Never the Twain Shall Meet is an A Certain Magical Index romance Touma x Saten fanfiction by Kyle Castorena
. It has a sequel named Echo of a Lost World, with a strong element of adventure and drama, though it still retains the main romance theme.
Never the Twain Shall Meet (or simply "Twain"): A certain Level 0 high school boy with streaks of misfortune. A certain Level 0 middle school girl with streaks of luck. It is a meeting that is never to take place. An encounter which is a miracle in and of itself. When someone wills it to happen, not even a hundreds of suffering can prevent them from seeing each other.
Echo of a Lost World (or simply "Echo"): After Never the Twain Shall Meet event, Saten tries her best to continue her life without Touma and Othinus. Things are easier said than done. A brief meeting with Tsuchimikado and the folks from Amakusa Church makes Saten realizing that remnants of Othinus' power remains in her right eye, giving her some sort of magical clairvoyance. Soon, Academy City's Dark Side makes attempts on Saten's life in order to collect her eye, thus forcing Saten to make an alliance with Frenda. After giving it a few thoughts, Saten begins her plot to retaliate against the world who wrongs her and find a way to go to another world where Touma exist.
Never the Twain Shall Meet provides examples of:
- Ambiguously Bi: Frenda is implied to be this. She is romantically attracted to Saten and does not mind having Touma as her company.
- Darker and Edgier: Daihaseisai arc is where the fic starts to get intense.
- Downer Ending: This fic ends on a really sad note, even for Toaru standards. However, the existence of the sequel fic averts this.
- Driven to Suicide: Realizing that Othinus is using her as a hostage to guilt Touma, Saten commits suicide so Othinus will lose her only chance of victory. Saten survives, though.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Othinus is admittedly disgusted by her own method of using Saten as a honeypot to seduce Touma.
- Fantastic Racism: Saten's mother is a downplayed example. She dislikes people with supernatural ability, and she is grateful that her daughter turns out to be a Level 0, which, to her words, still retaining her humanity.
- Honey Trap: In this fanfic, Othinus designs Saten to be romantically involved with Touma, so Touma would be too distracted to go against her conquering the world. It does not work as she planned.
- It's Personal: Shokuhou Misaki Mind Wipe Uiharu and Kuroko as a part of her plan to thwart the Dark Side's plotting. Misaki's reason to Mind Wipe Saten, however, is to make her forget about Touma.
- Killed Offscreen: Hamazura gets killed by Anti-Skill in Skill-Out Uprising incident, and Takitsubo dies from Ability Body Crystal overdose, both happen outside Saten's reach.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Initially, Saten is unaware of anything dangerous happening in Touma's life, and assuming that he gets his wounds due to combination of clumsiness and misfortune. This begins to change during the fic's interpretation of Tree Diagram Remnants arc, which shows Saten seeing Touma fetching Shirai Kuroko, who is injured after her fight against Awaki.
- Love Confession: Saten confesses her feeling toward Touma in a very bold way: she yells the words in front of Touma's school as loud as she can, therefore making sure everyone around will hear her.
- Love Hurts: It hurts Touma to keep secrets from Saten and constantly makes her worry about him. It hurts Saten to be powerless and unable to assist Touma in his adventures. It hurts more when both realize that their interactions with each other only happen because Othinus wills it.
- The Many Deaths of You: Had it not been for Othinus, Saten would've died countless times due to venturing into Touma's dangerous life. Some of Saten's possible deaths in hypothetical scenarios made by Othinus are being torn apart by Accelerator's vector reflector, impaled by Awaki who uses her Move Point skill, got headshotted by Hamazura, skinned alive by Izzard's Ars Magna, and executed by Tsuchimikado.
- Shipper on Deck:
- Othinus exaggerates this trope in the most twisted way. Othinus goes out of her way to keep Saten alive since Saten is incapable of defending herself from extraordinary dangers. Also,Othinus needs Saten as a honeypot to lure away Touma from his chronic hero syndrome, so Othinus can freely conquer the world. Othinus even explicitly says that the girl who qualifies as Touma's lover must have two conditions: She has to be someone powerless; and she cannot be someone who was saved by Touma in the past. Saten fits both conditions by default.
