Character · Sword Art Online
Sinon
A sniper who took up a virtual gun to stop being afraid of a real one.
In Otakana the clue reads: Sniper in the gun game arc
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Sword Art Online
- Letters
- 5 · Normal
Sinon plays Gun Gale Online, a shooter where the top players fight with rifles rather than swords, and she carries a Hecate II anti-materiel rifle taller than she is. She is cold on the battlefield, precise at range, and known well enough that other players plan around her. Offline she is a schoolgirl who cannot look at a handgun without her body shutting down.
The reason is specific. As a small child she was present at an armed robbery and did something no eleven-year-old should have to, and she has been living with the aftermath since. She plays the gun game as treatment, on the theory that repetition will make the object ordinary, and the arc is honest about how partially that works.
She meets Kirito during a tournament, in circumstances that make the introduction unusually awkward, and the two of them end up hunting a player who is killing people through the game. Sinon is the most self-aware member of the cast about why she is in a virtual world at all.
Spelling SINON
SINON is five letters with the N twice, at positions three and five. The trap is the S. Her real given name is Shino, so the ear expects SHINON, and the official English spelling drops the H. Five letters, two I and O vowels, one silent H that never existed in the first place.