory, joining them for a group photo. While everyone else departed for a game of hide-and-seek, she had a conversation with Kirito, during which she revealed her deduction on the roles of Asuna, Leafa, and Yui in his life, and thus requesting the vacant lover role. Rejecting to reveal the source of her knowledge, she followed him after the rest of the party.
Warriors of the Sky[]
About a week after the battle against Tia in Aincrad, Premiere heard rumors of a mysterious NPC being sighted in the recently-discovered Stalvatos Ruins area. As the NPC had white hair and their fighting style was similar to Genesis's, Premiere was struck by the thought that it might be Tia. Therefore, the girl requested everyone to help her investigate the sightings, still hoping to convince her sister of the value of friendship. Shortly after the group reached the location where the NPC was last seen, Premiere spotted the mysterious NPC watching them from a distance.
Explorer of Illusory Mists[]
Sometime after clearing the Stalvatos Ruins, Premiere learned a new area had just been opened one Floor below the ruined arenas. Anxious to reunite with Tia, she followed the others into the Vulcanus Citadel in search of her sister, where they caught occasional glimpses of the mysterious NPC while exploring the volcanic fortress. During the group's attempts to open a sealed gate blocking their progress, the girl suffered a debilitating headache wherein she experienced someone else's thoughts of intense sadness and loneliness, which forced her to return to town to recover.
After a brief period in sleep mode, Premiere recuperated enough to rejoin the expedition. Suspecting the masked NPC might know the reason behind her affliction, she traveled alongside the group to the volcano dominating the wasteland, where the NPC had been spotted heading. When they finally reached their destination, the girl found the NPC cornered by several powerful monsters while suffering a headache of her own. Though the group managed to dispatch the monsters, the NPC fled before they could converse with her due to the arrival of players hunting her. Despite her frustration over the setback, Premiere resolved to continue her search.
Following the defeat of the boss of the Vulcunus Citadel, Premiere learned from Kirito that the mysterious NPC they had been pursuing was actually Tia, who somehow had her appearance altered and was driven to reach an undisclosed destination to end her torment. Troubled by how her sister was seemingly trapped in a negative thought process, the girl asserted they needed to find and save Tia from her internal struggles before she could succumb to them.
Tuner of Causality[]
A short while later, Premiere discovered another new area was also opened a few Floors below the Stalvatos Ruins. Concerned about Tia's well-being, the girl joined everyone else in the Northazrod Tundra, hoping to secure her sister before she could succumb to hunting players or her migraines. While navigating a series of obstacles impeding their progress, the band found Tia fighting a group of monsters despite experiencing one of her headaches. When they had finished assisting the greatswordswoman with the monsters, however, Premiere suffered a migraine of her own, during which she realized the sad and lonely thoughts she was feeling came from her twin, before her collapse from the pain necessitated everyone to let Tia go and return to town.
Once Premiere had recovered, she resumed her hunt for Tia alongside the rest of the team. During their exploration of the scattered ruins amongst the snowy landscape, they were persuaded to assist a large group of players in trapping a wandering monster that they claimed would facilitate progress through the area. To everyone's shock, the other players' target was revealed to be Tia, who they helped escape. Anxious at how their unwitting complicity in an attempt to harm her might have further distressed her twin, the girl and the others followed a lead on where the greatswordwoman had been spotted heading.
Having intercepted Tia at a narrow ice bridge suspended over a deep gorge, Premiere and the rest of the party attempted to persuade her sister to at least let them help her with whatever she needed to do but were forced to watch as the greatswordswoman engaged Kirito in combat. Shocked when both combatants fell off the bridge over the course of the duel, everyone hurriedly backtracked through the region to reach the bottom of the ravine. To their relief, they found Kirito and Tia unharmed, the latter of whom was also now tentatively cooperating with them, whereupon the team returned to town to revise their strategy for exploring the windswept tundra.
Upon learning they needed to defeat the area boss in order to access Tia's destination, the group resumed their exploration of the tundra, gathering charms and solving puzzles along the way to remove barriers impeding their path. During their time together, Premiere noted with some delight her twin seemed to be slowly growing closer to everyone. After the team located and vanquished the boss of the Northazrod Tundra, she learned Tia's headaches and change in appearance were caused by an encounter with an anomalous data-generating singularity, which was still attempting to overwrite her sister's data with a simulated consciousness of a potential future Tia that never found anywhere to belong. If they failed to reach the singularity's core and halt the overwriting attempts before the developers removed the anomaly, the sisters risked eventually being flagged for deletion by the Cardinal System.
