Claire (Tales of Aincrad)

Summary
Iyoku Seikō (意欲 性向, Iyoku Seikō), known as Claire (クレア, Kurea) in «Sword Art Online» (SAO) is the main character of the fanfiction Tales of Aincrad: Claire and a supporting character in the overall Tales of Aincrad verse. She is one of the 10,000 players who were trapped in Sword Art Online, where she became a blacksmith and went through many journeys, whether it was as a member of the guild Serenity, a solo player, a public blacksmith in the Town of Beginnings, or a Clearer wanting to help complete the death game in her own way.

Background
Born on May 22, 2000, Iyoku Seikō grew up in a relatively normal household. Her parents were not too strict, but still pushed her to do good in her studies, and because Seikō wanted to make her parents proud, she tried her best in school. This and the combination of her teachers having high expectations of her at a young age resulted in Seikō being quickly overwhelmed with pressure in school, seeking an outlet to cool down. This led Seikō to consume plenty of games, manga, anime, and internet culture, growing more nerdy as a result. However, because nobody at her schools— elementary, middle, and high school— shared the same interests as her, she began to feel distant from everyone she met; thus becoming more introverted.

Though she felt distant, Seikō still longed for relationships, which allowed her to make a few friends throughout all of her years in school. However, either through circumstance or simply not having the same interests, those friends eventually drifted away. That combined with a growing inferiority complex because of her better peers in class, especially in high school and college, resulted in Claire dropping what little confidence and value she had in her life as the years went on.

Throughout high school and college, Claire took part-time jobs to fuel her hobby for games and manga, eventually gaining enough to buy a NerveGear after college.

Appearance
Claire never changed her avatar at the beginning of the game, making it look like her real life self simply because she wanted to experience the game first-hand; being a self insert in a fantasy setting and getting to save the world as ‘her’ instead of a character she's controlling. Claire has raven-black hair that goes to her waist with dark brown eyes that are practically black. She comments that her looks are "completely average-looking" and nothing special.

In the beginning of the game her equipment consisted of the standard beginner equipment with a greatsword as her primary weapon. As the game continued she began to use a long dark blue cloak to conceal her gender and to avoid social interactions. She also began to equip heavier armor, but not a full set to retain her speed in battle, as she wanted to focus more on a balance between offense and defense (a bruiser build) rather than pure tanking. By the end of the game, Claire's armor consisted of a smoky grey heavy metal chesplate, shoulderguards, armguards, and shinguards. While she began using the cloak less to conceal herself, she still had it equipped as more of a decorative cape all the way until the end of the game. Though she restitches it as much as she can to not have it break, the cloak still continued to become more worn as the game progressed, eventually becoming tattered and old-looking by the game's completion. Underneath her armor and cloak she wears a dark grey t-shirt, a dark blue skirt, and black thigh-high stockings.

Personality
Though Claire lived a normal life before joining Sword Art Online, because of pressure to do good in school by her teachers and peers, as well as a growing lack of self-confidence, Claire became someone who frequently locked herself in her room after-school and either slept, played games, or delved into the internet with little social interaction. That is— she's an introverted nerd.

Though she does not enjoy talking often and would rather stay locked in her room and use the internet for the entire day, Claire is still the kind of person who wants to make friendships with others. This is mostly because of her lack of lasting relationships for most of her life. She wanted to actually experience what having a best friend or even a boyfriend was like. However, as friend after friend kept on leaving her either through circumstance or a lack of common interests, Claire began to lose hope in ever finding lasting relationships, becoming less confident in herself as a result.

However, because she's been so distant from everyone she meets (barring her parents), Claire began to observe people and how they interact with each other, developing a keen sense over time to detect how other people are feeling, as well as their intentions. Sometimes this sense is so overwhelming to her that she will experience the exact same emotion that other person is feeling. Though she is extremely keen on knowing how others feel, she only begins to realize her own feelings throughout her journey in Sword Art Online.

In addition, though Claire wishes to suppress it, she is an extremely emotional person. She can get worked up simply by losing once in a game, or second-guessing herself on a quiz question and getting it wrong. She can tear up extremely easily in a sad scene, or yell in utter hype in an epic scene, even if everyone else isn't as sad or as hyped. Because she bottles up her emotions so often, when there's an event that would normally make someone just regularly emotional, Claire will amp her emotions up to 10 and go all out on them.

