Ayanami Shiratsuyu

* RL
* SAO
* ALO

> "*Hi, hi! Everyone, it's your favorite child singer, Aya-chan~! I hope everyone is having a jolly time~! If not, then Aya will be sad... Well, that got you excited, didn't it? I pray that you all enjoy my songs as much as I do, okay~? Let's go, everyone! Idol, Ayanami Shiratsuyu, going all-out~!*"
> ― Ayanami's usual self-introduction during her concerts.
>
>

**Ayanami Shiratsuyu** (白露綾波, *Shiratsuyu Ayanami*?), known as **Shiranami** (シラナミ, *****Shiranami*****?) in «Sword Art Online» (SAO), «ALfheim Online» (ALO), «Spell Blade Online» (SBO), and «Ordinal Scale» (OS) is the main female protagonist of Minato Yatsushiro's ***Sword Art Online Alternative: Spell Blade Online*** light novel series.

She works as a world-famous junior idol and is one of the 1,000 beta testers chosen to experience the closed beta of «Sword Art Online» and later joined the official release of the game, thus becoming one of the 10,000 players trapped within during the scandal later dubbed, **SAO Incident**. During her time as a player, she gained fame via her already immense fame from real life along with her excellent and almost unrivaled skills in-game. She was known as the «**Snow White Songstress**» (白雪の歌姫, *Shirayuki no Utahime*?), a reference to her beautiful snow-white hair as well as her possession of «Chant». Shiranami contributed greatly to the clearing of the death game on July 15th, 2033 with the defeat of the final boss, «An Incarnation of the Radius».

Following the end of the SAO debacle, Ayanami joined her friends in playing another explosively popular VR game that released exactly one year after SAO, «ALfheim Online». Unfortunately, she was dragged into solving a new mystery concerning missing SAO players rumored to be trapped in ALO and a rogue game master. Simultaneously, in the real world, a breakthrough in AR gaming allowed for the creation of the «Augma» and the ARMMO, «Ordinal Scale», the beta of which Ayanami participated in.

After resolving the incident of ALO, the game was shut down and revamped by a new company into «Spell Blade Online». In its re-opening, the playerbase was once more dragged into a new adventure as the premature release of the Grand Quest results with the Great Separation. Following this, Ayanami was approached by Seijirō Kikuoka and offered a part-time job to test a new «FullDive» machine, the «Soul Translator». What she was unaware of was the fact that she was helping gather data for a research venture dubbed «Project Rhealization» where she dove into its «FullDive» realm of «Underworld» as **Emilia Rosenberg** (エミリア・ローゼンバーグ, *Emiria Rōzenbāgu*?).

## Background

Ayanami was born in the Year of the Yin Fire Rooster on October 30th, 2018. She was a child of the Shiratsuyu family, a rather famous family that produces figures high in Japanese society. For example, Ayanami's father, Kōtarō Shiratsuyu, was the highest-ranking military officer in Japan as he is the Chief of Staff, Joint Staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. On the other hand, Ayanami's mother, Akagi Shiratsuyu, worked as a world-famous voice actress and fashion designer although she retired from her acting career in lieu of her growing age. Due to her family being heavily militaristic, Ayanami was raised in an extremely strict household. She attends the local Koishikawa area *dōjō* of the Asayama Ichiden-ryũ to study the sword arts as a way to discipline herself; she is highly skilled with the sword and her ability is such that she has taken home quite a few trophies from both official and unofficial kendo tournaments in which she demonstrated her skill.

Aside from this, Ayanami was trained in the fine arts for her mother wanted to raise an actress daughter. Ayanami, however, chose to become an idol instead and debuted as a junior idol at only nine years of age; it is thanks to a combination of good luck, her talents, and the relentless hard work she does for herself that she became an instant hit. She was assigned a manager to help her in her success, a man named Itsuki Taniguchi who coincidentally, is the son of the manager and foremost business partner of Ayanami's mother when she was an actress. Although Itsuki was young and inexperienced, beginning his job as Ayanami's manager at age 20, he was a powerful role model for her and Ayanami forged a respectable relationship with him. Ayanami also has a few side gigs, appearing as a child actress as well as lending her voice talents for voice acting.

In the spring of 2030, she heard rumors of a game in development that highly intrigued her. Using her connections, she managed to snag herself a spot in the Closed Beta of «Sword Art Online». With the Closed Beta spanning the two months of July and August, Ayanami spent her summer break balancing her work life and her game life. While playing the Closed Beta, Ayanami, as Shiranami, met a boy named Kirito who was two years her senior and who was also the boy of her dreams. As such, having fallen in love, she tags alongside the boy as his partner for the entirety of the Closed Beta and she was able to keep up with the boy, despite him being considered to be one of the most strongest male players (as a result, Shiranami was considered to be the strongest female player).

