Suguha Kirigaya/Relationships

## Family

### Grandfather

Suguha was trained by her grandfather in the art of kendo. However, he never wanted to train her, he was only interested in Kazuto. So, when Kazuto left his training to study coding, Suguha was physically and emotionally abused by her grandfather in an effort to get her to quit. However, Suguha persevered, which resulted in her developing deep feelings of resentment, as well as self-hatred, regarding her own femininity.

### Mother

Not much is known about Suguha's relationship with her mother, but she doesn't seem to resent her for being the one who told Kazuto to study coding instead of kendo, resulting in her abuse.

### Kazuto Kirigaya

Kazuto is Suguha's brother. The two of them initially had a great relationship, with Suguha looking up to her brother, but things started to sour after Kazuto abandoned his kendo lessons, resulting in their sexist grandfather abusing Suguha during her lessons to get her to quit. Suguha initially tried her best to get Kazuto to come back to their lessons, but he just shut her out. She then began to resent Kazuto for abandoning her and started to take great pleasure out of bullying her brother to get back at him, although she tries to hide this by calling him a "quitter" for abandoning their lessons. When he returned from SAO he was disappointed to find that she hadn't changed and had only used his new "wife" as ammo for her torment.

When he logged into ALO, Kirito unknowingly met up with Suguha in her Sylph persona, Leafa. Leafa told Kirito about the World Tree, as thanks for getting her out of her engagement party, and then subsequently joining his quest to reach the top of it. After agreeing to this Leafa realised that Kirito was in fact her brother and was mortified that he was in "[her] game" and that she also complimented his "patootie" in the process of their agreement.

Suguha then concluded that Kazuto must be in ALO in order to blackmail her, as she would never be caught dead playing such a girly game, and decided to take Kirito on a journey through ALO's "dark corners" as payback. But after Yui... set her straight, Leafa agreed to actually help him out on his quest. It's on this journey that Leafa was confronted with Kirito's opinion of her and, with Yui's help, began taking the first steps to try and fix their relationship. Although, do to her being "out of practice" with being nice, she awkwardly stumbled over her words when she tried to thank Kirito when he saved the Sylphs, resulting in Kirito teasing her.

Suguha then decided to join Kazuto in one of his visits to the hospital, only to be confronted with how much he cares about Asuna. This caused her to have an emotional breakdown when she next logged into ALO, realizing that she might be the problem in their relationship, which Kirito eventually comforted her on. After attempting to raid the World Tree on his own, Leafa rescued him and tried to get him to stop. When this didn't work, Leafa accidentally revealed who she was and proceeded to log out in a panic.

Kazuto then followed her and confronted Suguha about her actions, causing Suguha to reveal to Kazuto how their grandfather abused her and why she was bullying him. Kazuto tried to defend himself, but Suguha pointed out how hard he fought for Asuna, asking if she wasn't worth the effort. Having listened to his sister vent her feelings at him, Kazuto looked away ashamed, stating he had no idea what Suguha was going through. Suguha then sadly shut the door in his face, telling Kazuto to leave her alone.

### Asuna Yuuki

Initially, Suguha didn't believe that Asuna existed, due to her thinking that Kazuto was incapable of caring about anyone but himself, and used her as a tool to torment him. However, as time went on and it was confirmed that she did indeed exist, Suguha eventually decided to join Kazuto on one of his visits to the hospital. It was here that Suguha was confronted with how much Kazuto cared about Asuna, which unintentionally caused her issues to resurface, and Asuna became a symbol for how Kazuto casted Suguha aside in her mind.

### Yui

When Yui first met Leafa, Yui saw her as a threat to her family dynamic and was incredibly hostile, calling Leafa a hussy and threatening to harm her if she got in the way. When Leafa became Kirito's companion, Yui proclaimed that she wouldn't hesitate to leave the Sylph player behind should she get in the way.

Yui would eventually discover that Leafa was Kirito's sister in real life by hacking into her account (technically making the latter, the former's aunt). When Yui realized that Leafa was starting to mess with Kirito instead of helping him, she explained to her what was really going on, but after this didn't work, she removed Leafa's face, coercing the latter into helping Kirito for real.