Claire's lack of self-confidence and care for her life, emotional and introverted nature, and observant and analytical tendencies are all shown on full display during her time in Sword Art Online. When Kayaba Akihiko announced that the game became a Death Game, Claire did not fear for her own life, but instead her party and the people around her, stating that their lives held more value than hers. She knew exactly how players were feeling, to the point where some characters joked that she could become the best counselor on Aincrad. When one of her party members betrayed her and killed everyone but herself, all the while surrounded by enemies, Claire went into a fit of rage and desperation, slaying every monster in the way. Her fierceness and lack of self-control especially in the middle floors of Aincrad gave her the title «The Blacksmith of Rage» by some; a title she eventually becomes embarrassed by in the later floors of Aincrad when she learns how to control her emotions.

The intense emotions Claire displays could also translate to her willpower. Though it is buried under a lack of self-confidence, when she actually puts her mind to it and focuses, she can achieve great feats of perseverance and determination when trying to achieve something. Her willpower eventually grew along with her confidence as the floors progressed and as she experienced more and more things that changed her as a person, such as gaining relationships, losing them, coping with loss and guilt, cherishing what she has, and much more. Her drive and will grew so much to the point where she resisted the influence of the most notorious manipulators and PKers, PoH, as well as have the determination to try and stay alive in a fight with a group of Laughing Coffin members, including PoH himself, even though that was her lowest point in terms of loss in the entire game and she had little incentive to live.

Because of Sword Art Online, Claire changed, and to her, it was for the better. She learnt to have more confidence in herself, losing her inferiority complex. She became less prone to get out of control with her emotions while also not falling for apathy at the same time, allowing her to keep who she was as a person intact and increasing her mental fortitude. She learnt from her experiences in the game, becoming more wise as a result.

Though she may harbor guilt over not being able to save or be with everyone she cared about in the game, she continues to move on in any way she can... because that's what they would've wanted her to do.

Personal Statistics
Alignment: Neutral Good

Name: Seikō Iyoku, Claire, The Blacksmith of Rage, The Underdog (Based on her achievements of surviving fights against higher level players and occasionally beating them)

Origin: Sword Art Online, Tales of Aincrad: Claire, Tales of Aincrad

Gender: Female

Age: 22 at the start of Aincrad, 24 by the end of Aincrad

Classification: Human, SAO Survivor, Serenity Guild Member (in SAO. Former), Solo Player (in SAO), Blacksmith (in SAO), Clearer (in SAO), Bruiser (The build she chose to play as in SAO)

Date of Birth: May 22, 2000


 * Zodiac/Horoscope: Aries

Birthplace: Japan

Weight: 54 kg

Height: 170 cm

Eye Color: Dark Brown (Nearly black)

Hair Color: Raven Black

Marital Status: In a relationship

Status: Alive

Affiliation: N/A

Previous Affiliation: Serenity

Note: Most other personal statistics are in the Trivia section.

Combat Statistics
Tier: At least High 8-C

Powers and Abilities: Skilled Greatsword User, Skilled Hand-to-Hand Combatant, Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Skilled Crafter & Blacksmith, Statistics Amplification (Sword skills amplify the user's speed and power, with the downside of leaving some aftercast delay. Her attacks have a 50% chance of dealing double damage), Enhanced Senses (via Distinguish), Instinctive Reaction (via Instinct), Regeneration (Mid-Low every 10 seconds via Battle Healing. Low-Mid over the course of 3 minutes), Limited Durability Negation (Deals 20% max HP true damage on-hit. Cannot negate durability massively beyond her level such as the final boss), Limited Reality Warping (via Incarnation. Allows the user to change the world to an extent via their willpower or imagination. For those who are not conscious or adept with this ability, it is primarily used to increase the chances of winning a fight against stronger opponents or create miracles not possible normally. All virtual avatars are capable of Incarnation, however only those who recognize this ability can consciously use it to their advantage), Resistance to Pain (All virtual reality avatars have a pain absorber, which lessens the amount of pain one feels to negligible amounts, even with injuries such as decapitation), 50% knockback or attack interruptions (via Poise), 100% slash damage, 30% thrust damage, 20% blunt damage, 100% Durability Negation, 60% Status Effect Inducement (Only those shown in-canon). Note that these resistances only go up to the final boss' level and can be negated with a resistance negation ability.

