CANON HISTORY: Asuna Yuuki Wiki entry

CANON PERSONALITY: At her core, Asuna is a kind hearted young woman who will make sacrifices for her friends without hesitation. She even chose her fairy race in Alfheim Online so her circle of friends would have a healer and support member in their party. She's quick to befriend strangers, and once she considers someone a friend, she'll do almost anything for them. Given the cold and distant nature of her own family, Asuna's friends essentially serve as her surrogate family, and she's always willing to expand it. Despite the trauma of her time in both games, she considers the worlds of Aincrad and Alfheim, and more specifically the forest house, her true home.

Above all others, she's devoted to her boyfriend Kirito and adopted daughter, Yui. The latter makes her particularly fond of children, and she'll often assume the role of caregiver or nurturer around younger children almost automatically. This also extends to outsiders and people who might be shunned for any reason. Unless they've harmed others, she's always tries to look beneath the surface and find the good in anyone.

By the same token, she can become a fierce fighter if anyone needs her help, or if she finds people taking advantage of others. She won't hesitate to jump into battle, even in the face of overwhelming odds, if the lives of others are at stake. Once she's drawn her blade, she won't stop until either she or her opponents have been defeated. Despite her support role in ALO, Asuna still enjoys using her sword whenever she can. She's garnered a reputation for skill and ferocity in battle she's earned the nickname The Berserk Healer (a moniker she despises). And while she prefers a fair fight, she's not above using some questionable tactics, like throwing a punch in the middle of a duel, if it can earn her the advantage.

Outside of the game, Asuna is a brilliant student excelling in a variety of subjects, and she's well known for her cleverness and instincts in the game world as well. She studied the SAO cooking system to the point she recognized each taste variable and used in-game items to simulate a variety of real world food items never programmed into the game. She has a particular skill for strategy, being able to recognize small details in a boss's attack pattern and adjusting on the fly.

Due to her strict upbringing, Asuna has a silly, playful side that she shows around her close friends, and at times can even seem downright childish. She's been known to demand Kirito carry her around on his shoulders, or to instigate snowball fights with her friends. This all fades away when she's in battle or a more serious situation, however. She's not one to quip or taunt except on rare occasions. She's not above teasing her friends from time to time, though she prefers a single well placed jab than making a lot of jokes.

There's an element of pride in her abilities, a lingering remnant of her high class upbringing. Whether it's her skills as a swordswoman, her schoolwork or even her in game cooking, Asuna isn't always modest about her abilities and can take offense if someone mocks them. She's gotten better over time, becoming more at ease with joking among her friends, but it can be a sore spot in the right situation. Because people have judged her due to her family's wealth or her appearance, she has a strong desire to prove herself.

Her pride also makes it difficult for Asuna to accept defeat, or even things in the world she can't change. She has overcome a number of almost impossible odds that she often has a hard time recognizing thing she can't, or sometimes shouldn't, change. She can be stubborn when she makes up her mind about something, and it takes a lot of effort to talk her down. She's also a perfectionist, and there are points when she won't leave things well enough alone if she feels she can do better.

Despite all of this, more recently Asuna has been having a crisis of both identity and self confidence when it comes to the real world versus her persona in Aincrad and Alfheim. While she was a powerful swordswoman and leader in the virtual world, her parents (in particular her mother) are doing everything in their power to return her to the life she left behind, and insisting the friends she made in the game aren't “real” friends. While she's tried to defend herself, she'll often defer to her mother in the end.

Coupled with this is her mother's insistence that the former Sword Art Online players are dangerous because they took lives in the game. Asuna's parents are unaware that she was forced to kill a member of the PK guild Laughing Coffin to protect her fellow players and she fears what would happen if they did. While she's buried the feelings deep, the fact that she has taken the lives of others weighs heavily on Asuna's conscience and motivates her to do as much good in the world as possible. She's never shared this willingly with anyone besides her fellow SAO survivors.