Immediately following this revelation, however, Premiere discovered Tia had disappeared and alarmedly reported it to the others. Remembering how strained her twin had seemed the last time she saw her as if deep in thought, the girl agreed with the group's assessment she must have reverted to her solitary mindset and departed for the singularity by herself, thus she resolved to pursue her as soon as they could.
The One Who Resists God[]
Having finished preparations for their mission, Premiere and the others journeyed to the Elionward Dominion, where the path to the singularity's core was located. Upon seeing Tia had already unlocked the entryway into the area, the girl followed her sister's trail through the abandoned city until they found the greatswordswoman recovering from another migraine and battling multiple powerful monsters in rapid succession. Frustrated with her twin's continued refusal of the band's offered aid, the fencer confronted Tia at swordpoint, declaring the latter could not truly avert the future sadness and loneliness they had foreseen without accepting outside support. When the young woman asserted she could not afford and did not want to trust any of them, Premiere reminded her of how content she had seemed while traveling with them earlier; combined with Kirito and his friends saving Tia immediately afterward from a trap that left her at the mercy of a powerful monster, this convinced the greatswordswoman to finally accept their help and stay together, much to the girl's relief.
Once Tia had recuperated from her ordeal, Premiere and the rest of the group resumed their exploration of the Elionward Dominion, despite the sisters occasionally being debilitated by their headaches. After navigating several complicated dungeons scattered throughout the abandoned city in order to remove a barrier blocking their way, everyone reached the singularity and found the entrance to its core within its depths. However, the core itself was guarded by an area boss too strong for the team to beat by themselves, forcing the fencer and the others to withdraw. Following this, they heard a system announcement that all players would automatically be logged out ten minutes before midnight for emergency maintenance so the developers could remove the singularity. With limited time to terminate the data interference on Tia by then, everyone elected to gather as many people as they could for a second attempt on the boss.
Having recruited enough players for an impromptu boss raid, Premiere and the other participated in another battle against the boss. Upon defeating the boss, Kirito's party was confronted by a physical manifestation of Tia's simulated future consciousness, appearing as the young woman's masked self. Reassuring her twin they could avert the future of isolation predicted for them despite the doppelganger's claims otherwise, the fencer followed everyone else in engaging and eliminating Tia's copy, finally ending the data overwrite attempts minutes before the emergency maintenance. Although unsure of what the future would hold in store for them afterward, the girl had faith she could face it together with her friends.
Sometime later, Premiere and Tia joined Kirito and his companions for a picnic, enjoying the scenery together while everyone else prepared the food. When the boy approached them with the announcement the meal was ready, the three promised to continue supporting each other in chasing their dreams, though the pair briefly argued over which of them would take the role of Kirito's lover.
Another Heroine Inverter[]
When Kirygaya Kazuto's (Kirito) location on the Ocean Turtle was discovered after he had been critically injured by Kanamoto Atsushi, Premiere 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, she 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, Premiere assisted Strea and Yui in coordinating an infiltration of the hidden area of an underground dungeon in GGO that contained an emergency control console for Zaskar employees, though she quickly got distracted feeding herself.
Once Kureha, Philia, Rain, Seven, and Zeliska destroyed three in-game surveillance servers guarding the console, Premiere and Tia rendezvoused with them alongside Strea and Yui in the control room, 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, the girls were persuaded to vote who to send by sharing what they felt about Kirito. Just after everyone finished divulging their emotions concerning 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 Premiere 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 what Kirito meant to them 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. However, everyone else did not resent the duo 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.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Premiere was given her name based on the fact that the day she first encountered Kirito's group was also her first day, or "premiere", as an independent person with her own personality. After asking Asuna how to write it, Premiere had it officially registered within the system.
- Although most SAO game-original characters' birthdays are decided through a community poll during an official livestream, Sword Art Online producer Futami Yousuke was adamant about making Premiere's birth date as December 5, 2025. Thus, rather than deciding the date of her birthday, the goal of Premiere's poll was to decide the reasoning for the date. The majority of the community voted to have Producer Futami's adamancy be used as the reasoning for the birth date.[3]
References[]
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