Attack Potency: At least Large Building level (By being level 84 at the end of the game, she is comparable to players who fought on floor 75, such as Kirito)

Speed: Supersonic+ with Hypersonic+ reactions (Though she's a bruiser build who's more focused on tanking hits rather than dodging them, Claire has been shown to be able to keep up with players who are supposed to be faster than her, such as PoH and other members of Laughing Coffin)

Lifting Strength: Class 5 (Because she focuses almost entirely on either Strength or Vitality, Claire should be comparable to Kirito)

Striking Strength: At least Large Building Class

Durability: At least Large Building level (Can take a multitude of attacks from those higher level than her such as PoH, Johnny Black, and Red-Eyed XaXa, all of whom are comparable to Kirito in level. Has higher HP than Kirito at 18,628 compared to his 18,500)

Stamina: Superhuman (VR avatars cannot get physically tired, but can still get mentally tired and have the urge to eat, drink, sleep, and breathe)

Range: Extended melee range with her greatsword (More than 2.2 meters, including her arm length), several meters with dash-type sword skills.

Standard Equipment:


 * Iron Will+40: Claire's primary greatsword that she crafted all the way back on floor 1. Refined and combined with other various materials throughout the entire game, starting as far back as floor 1.
 * Type: Two-Handed Straight Sword
 * Effect(s): +50% crit chance. +20% max HP true damage. +50% poise. +50% slash resistance. +30% thrust resistance. +20% blunt resistance. +50% true damage resistance. +20% debuff resistance.
 * Tempered Demon Chestplate+50: Crafted from floor 50 demonic material. Refined and combined with other various materials as the game progressed.
 * Type: Heavy Metal Armor
 * Effect(s): +50% max HP damage resistance. +30% true damage resistance. +20% debuff resistance. +20% slash resistance.
 * Tempered Demon Shoulderguards+26: Crafted from floor 50 demonic material. Refined and combined with other various materials as the game progressed.
 * Type: Heavy Metal Armor
 * Effect(s): +10% slash resistance.
 * Tempered Demon Shinguards+45: Crafted from floor 50 demonic material. Refined and combined with other various materials as the game progressed.
 * Type: Heavy Metal Armor
 * Effect(s): +20% true damage resistance. +20% debuff resistance.
 * Tempered Demon Armguards+34: Crafted from floor 50 demonic material. Refined and combined with other various materials as the game progressed.
 * Type: Heavy Metal Armor
 * Effect(s): +20% slash resistance.
 * Generic Large Cloak (Dark Blue): A generic cloak that can be bought on floor 1.
 * Level 70 Health Potion: A potion that can be found or bought on floors 70-79. Claire has 214 of these in her inventory and a few on her person.
 * Type: Potion
 * Effect(s): Heals the user for 18500 HP over the course of 5 minutes (3700 HP per minute).
 * Healing Crystal: A crystal that completely heals the target. Claire has 107 of these in her inventory and some on her person.
 * Type: Crystal
 * Effect(s): Heals the user or the target back to 100% HP.
 * Antidote Crystal: A crystal that cures any status effects. Claire has 26 of these in her inventory.
 * Type: Crystal
 * Effect(s): Removes any debuffs.
 * Teleport Crystal: A crystal that transports the user to a chosen city's Teleport Gate plaza.
 * Type: Crystal
 * Effect(s): Teleports the user.
 * Corridor Crystal: A larger form of teleport crystal that opens a teleport gate to any location that the player has marked.
 * Type: Crystal
 * Effect(s): Teleports the user.
 * Mirage Sphere: A device that can produce a map of a chosen area in 3D.
 * Type: Map
 * Effect(s): Opens a 3D map.

Intelligence: Though Claire is on average a B-student academically, she is incredibly skilled at understanding how other people are feeling and their intentions, to the point where it can be referred to as a practical "skill outside of the system" that can help either in-combat or out-of-combat. This emotional understanding is eventually applied to herself, allowing her to become more competent as a result, to the point where PoH's manipulative tactics had no effect on her. She is also a determined learner, willing to dedicate as much time as possible to learn how to achieve a goal, though at times she can become one-track minded when trying to achieve said goal. In addition, Claire is an incredibly competent planner. Because of her dedication to learn and achieve something, she is extremely meticulous with her planning, accounting for nearly every aspect of a situation and all of the options she can take. Claire is incredibly skilled in combat, being able to keep track of multiple enemies and actions at once and knowing how to use the environment to her advantage. Using her intuition to understand other people's intentions, she can almost accurately predict other people's attacks, and can even manipulate them into doing what she wants in combat to an extent, such as making them block a whiffed attack, or making them use an attack that would leave them wide open.

