Akio had been well prepared for the release of SAO, and when it was finally released, all she had to do was boot up the game the minute the servers went online, getting a chance to watch the first floor grow crowded by the minute. She already had her strategies down, so she picked up what little supplies she thought she'd need, and got ready to press on, saving as much of her money as possible so she could buy a new weapon early on the next floor, since unless it had been nerfed, it would be a considerable difference that could easily put her tall on the toplists, which was always fun. While she had gone for a katana build during the beta testing, it felt a bit silly doing the same again, so she had gone for a single-sword style, planning to get a small shield at some point to easier parry. However, for now, just the sword would do, she was well adversed with roleplaying games of this nature, so she knew the do and don't regarding combat.<br/><br/>Of course, playing games alone was boring. It was an MMO, sure, she could just join a guild or something and find some friends there, but it was more tempting to bring along someone else... So why not bring along the hot transfer student to play? After all, there was nothing telling her not to, and she was fairly sure that while not necessarily balls deep into it, Sara didn't seem like the game-hating type. How she had kicked off with the foreigner was quite the funny story in many ways, though she couldn't say she minded it. She had pretty much just been dumped onto her since she had singlehandedly put the university on the charts in regards of mathematics, and it was their way to thank her... However that worked. Either way, the two had become friends quickly and well, she liked the foreigner, in many ways.<br/><br/>Having finished off her own quota, Aiko had spent the remaining time spectating while Sara finished up her batch. Not that it wasn't to be expected though, after all, she was both a beta-tester and a frequent gamer, so she had the clear advantage, though Sara was undoubtedly handling herself well.<br/><br/>On the topic of Sara, Aiko was quite disappointed that she had picked the male model. Not because it was worse or anything, but plain simply because she wasn't attracted to men and found it rather unappealing, at least going by sexual attraction. The otherwise pretty obvious flirting flew right over her head, her mind simply wasn't tuned to receive such from men, or rather, to accept it. She had considered mentioning it to Sara, but she was afraid of ruining their friendship, as she was undoubtedly enjoying it as it was, though she felt it had potential to become more than what it already was.<br/><br/><strong>"You're picking up quickly, let's push on, <em>my knight</em>"</strong>She played along, finishing the line with a nifty smile as she sheeted her longsword and picked up everything from her side of things that was worth bringing forth. Anything that didn't interest her, either because of low value, low usableness or just in general it wasn't worth bringing along. Inventory wasn't unlimited after all, even if it could seem like it at times.<br/><br/>She stepped up closely to Sara, and kept them moving towards their next major location, having a quick peek on the top-lists while they were moving to see where she was placed, though she quickly closed it after finding her position on the rankings. Not as high as she would've wanted to be, probably because she was spending time hanging around Sara, though she had no problems with it, she could make up for it later.