Yui later asked for Leafa's help protect Kirito while she hacked into the system. Leafa was hesitant to do so, due to her issues with her brother, and Yui used her skills as a psychiatrist to help Leafa get on the path of repairing the siblings' relationship. During this, Yui tugged on Leafa's heartstrings by calling her "Auntie Sugu", which Leafa felt was cheating.

Although, this might've been Yui manipulating Leafa to get what she wants, as she later calls her a "smooth brained charlatan" due to her wasting seven hours of their limited time. Despite Yui being mad at her, she didn't reveal Leafa's secret identity to Kirito, so it's unclear where the two actually stand. Leafa later got over her fear of Yui when she realized that her threats sounded cute.

### Brian

Brian, as Queen Sakuya, is Leafa's in-game adopted mother. Not much is known about their relationship, but she seems well versed with Brian's beef with Becky. Sakuya was the one who told her to get engaged to Cazmer, so she seems to be okay with using Leafa as a political tool. When Leafa suggests getting help from Sakuya to Kirito, she says, "she might be cool... for once", implying that she might be strict with her.

Leafa seems adept of dealing with Sakuya's racism regarding the other races, telling her to "read the room" when Kirito was trying to scare the Salamanders off. When Leafa tries to ask for a favor from her, she tries to butter Sakuya up with compliments first, which Sakuya sees right through, implying that Leafa had a history of constantly asking for favors.

## Friends

### Shinichi Nagata

Shinichi was one of Suguha's first friends in ALO. At some point, Suguha and Shinichi developed feelings for each other and entered a sexual relationship, where she would give him handjobs and the occasional cupcake. But due to her stubbornness regarding her own femininity and her abandonment issues, Suguha refuses to admit that this means they're dating, instead insisting that their rendezvous were "quests".

While it's apparent to others that Suguha has romantic feelings for Shinichi, as Yui notes that both their heart rates increase by 22% when they are near each other, Suguha instead belittles Shinichi every chance she gets and keeps an emotional distance, going so far as to jab him in the stomach when he asks her out. She also refuses to go past a last name basis, claiming that they are barely friends, and that Recon is Leafa's "fuccboi".

## Allies

### Denise

As a Cait Sith, Hime is a situational ally to Leafa. They didn't interact much, but Leafa quickly got annoyed by Hime's overly weeby personality and was unable to understand what she was saying.

## Enemies

### Travis

As part of the Sylph's community roleplaying, Cazmer was "engaged" to Leafa in some sort of political arranged marriage, in order to end a civil war in the Sylphs homeland. But she hated it, as she thought it ruins the fun of playing a Princess if people are going to tell her what to do, and is constantly trying to find ways to avoid doing it. He, on the other hand, was seemingly obsessed with going through with it and forced his court to wait for her to arrive at their engagement party, to the point the band was exhausted, but she never showed up.

Cazmer eventually tracked Leafa down, and she explains to him that she's bored with the storyline he wants her to go on. Cazmer tries to convince Leafa to come with him to the point Leafa threatens to get Sakuya involved, which seemed to scare him off. However, it was later revealed that Cazmer didn't actually want to marry her either, and was actually using her as a pawn in his elaborate plan to get Becky and Brian to talk to each other. When Travis was banished from ALO, Leafa didn't show any remorse, nor did she seem moved by his desire to bring peace to the other races.

### Jonathan

As a Salamander, PantySmasher is one of Leafa's enemies. Despite this, Jonathan puts the roleplay on pause in order to help her flesh out her character better, as he was annoyed by her inconsistent character. When Leafa started to act more like how a damsel in distress would act in her situation, Jonathan seemed proud of her. PantySmasher then tried to make an ominous threat before departing, but he ended up saying something out of character, which he blamed on Kirito and Leafa "throwing him off his rhythm".

### Dylan and Trevor

As Salamanders, DeezGunz and Keith were Leafa's enemies. They didn't interact much, other than them using her as a target for their perverted personas, but Leafa did seem apologetic for potentially ruining their fun with her bad roleplaying, even though they didn't seem to mind.

### Becky

As a Salamander, Eugene is one of Leafa's enemies. While the two never interact, Leafa is well aware of Becky's beef with Brian.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Episode 15
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Episode 17
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Episode 12
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 Episode 16
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Episode 13
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Episode 14
7. ↑ Leafa and Recon's "quests"