Asuna Yuuki

Asuna Yuuki is one of the main characters of the Sword Art Online anime and novel.

Asuna is the daughter of the former CEO of RECT Inc.. Asuna was one of the 10,000 players trapped in «Sword Art Online», where she was the sub-leader of the «Knights of the Blood» (KoB) guild. Her skills with the rapier had her earned her the nickname «The Flash».

In the AWA fics, Asuna is a student at the AWA Academy.

Appearance
Asuna has long, orange-brownish chestnut hair and hazel eyes. In the early levels of SAO, she wore a dark red leather tunic with a lightweight copper breastplate and leather pants with boots up to the knees along with a hooded cape. After joining the «Knights of the Blood», she wore a red and white uniform that all KoB members wear and wielded a rapier made by Lisbeth, called the «Lambent Light».

Asuna's original avatar in ALfheim Online was the Fairy Queen, Titania. She wore a white outfit with a long white skirt, a crop top showing her belly, and a red ribbon that went around the topmost part of her top that came together to make a bow. She went barefoot, and wore a white strip around her ankles.

Asuna's Undine avatar has light blue hair with an appearance that otherwise hardly differs from her SAO avatar.

Asuna's Sylph avatar, «Erika», is specialized in close combat and had most of her ability points devoted to dagger skills, so she was more suited for duels than Asuna's main avatar, which was a half healer.

Personality
Asuna originally did not care about dying in the game before meeting Kirito. That meeting drastically changed Asuna's personality and outlook on life. She soon takes most things Kirito says to heart and looks to him for help, using him as somewhat of a lifeline.

Asuna is a kind and helpful young woman who, similarly to Kirito, cannot abandon another in trouble. She takes the game very seriously and is determined to clear it before Kirito tells her to enjoy SAO a bit. Asuna is also somewhat proud and despite her kind personality, she will not hesitate to get physical with those that challenge her authority or make fun of her abilities, such as cooking. She even challenged Kirito to a duel after an argument over how to handle a Field Boss. She is not afraid to act out on her own and will take matters into her own hands from time to time.

Asuna, in a similar manner to Kirito, is someone who can be controlled and manipulated by her emotions. This is evident during Kirito's final duel with Heathcliff on the 75th Floor, when she resisted her paralysis, jumped in front of Kirito, and took an attack that would have otherwise killed him. She also cannot handle seeing others die in front of her, such as when she recklessly attacked The Gleam Eyes after seeing the Aincrad Liberation Forceplayers getting slaughtered.

In ALO, after being saved by Kirito, Asuna's personality had not changed a bit except that she was not as proud as she was in SAO. Her personality began to develop further still after meeting Yuuki in the events of Mother's Rosario. Seeing how Yuuki still moves forward, despite knowing her death is inevitable, Asuna takes after her and resolves to keep moving forward, no matter what happens.

Abilities
Asuna's speed and proficiency with a rapier is so advanced that she has earned the moniker of "The Lightning Flash". Asuna runs faster than the dexterity speed limit and is a very skilled swordswomen.

Her ALO build; as an Undine healer, she hasn't forgotten how to use her rapier. More than once she's switched from healing to taking down the level boss, earning her the rather embarrassing nickname of "Berserk Healer."

Trivia

 * Asuna is one of the two known players using their real name as an In Game Name (IGN), the other being Yuuki.


 * The anime depicts Asuna and Kirito having met at the meeting in «Tolbana», rather than in the dungeons, where Kirito informs Asuna about the meeting. Given this, the battle was on the very next day after the meeting, instead of two days after. This means that Kirito never showed Asuna the room he was renting, nor offered her the bath, as in the light novel.
 * In the anime, after the boss battle on the 1st floor, Asuna runs up to Kirito while he is still climbing the stairs, but in the LN, she actually caught up to him while he was sitting idly on the second floor.
 * Asuna once tried to dye her hair to cherry pink in Sword Art Online, but had to disappointingly return it to brown after finding out that the colour did not suit her.


 * The design of Asuna's KoB uniform in SAO was actually chosen by other members, who kept it a secret from her until it was ready. When she first saw her uniform, she rejected it, saying that she could not wear something like it, but after Daizen told her with tears in his eyes that the price of even a single set of the uniform was colossal, she reluctantly agreed to wear it.


 * Asuna has a phobia of astral-type monsters and had used numerous excuses to avoid clearing Labyrinths on horror-themed Aincrad floors.