In this version, everything about Harry's life is shifted into the future and enters a timeline where Voldemort's horcruxes never existed and thus was truly defeated by Harry with the help of Lily's protection magic fueled by her loving and willing sacrifice. Harry is adopted by Asuna's parents after her father goes on a business trip to England to discuss merging Vernon's and his companies. When he witnesses the horrible actions to Harry, not only does he leave England, but he adopts Harry as well and changes his name to Hiro. Growing up, Hiro, after his magic begins to manifest, attends Yōkai Academy and becomes friends with Tsukune, Moka, Kurumu, Yukari, Mizore, Ruby, Koko, and Ginei. Hiro becomes a beta tester for SAO, where, because the game actually takes real life measurements and data, he's a Hedge Witch in the game world. Hedge Witches are usually Muggleborns, but can be Squibs, Wizards, or Witches that have chosen to live in the Muggle World and also play SAO; they have great skills when it concerns herbology. Their powers mostly manifest as a great affinity towards nature, but is also used method of transfiguring various herbs and mob drops to possess "magical" properties by slightly altering their coding and then using these enhanced items to then brew potions that produce various buffs such as regeneration, protection, water breathing, strength, fire resistance, etc or debuffs such as weakness, nausea, fatigue, blindness, harming, etc. Despite this, they can perform "magic" using a limited amount of the game's coding in order to perform feats such as telekinesis, pyrokinesis, cryokinesis, etc. Hedge Witches, even though they possess kinetic abilities, use them only when they have no other choice, preferring to stick with potions, as using their kinetic powers causes them to lose HP points, the stronger the kinetic attack, the heavier the object, and/or the more often they continuously use their powers, the more points they lose. Hedge Witches rarely use their abilities around Non-Witches as they believe they may be hated, feared, and hunted more so than even the beta testers.

In the beginning of the series, Kirito is 14 while Hiro is 13. Kirito meets Hiro along with Asuna who introduces them as brother and sister though Hiro, a former beta tester, was the one who convinced Asuna to play the game in the first place. Throughout the series, Kirito and Hiro become closer and, with Asuna's blessing, become married.