[Drift Fleet: Application]

[huaaaaagh]

OUT OF CHARACTER:
Name/Handle: Akai
Contact: fontechie@gmail.com / fontech / fontech

IN-CHARACTER:
Character name: Kirigaya Kazuto AKA "Kirito"
Character journal: huaaaaagh
Series name: Sword Art Online
Nationality: Japanese
Age: 17
Height: 5'7
Canon notes: Time period is post-season 2. My primary source material is the anime, but I borrow elements and characterization from the novels and manga, since they expand on the anime with minimal discrepancies.

Species: Human

History: Here is the character wikia.

To summarize- Kazuto is a lifelong computer nerd who, at the age of 14, was one of the ten thousand people trapped in a virtual MMO called Sword Art Online, AKA SAO, a game where 0 HP means you die in real life. The goal was to climb all 100 floors of the floating world of Aincrad, defeating bosses on every floor, and defeat the final boss in the castle at the top which would allow everyone to log out. Having been a part of the beta test, he had a big advantage and made use of this by leveling quickly, becoming one of the top players in the game in a short span of time, though they all remained trapped for a full two years. A loner and a bit of a social outcast by nature more than by choice, Kazuto - AKA Kirito, his online handle - mostly played solo until he found a partner and an equal in Asuna, who (by a series of wacky circumstances) drew him into a guild and eventually became his in-game wife. Together they killed the final boss, Kayaba (the creator of SAO) and cleared the game, freeing all the other players.

Although Kazuto was able to escape SAO, when he woke up, Asuna was still trapped in another MMO, so he had to overcome his fear of being trapped again and transfer to that game, ALfheim Online (ALO) to try and free her. ALO was an MMO with multiple races of fairies, and the end goal for Kirito was to reach the top of the World Tree, where Asuna had been imprisoned by Oberon - played by Sugou, her rather maniacal betrothed via arranged marriage IRL - who had basically made her his prize bride, keeping her there so she can't reject his proposal. (It's super gross.) To free her, Kirito defeated Oberon and, since ALO was created using a copy of the SAO network, hacked the system using Kayaba's old login to get Asuna back to the real world. Season 1 ended with Kirito, Asuna, and their friends finally able to play the games as games rather than dramatic death machines.

Some time after the ALO incident, Kazuto was approached by a government employee who was part of the SAO response force about a job- he wanted Kazuto to join another MMO that may or may not be causing the death of its players. Despite his experience in SAO, Kazuto was doubtful that it was possible, but the price was right so he agreed to investigate and joined Gun Gale Online (GGO), a competitive cyberpunk gun game. He entered a tournament in order to draw out the suspected player killer, which worked out better than expected, rather unpleasantly. With the help of Sinon, a fellow player with exceptional sniper skills, he managed to solve the murder mystery and get the culprit arrested, as well as co-win the tournament.

Updated canon point:
After GGO, he completed a dungeon with his guild to save Alfheim Online from having a complete map collapse. He also, along with Asuna and the crew, befriended Yuuki and the Sleeping Knights, regularly playing ALO with them until Yuuki's death.


Personality:

First and foremost, Kazuto is a computer nerd. As a child, he'd always been big into electronics, putting computers together and even learning network hacking by age ten. He's never been malicious with it, but he has some obvious natural talent for it and has honed these skills over the years. During the aforementioned network hack, he discovered that he was actually adopted by his aunt and uncle, so from the age of 10 to 14 he became much more withdrawn and distant because he was no longer certain of where he fit in the lives of his family. He turned to video games and MMOs as his social outlet, so when he was chosen as a beta tester for SAO, he practically lived and breathed the game. This experience saved his life, but it also caused him to develop a lot of regret while he was trapped for two years in the full version of SAO. He realized what he'd been missing out on and vowed to get closer to his family if he survived till the end of the game. At the time, his unease carried forward in-game- he had difficulty making close friends, he preferred to play solo instead of joining guilds, and he clashed often with people who tried to push him into doing things he wasn't interested in (he and Asuna fought often over the fact that he slacked off when she wanted to clear dungeons until she learned more about his reasoning). It took a lot of work and a gradually developed closeness with Asuna to get him to open up more, and once he realized how lonely he'd become, it was easier to get closer to others from then on. The social awkwardness is less prominent at Kazuto's current canon point, but sometimes he can still fumble over what to say or do in situations that take him out of his comfort zone. It's something he struggles with; old habits really do die hard.

Kazuto is an honest and straightforward person; when things get serious he's quite clear and concise about his thoughts or his intentions. He's very logical in his thinking, quick to come up with solutions to strange problems or suggest ideas that others might not have considered. He can admittedly be kind of an idiot about it- in SAO especially, he once tried to reach the next floor of the game without fighting the boss by climbing an outside pillar and almost died when he hit the invisible ceiling, and when a player was killed under mysterious circumstances after being stabbed by a customized knife in a safe zone, he tested it on himself before anyone could stop him. Really, it's only by sheer luck that he's not dead yet.

He's also very kind and tries to do what he feels is best for the people around him. A few times in canon he states directly that he'd rather die trying to help someone than watch them die and survive, and he's not all talk- his actions back up those words multiple times. Most people find it surprising since he puts up a rather careless front and kindness means very little in a game like SAO, where the slightest error will take your life, but in truth he just has a really good poker face. In ALO, since it's less life-threatening and he can freely log out, he actually gets to enjoy an MMO for the first time in years, so he's considerably different. He laughs, he teases, he puts effort into building relationships with his fellow players despite the fact that the others are all part of the rival races in the game and they're supposed to be fighting. Since his goal was to reach the top of the World Tree in order to find Asuna, rather than finishing the actual quest, he had no loyalty to the fairy race he'd chosen and did his best to build truces between the other races. He's a problem solver to the core, stubborn as hell, and either through the use of his sword or some heartfelt hero speech, he gets things done. He's so stubborn that he literally broke the damage system in SAO through sheer willpower, forcing it to allow him to get in one more hit on the final boss even after his HP hit zero. It's generally best not to get in his way when he's got his mind set on something.

He's not above asking for help when he needs it... usually. Any time it's offered and he tries to refuse, it's because he doesn't want to burden others with his problems, rather than because of his own ego. He has a tendency to piss people off by trying to protect them too much, since it comes across as him treating them like they're not his equal when they obvious are (even to him). He also teases his friends a lot, probably more than he ought to. He can be downright smug about it, and it can occasionally get him into trouble, especially with the girls.

As much as he can be a trooper, Kazuto is not immune to feeling discouraged. He has been punished a few times for his bad judgment; during his first stint in a guild in SAO, he chose to hide his level because he found it very satisfying to be secretly so much stronger than the others, protecting them and stroking his own ego. Because of this, they didn't trust his experience as much as they should have and went against his advice in a dungeon, losing their lives in the process. As a result he blamed himself and struggled with thoughts of a suicidal run on the floor boss in order to atone, and it's only a post-dated message from one of the guildmates that prevents him from going through with it. Even so, it takes him a long time to tell anyone about the experience, let alone overcome his guilt.

On top of that, while the majority of his battles were fought against in-game monsters and programmed bosses, there have been instances where he was forced to fight - and kill - other players, meaning he caused their real selves to die. In every instance this was in self-defense or to protect others, and he tends to not hesitate in the heat of the moment. (Arguably one exception is when he fought Kayaba, since he openly expressed his desire to kill the man, but Kayaba had caused thousands of deaths and a lot of pain, and killing him was the only way to free everyone, so it was kind of justified.) He's not afraid to risk his life when he feels that it's a worthy cause, and he doesn't always make the best decisions, but his heart's in the right place. The ability to truly strike down opponents didn't transfer IRL, though- when he fought with Sugou at the end of the ALO arc, he was unwilling to take Sugou's life despite the fact that he'd done horrible things to hundreds of people (and Asuna, especially), though Kazuto still threatens convincingly to do it. He fully acknowledges that just because SAO was a video game does not mean that he didn't kill people. He struggles with the guilt of making that choice- he knows it was necessary and was able to forget it for a while, but confronting Death Gun (the murderer in GGO) triggered his guilt and sent him into shock for a while, unable to come to terms with the fact that he was fighting a survivor to the murders he himself committed. During a counselling session with his nurse, he was able to confess his actions and break down, and was only comforted when she told him that it was okay to think about the people he saved as much as the people he killed. This advice stuck with him so much that he was able to pass it on to someone else struggling with the same kind of problem and help them, in turn. It's a mantra that has been helping him overcome that trauma.

He's very much an enthusiast about fighting in game; his style is dual weapon berserker, and thus he can often lose himself in battle, only easing back when the opponent is down for good. Asuna remarks at one point that he's happy when fighting and "loves getting his battle on". This mostly only applies to when he's fighting in an actual game (where IRL death is impossible) or, in SAO, when he's fighting low level monsters that couldn't possibly kill him, so when it comes to battles in reality, casual spars are more his thing. He'll fight for real if he has to, but it's really not his calling and he doesn't enjoy it.

Now that Kazuto has overcome most of his social anxiety, he's a lot happier in general. When he first entered SAO, he openly admitted that the game was the only place he felt truly alive, and throughout his experiences there, he did his best to truly live in the world of Aincrad, even though it was virtual. After two years, and after experiencing everything that happened to him there - death, grief, love, joy - he's come to appreciate real life that much more, and he has goals and dreams for the future that he'd never been able to focus on before. In a lot of ways, he came out of SAO better off than before, and he might even be convinced to admit that it was worth it. Especially considering the fact that despite losing two of the years of his life to an MMO, he still plays them almost daily. His love of the world, real and virtual, really can't be measured.


This entire section needs updating- Kirito now has access to ALO magic and has multiple augment upgrades.
Abilities: Technically Kazuto has no special abilities; physically, he is a normal human with normal human weaknesses and strengths. He's physically active, but since he spent two years in a comatose state, he has to keep up with physical therapy to stay fit. He's a computer genius and can build electronics from parts, but otherwise he's unremarkable.

Via mod discussion, I got permission to allow Kazuto to use his in-game avatars as an added augment, so he can freely switch between them. The avatars are:
SAO Form- here. Purely aesthetic. (it's basically just an outfit change)
ALO Form- here. Aesthetic + functional wings that fade away when not in use. In canon he can fly for ten minutes at a time and then has to rest them for a while, and I plan to stay within that limitation.
GGO Form- here. Purely aesthetic.

Augment Skillset: Engineering