Weaknesses: Sword Skills have a slight aftercast delay at the end of them in exchange for increased power. She can at times become one-track minded when trying to achieve a goal, making her lose some perception around her. When things don't go as planned, Claire struggles to adapt and improvise for the situation (Though she eventually overcomes this weakness, making it negligible). If she has a long time to plan and have either no deadline or a deadline that's far away, Claire will most likely procrastinate until the last minute to actually plan the situation out. Though it is difficult to manipulate her directly, she can still be prone to emotional outbursts and blind rages.

Notable Attacks/Techniques:

Outside System Skills
Outside System Skills (OuSS): An ability, usually referred to as a skill, that either involves unconventional use of system-controlled skills, the exploitation of loopholes in the system, or the use of the player's human abilities to enhance their gameplay. Although such abilities are referred to as "skills", none are regulated by the system, though some involve making use of system skills in ways that were not intended by the developers of the game.

These skills are developed through a player's capability in game and are acquired through experience and practice put in by the player themselves throughout playing time. In Claire's case, because she's behind in levels compared to most other Clearers, as well as because of other experiences, Claire decided to adopt and develop some of her own Outside System Skills to keep up with those that are higher level than her.
 * Switch - A technique where two players switch positions in-between an enemy's attack to recover Hit Points, chain attacks together without worrying about a post-motion delay, and/or burden the learning abilities of enemies AIs.
 * Sword Skill Imitation - Imitating Sword Skills without the system's assistance, removing the post-motion delay, but sacrificing the power and speed of the actual skill.
 * Distinguish - Eliminating background noise by concentrating on an unnatural or certain sound to detect any movements.
 * Precognition - Knowing precisely the user's own positioning and movements to gain a better control of their body.
 * Insight - Predicting a monster's next attack from long range via their attack pattern.
 * Mislead - The ability to trick monsters' AI's learning function to burden them.
 * Innate Understander - Claire has an uncanny ability to either figure out quickly or know exactly how other people are currently feeling, even subconsciously. This eventually applies to herself, boosting her own mental defenses.
 * Instinct - Born though Claire's «Innate Understander» Outside System Skill, Claire developed a new skill over time that is a superior version of «Hypersense», but requires Claire to stop overthinking and self-doubting herself; simply using her instincts to use the skill effectively. The skill allows Claire to sense the intentions of another player, good or not, even outside of her field of vision. She can sense whether the enemy wants to feint, use a ranged attack, use the environment to their advantage, be unpredictable, etc..
 * Determined Learner - Claire may not get something at first, but she will dedicate a lot of time and effort to figure out that something and learn it, being almost one-track minded on that single thing until she figures it out.
 * Excessive Planner and Procrastinator - Claire will excessively plan for nearly anything she deems important or high stakes, even if it’s not needed. However, if she thinks that important thing has a deadline pretty far away, she will still plan, but not actually enact on that plan and instead procrastinate until the last minute to do said plan in a much shorter time frame.

Skills
Skills: Abilities that a player can use in-game. In Sword Art Online, Skills are essentially passives from any other game. They can be leveled up to increase their effects, as well as unlock mods and new abilities. Skill levels are independent of player levels. A skill's level is increased via usage of the skill.
 * Two-Handed Straight Sword
 * Heavy Metal Armor
 * Slash Weapon Forging
 * Heavy Metal Armor Forging
 * Metal Armor Repairing
 * Metal Refining
 * Battle Healing
 * Extended Weight Limit
 * Equipment Appraisal
 * Howl
 * Emergency Recovery

Sword Skills
Sword Skills (SS): A series of movements that allows the user to attack much faster than they normally could, but the movements required to perform the Sword Skill are fixed and cannot be canceled by the user after they begin performing it. They are essentially Sword Art Online's actives from any other game. The user will also be left in a short aftercast delay when the Sword Skill is finished. Contrary to their name, Sword Skills do not have to be used with a sword.
 * Avalanche
 * Description : A high level two-handed dash skill that consists of a single, powerful downward vertical slash. Grants Super Armor during the attack-motion. Avalanche's pre-motion has the user bend their lower body a little, assuming an overhead position with their sword.
 * Number of Hits : 1
 * Back Rush
 * Description : A two-handed technique to spin around anticlockwise and diagonally slash from right to left when an opponent is at your back. Back Rush’s pre-motion has the user holding their sword with both hands parallel and in-front of their stomach. Black Rush’s post-motion has the user holding their sword with both hands at the left above their head.
 * Number of Hits : 1
 * Cascade
 * Description : A two-handed overhead slash. Cascade’s pre-motion has the user holding their sword with both hands above their head. Cascade’s post-motion has the user holding their sword with both hands in-front of their stomach.
 * Number of Hits : 1
 * Cyclone
 * Description : A two-handed spinning sword slash that consists of a single upwards diagonal slash from right to left with two hands holding the sword. Cyclone’s pre-motion has the user holding their sword with both hands at the right of their waist. Cyclone’s post-motion has the user holding their sword with both hands at the left above their head.
 * Number of Hits : 1
 * Blast
 * Tempest
 * Eruption
 * Scooped
 * Lightning
 * Fight Blade
 * Astral Hell
 * Calamity Disaster
 * Catastrophe Eraser
 * Hollow Silhouette
 * Furious Destroyer
 * Ray Brandish