Upon the successful completion of the Closed Beta, Ayanami redirected all of her attention back to her idol work until it was time for the official release of SAO. Standing in line in disguise with other players hopeful, Ayanami scored herself one of the 10,000 copies of SAO. Later, after finishing a recording session for a new song with a girl two years her senior (she was her junior when it comes to idol work, however, and she wanted to become an idol, using Ayanami's coattails as a starting pad) logged on with her friend on November 3rd; she was fully expecting to log in, clock in a few hours of gameplay, and log out to prepare for her next concert, however, this would not come to pass as the Reaper declares that no one was allowed to leave his creation. Giving the players the ultimatum of clearing his game, he hands them one last parting gift in the form of a mirror. Shiranami's custom avatar, which she had carried over from the Closed Beta to once again disguise her from any possible fans that also play SAO, was erased and her identity was made known. Left with no other choice, Shiranami has to put up with living as her real self inside the death game that is SAO.

## Appearance

### Real Life / Sword Art Online / Ordinal Scale Avatar

Even when she was extremely young as an elementary schoolgirl, Ayanami was considered a very dignified girl with a mysterious air of beauty. She possesses waist-length hair the color of quicksilver and exhibits complete heterochromia as she has a purple-gold left eye and a light blue right eye. However, depending on how far an onlooker is viewing her from, the color of her eyes can vary by a few hues and a smile is permanently affixed to her face. Before being trapped in SAO, Ayanami was 147 centimeters and weighed 41 kilograms but she had grown to 156 cm and gained 3.5 kilograms after two years of being trapped in SAO; similarly, Ayanami's three sizes before starting SAO were 62/49/64 (in centimeters) but she had grown to 83.5/61/82 (although this change is not reflected in-game). During the events of the Fairy Rondo (I) Arc, Ayanami grew to 159 centimeters and weighed 46 kilograms with a new three sizes measurement of 87/63/85. During the Project Rhealizatoin Arc, Ayanami grew to 168 centimeters and weighed 51 kilograms with a new three sizes measurement of 91/65/89.

During the SAO Closed Beta, Ayanami made sure to make changes to her avatar so that she could disguise herself amongst the normal players. She skipped all of her real-life traits entirely, giving her avatar sea-green eyes and shoulder-length black hair. She also made herself six centimeters taller so she would look older than she actually was and changed her manner of speaking to sound older (this made for good vocal practice as by this time, Ayanami had already taken voice acting roles).

Due to the fact that the official release of SAO erased all character customizations, Ayanami appeared as herself; for a good portion of the entire run of SAO, she is almost always seen wearing the red-and-white uniform of the «Knights of the Blood» guild, the strongest of the clearing guilds. However, whenever off-duty, Ayanami preferred to wear something more casual, consisting of handcrafted blue jeans with a leather belt and a sleeveless shirt of varying colors (depending on the day) with a purple cardigan.

As «Ordinal Scale» is a game set in augmented reality, Shiranami uses her physical body to play. While playing «Ordinal Scale», Shiranami wears the standard female-type «Ascendant» outfit and upon becoming a member of the «Rounds», she dons a *haori* and a peaked cap with the number of her seat in the «Rounds», «IV», embroidered into it. When not in use, her «R-Weapon» is either sheathed at her waist (in the case of «Blazer») or crossed over her back (in the case of «Daybreaker × Sundowner»).

## Skills

### Sword Art Online

#### Sword Skills

##### One-Handed Sword

* «**Horizontal**»
* «**Horizontal Square**»
* «**Nova Ascension**»
* «**Radiant Arc**»
* «**Rage Spike**»
* «**Savage Fulcrum**»
* «**Sharp Nail**»
* «**Slant**»
* «**Sonic Leap**»
* «**Starry Corona**»
* «**Vertical Arc**»
* «**Vertical Square**»
* «**Vorpal Strike**»

##### Dual Blades

* «**Double Circular**»
* «**Final Revolution**»
* «**Gale Cutter**»
* «**Specula Cross**»
* «**Starburst Stream**»
* «**The Eclipse**»

##### Katana

* «**Gengetsu**»
* «**Hifubuki**»
* «**Rasetsu**»
* «**Rashomon**»
* «**Shinonome**»
* «**Tsumujigurama**»
* «**Tsujikaze**»
* «**Ukifune**»
* «**Yukinami**»
* «**Zekkuu**» -->

##### Composite Sword Skills

* «**Cygnus Onslaught**»
* «**Lightning Fall**»
* «**Nightmare Rain**»

## Trivia

* Ayanami's name can be roughly translated as "*Glistening Dew Figure Wave*".

## Notes

1. ↑ Yui refers to Shiranami as "Auntie".

## References

1. ↑ Volume 1, *Memories of Evil*, Part 4
2. ↑ Volume 16, *Welcome to the World of Fairies*, Part 2
3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 Material Collection 01: Ayanami Shiratsuyu's character profile.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Volume 1, *Dawn Romance*, Part 3
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Material Collection 07: Ayanami Shiratsuyu's second character profile.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 Material Collection 12: Ayanami Shiratsuyu's third character profile.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Volume 1, *Memories of Evil*, Part 7
8. ↑ Volume 14, *Round Robin Chorus*, Part 2
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Material Collection 01: Ayanami Shiratsuyu's in-depth background check.
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 *Origins of the Silver Flower*
11. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `MC13CP`
12. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `MC22CP`
13. ↑ *Progression of Despair* Part 4
14. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `V1MEP5`
15. ↑ Material Collection 13: Shiranami's skill slots.