While her devotion and love to her friends, particularly Kirito, hasn't wavered, she questioned whether or not they would respect her as much if they saw how powerless she was in the real world. She also doesn't want to burden anyone else with her troubles, so she tends to keep things buried. There's an element of insecurity where she fears others will reject or mock her if they see past the warrior's facade. She's almost come to see Asuna the Flash and Asuna Yuuki as two separate people, and fears she'll have to abandon one or the other one day. Even with all she's been through with Kirito, she fears even he loves only the in-game version, and would reject the "weaker" player behind the avatar. This has been mitigated to some degree by her time with Yuuki Konno in ALO, though she still wrestles with her insecurities.

Thanks to a particularly vivid story told by her grandfather one holiday, Asuna has a fear of ghosts that extends to astral-type monsters in the virtual world. It's the one exception to her usual courage; if there are ghosts involved, Asuna will hesitate and stop just short of running away. She's more than happy to accept a support role in those situations. Her greatest fear, however, is to lose her independence in any way. While this ties into her issues with her mother, it's mostly due to her time as a prisoner in ALO. It's one subject she's loathe to talk about, but it makes her very sympathetic to anyone suffering similar abuse.

SKILLS/ABILITIES:

In the real world, Asuna is for all intents and purposes a normal human being. Her time spent in full dive technology has honed her reflexes in-game to razor sharpness, and she is among the fastest players in the game. Some of this coordination has transferred into real life, though it pales in comparison to her avatar form.

Avatar Form - Asuna has spent considerable time in video games like Sword Art Online and Alfheim Online. In the latter, she is an Undine fairy.

Undine Powers
- Flight: Asuna has translucent blue wings that allow her to fly as well as hover in place, and disappear when not in use. Asuna has some skill in aerial combat, though her skills in this area are relatively weak and she prefers to fight on the ground.
- Water Affinity - Asuna can swim as fast as she can fly and can breath and even fight underwater with relative ease.
- Magic - The Undine can use water magic, which includes a variety of support and healing spells as well. In order to cast, Asuna must be holding her wand and speak the Words of Power to activate the spells. If interrupted or the words are mispronounced, the caster will be caught in an explosion that damages them or anyone nearby. Like most RPGs, this is limited by MP in the game, which would translate into Asuna only being able to cast a limited number of spells during a given period. Among the spells she's used in Alfheim are:
- Aqua Bind – A spell to restrict the movements of multiple opponents
- Aqua Stream – An attack spell using a stream of high pressure water
- Cold Resistance – Protection against cold
- Healing – A variety of different healing incantations.
- Ice Arrows – An attack spell generating four large pillars of ice.
- Ice Lens – Increases the distance she can see
- Searcher – Designed to break through camoflague
- Water Breathing – Allows others to breath underwater

Sword Skills
Due to the most recent game updates, Asuna has recovered her sword skills from Sword Art Online. These are essentially combo attacks of different kinds, moving faster than a human normally could to complete a variety of strikes. These attacks can be parried, however, and after completion of the attack, Asuna is unable to move for a brief “cooldown” period. The following are sword skills she’s shown the ability to use in canon:
- Linear - Delivers a single thrust at the enemy at a great speed.
- Oblique - A low thrust skill. Its range is shorter than Linear's, but the power is higher due to the user's weight behind it.
- Parallel Sting - A sudden charge forward followed by two lightning fast thrusts.
- Shooting Star - A charge attack with the rapier pointed forward.
- Triangular - Three thrusts in a triangular pattern.
- Star Splash - Three quick thrusts make an opponent raise their guard, leaving Asuna to target two slashes at their unprotected legs.
- Flashing Penetrator - A charge skill that makes the user fly forward like a comet, producing a loud sonic boom.
- Neutron - Five thrusts in rapid succession.
- Quadruple Pain - A four strike combo that can render a target temporarily immobilized.
- Starry Tear - An Original Sword Skill created by Asuna, she makes five thrusts in the form of a star.
- Mother’s Rosario - An eleven hit sword combo, inherited from Yuuki shortly before she died.

Other Skills
- Asuna has a brilliant analytical mind. She managed to essentially deconstruct the cooking system in Sword Art Online to recreate food from the real world. That also applies to combat strategy, as she could often come up with plans on the fly that led to the defeat of several floor bosses.
- Asuna maxed out her cooking skill in SAO and ALO, and has considerable skill in the real world as well.