(Note: this is also now on my ItsumoCelestialSushi deviantART account)

Hello, everyone!

Sorry it's a day late, playitbakinslomo, but I was your Secret Santa Valentine! (I know they call it a "Secret Santa" event, but, personally, I'd rather call it the "Secret Valentine" event. Anyways...)

I was looking through your list and thought, "Hm... I've seen one episode of Sword Art Online, and I don't usually draw couples, soooo... I'll go for it :D" I did some research on the rest of the series, so I'm hoping that not only does this work in terms of their relationship, but I also hope that the location doesn't seem out of place. If it does, I'm sorry ._.U As SAO is an action series, I wanted to give the picture a sense of action and adventure, and really, with Valentine's Day, as one cartoon character put it, "Fear and love...both make the heart throb wildly." (That was from an episode of Bonkers... it's been so long since I've seen that episode that I probably got the quote wrong >_<U) Not to mention fear also apparently draws people close (like how guys want to take girls to scary movies and stuff, hoping the girl will hold on to him when something scary happens), but here, it's more out of necessity that she's holding on to Kirito, lest she fall into that deep gorge… but she might be holding on a little tighter than necessary. I kind of wonder if that’s in character…

Anyways!

References for this picture came from the Kirito and Asuna pages on the Sword Art Online wiki. It was drawn with a blue-leaded mechanical pencil (just got some blue lead recently :D), outlined with Prismacolor fine line markers, scanned, and then cleaned up/colored in Manga Studio Debut 3.0. The background was done in Photoshop Elements 10. Any other adjustments were done in MS Paint 2007 and Microsoft Office Picture Manager.

Well, with all that said, enjoy! :D I hope you like it ^_^