Trivia

 * Claire only makes weapons that do slash damage and heavy equipment in her blacksmithing shop, however because she's so good at making said equipment, it more than makes up for her lack of variety.
 * Claire prefers dogs over cats.
 * Claire is terrible with remembering names.
 * Claire can forget important things rather quickly, but still remember the most stupidest of stuff.
 * Claire stutters a lot when she talks unless she planned out what she wanted to say beforehand.
 * Claire feels more confident when she plans something out, and when she doesn’t plan something out or something unexpected happens, she has a hard time making things up on the go.
 * Claire feels more confident when on the internet or in text.
 * It's difficult for Claire to refuse or lie to someone, and even if she does lie, it'd most likely be a half-truth instead.
 * Claire's Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is INFJ.
 * Claire is often reserved and quiet in real life, but she can become social whenever she’s around friends or when the situation calls for it. She can also get quite hyper and passionate if the situation’s right.
 * Even though Claire may seem like a disorganized person (especially considering the state of her apartment room), she's actually a really organized person; keeping multiple planners and always leaving stuff categorized in areas where she could easily obtain them in real life.
 * Claire can become sleepy rather easily, and will become even more sleepy when cuddling with someone or something.
 * Claire likes to keep everything she thinks written down, as she would likely forget it otherwise.
 * Claire loves writing characters and stories, especially the fantastical and impractical.
 * Claire loves drawing and animating, however because of the low pay animators get, she decided that she would simply keep those as a hobby and instead focus on computer programming.
 * Claire's dream job that she would stay at before retiring would be a video game company as a programmer, however if the pay was higher for animators, she would be an animator instead.
 * Claire tries to give the best advice and counselling that she can, though she’s more comfortable with giving emotional support than practical support (Though she tries to give practical support. It just takes a while for her to think of something practical unless it’s something she’s familiar with and she can help well with).
 * Claire gets embarrassed extremely easily.
 * Claire's top 5 favorite anime so far are (in no particular order): Violet Evergarden, Log Horizon, Assassination Classroom, No Game No Life, and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
 * Claire's top 5 favorite video games/video game franchises so far are (in no particular order): The Devil May Cry series, the Soulsborne Series, the Elder Scrolls series, Undertale/Deltarune, and the NieR and Drakengard series.
 * If Claire was to ever choose a theme song for her from existing songs, she would choose either Michishirube or There Is A Reason.
 * Claire's childhood was mostly Nintendo and Sega titles, such as Mario, Legend of Zelda, and Sonic. Even now she has a sweet spot for games made by these companies, especially Sonic games.
 * Claire thinks of herself as a fast sprinter, but a slow marathoner.
 * Claire has quite a bit of experience with parkour, doing it in secret from her parents ever since she was 14. This was because of her Assassin's Creed addiction at the time, and even when she grew out of that franchise, the part of herself that liked to do parkour still stuck.
 * Claire thinks that she's horrible at keeping secrets, however when it really comes down to it, she can keep important secrets pretty well, and possibly even lie to keep that secret if it's really that important.
 * Claire's favorite kind of traditional jokes are puns, specifically bad ones. She also likes dirty jokes. Also memes. Lots and lots of memes.
 * Claire hates tight clothing because she feels like they restrict her movement too much. The only exception to this are stockings.
 * Claire mostly prefers boy stuff rather than girl stuff, making her a tomboy.
 * Claire rarely uses makeup, however she does use non-fancy dresses occasionally, though it's mostly just because they're loose.
 * Claire's three sizes are 86-78-96 cm and she's a B-cup.

Others
Notable Victories:

Notable Losses:

Inconclusive Matches: