Sword Art Online Characters

A teenage gamer who was one of SAO's 1,000 beta testers and is among the 10,000 players trapped on launch day. A solo player known as the Black Swordsman, he takes the hated label 'beater' on himself after the 1st floor boss so that the other beta testers are not blamed, and hides his unique Dual Blades skill until the 74th floor. He marries Asuna in the game and clears SAO on the 75th floor. He goes on to play a Spriggan in ALfheim Online, to fight Death Gun with a photon sword in Gun Gale Online and, in the Underworld, to wield a black sword made from the Gigas Cedar. Calm under pressure and awkward with words, he will take on anything for the people he cares about.

Vice-commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath, Aincrad's strongest guild, nicknamed the Flash for the speed of her rapier, Lambent Light. She starts out determined to clear the game at any cost, until Kirito teaches her to slow down; they fall in love, marry in the game, and in the final duel she throws herself in front of Heathcliff's blow to protect him. After SAO she is one of 300 players who do not wake up. In ALfheim Online she plays an Undine healer known as the Berserk Healer, in Mother's Rosario she befriends Yuuki and finally stands up to her strict mother, and in War of Underworld she enters the Underworld as Stacia, the Goddess of Creation.

Kazuto's cousin, raised with him as his younger sister, and a kendo player good enough to compete at national level. While he is trapped in SAO she learns that they are not really siblings and starts playing ALfheim Online to understand him. As Leafa, a Sylph swordswoman who loves to fly fast, she is rescued by a newcomer called Kirito and guides him to the World Tree, without knowing at first who he is. Upbeat and sociable, she comes to terms with her feelings, helps rescue Asuna and joins the group's adventures; in War of Underworld she enters as Terraria, the Earth Goddess.

A cool, quiet sniper in Gun Gale Online who fights with a huge Hécate II rifle. At eleven she was caught up in an armed robbery at a post office, grabbed the robber's gun to protect her mother, and he was killed; since then even the sight of a gun has brought on panic attacks, and she plays GGO to face that fear. She helps a newcomer she first mistakes for a girl, Kirito, through the Bullet of Bullets, and together they defeat Death Gun and share the win. She later joins her new friends in ALfheim Online as a Cait Sith archer, and in War of Underworld she enters the Underworld as Solus, the Sun Goddess.

An artificial intelligence, the Mental Health Counselling Program version 1, made to look after SAO players' feelings but forbidden from contacting them once the game became a death trap. Kirito and Asuna find her as a lost little girl in the forest on the 22nd floor, and she comes to call them Daddy and Mommy. When the system moves to delete her, Kirito saves her data inside his NerveGear. She returns in ALfheim Online as Kirito's navigation pixie and helps her parents and their friends in every arc after that, from finding Asuna in the World Tree to calling ALO's players to the Underworld.

The first friend Kirito makes in SAO: Kirito teaches him how to fight on day one, and Klein stays behind in the Town of Beginnings to look after his friends. He leads the guild Fuurinkazan, fights with a katana and is one of the friendliest, most loyal people in the series, always ready to help and never one to hold a grudge. In ALfheim Online he plays a Salamander, Thor rewards him with the hammer Mjölnir on the Excalibur quest, and in War of Underworld he brings his ALO character into the Underworld to help Kirito, even though he risks losing it.

Asuna's best friend, called Liz, a blacksmith with her own shop in Aincrad. When Kirito asks for a sword as good as his Elucidator, they travel to the 55th floor for a rare metal from a dragon's nest, and she forges Dark Repulser for him; she falls for him on the way, then realises that he and Asuna love each other. Cheerful and caring, she is a Leprechaun blacksmith in ALfheim Online who keeps the group's weapons in shape, and in War of Underworld she persuades ALO's players to bring their characters into the Underworld to help.

An Imp swordswoman in ALfheim Online, known as Zekken, the Absolute Sword, who duels all comers on New Aincrad's 24th floor and beats everyone, Kirito included. She leads the Sleeping Knights, a guild that wants to defeat a floor boss with only its own party so that all their names are carved on the Monument of Swordsmen, and she asks Asuna to join them. Yuuki has AIDS, from an infected blood transfusion during her birth, and has spent three years in hospital connected to the Medicuboid. Her honesty and courage help Asuna be honest with her own mother.

Kirito's best friend in the Underworld, a gentle, serious young man from the village of Rulid whose lifelong task was chopping at the giant Gigas Cedar, until with Kirito's help he finally fells it. Eight years after an Integrity Knight took their friend Alice away, he sets out with Kirito to find her, trains with him at the Sword Mastery Academy and fights with the Blue Rose Sword. The Administrator turns him into an Integrity Knight, Eugeo Synthesis Thirty-Two, but he breaks free, and he dies after the final battle against her. In War of Underworld his spirit returns to help Kirito.

The daughter of Rulid's village chief, a curious girl with a gift for sacred arts and Kirito and Eugeo's childhood friend, taken away by an Integrity Knight after her fingertips touch the Dark Territory. Years later she is Alice Synthesis Thirty, an Integrity Knight with no memory of her past, and arrests Kirito and Eugeo. Kirito's account of the truth turns her against the Administrator. Afterwards she cares for the injured Kirito near Rulid with her dragon Amayori, then fights in the war against the Dark Territory, where the invaders from the real world are hunting for her.

Akihiko Kayaba, the genius game designer and quantum physicist who created SAO and designed the NerveGear, then trapped 10,000 players in his game. He secretly plays as Heathcliff, the calm, almost unbeatable leader of the Knights of the Blood Oath, planning to reveal himself as the boss of the 100th floor. Kirito exposes him on the 75th floor and defeats him in a duel, which frees the survivors. Kayaba uploads his mind to the network at the cost of his life; what remains of him later helps Kirito against Sugou and gives him the World Seed.

The supreme priest of the Axiom Church, who rules the Underworld's Human Empire from the top of the Central Cathedral through the Taboo Index and her Integrity Knights, whose memories she rewrites. She has used the world's own system commands to keep herself young for centuries, and she plans to turn half of the empire's people into giant sword golems to defend it against the Dark Territory. Kirito, Eugeo, Alice and Cardinal, a program that has hidden from her in the Great Library for two centuries, confront her at the top of the cathedral, and she dies there along with her servant Chudelkin.