- Uiharu is also supportive in Saten's developing relationship with Touma, claiming that being in love with Touma makes Saten less insecure about her lack of supernatural ability and her lack of right eye.
- Saten herself actively averts this trope. Once she accepts her own feeling toward Touma, she makes clear attempt to flirt with him and does not bother supporting Misaka.
- Slice of Life: The fic initially plays as this genre, at least until Daihaseisai arc where Saten realizes how the world Touma lives in is so different compard to hers.
- Spoiler Cover: The cover art for this fic shows Saten playfully flipping Uiharu's skirt and having fun, not noticing Touma at all who is shooting a glance at her from distance. This does not really mean anything to new readers, but readers who had finished reading the fic would realize that it is an implication about the last chapter where Touma is reliving his days with his bitter one-sided feeling toward Saten of the new world, who doesn't even know him.
- Star Crossed Lover: Read the fic's title. It looks like the universe is against Touma and Saten's love. In fact, had it not been for Othinus, their story would probably never began at all.
- Stern Teacher: Aiho Yomikawa is one of the summer workshop instructors who give Training from Hell to the workshop students, and she happens to be Touma's P.E. teacher.
- Wham Episode:
- Chapter 19 reveals that Saten only has her left eye. Her right eye has been taken by Othinus. Also, everyone except Saten is aware that she only has one eye, because Othinus applies a spell that enables Saten to see normally, thus not feeling any different until Touma's Imagine Breaker dispel it.
- Chapter 21 reveals that the sole reason Saten and Touma become a couple is because Othinus the One-eyed Magic God wills it to happen.
- Wham Line:
- Chapter 21: "Othinus, save her! I choose Ruiko! So please-" [Touma Kamijou]
- Chapter 22: "It's not her, and she never could be." [Othinus]
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Touma calls Saten as Ruiko on several occasions, such as when he is worried for her, and when he finally reciprocates her feelings for him.
Echo of a Lost World provides examples of:
- Bloodier and Gorier: "Echo" contains more violences, killings and character deaths compared to "Twain".
- Break the Haughty: Kuroko, just like many high level ESPers, looks down on Level 0 students. However, just a few moments before Saten departs from Academy City, Saten has an intense brawl with Kuroko, and Saten manages to knock down the Judgment teleporter a few pegs by using her right eye to correctly "see" where Kuroko will appear after teleporting and repeatedly strikes her before the teleporter can take a proper stance. Needless to say, Kuroko suffers a knock, both her body and her dignity.
- Broken Pedestal: In the story's climax, Saten loses all respect for Yomikawa who is just another cog in Academy City. Yomikawa is not an evil person per se, but she is unable to do things beyond her authority as an Anti-Skill officer. If Board of Directors issues an order to call off the searching party of missing Touma Kamijou or to declare Saten as deceased despite the lack of substantial material evidence, she is obliged to comply.
- Combat Clairvoyance: Saten is capable of seeing through various future possibilities and results of her actions, as one of the perks of having remnants of Othinus' power in her right eye. Later, it is revealed that she can see through her opponents' magic flow as well, giving her chances to counter.
- Combat Pragmatist: Frenda teaches Ruiko how to fight dirty in order to survive their quest.
- Composite Character: Saten and Frenda have to get involved in Toaru verse World War III happening in Russia, because cutting through Russia is the quickest way to reach England from Academy City. Since Touma is vanished with Othinus and Hamazura got killed off in "Twain", Saten ends up playing both roles of fighting Fiamma and liberating oppressed villages.
- The Cracker: When Academy City authority declares Saten as deceased, Uiharu descends into the life of crime. She breaks all kinds of rules and hacks all kinds of communication devices just to find out whether or not Saten is truly dead. She eventually gets arrested for illegal hacking, gets relieved from her Judgment duty, and be imprisoned.
- Demoted to Extra: In the sequel fic, Touma only gets occasional mentions throughout the story and does not really get involved until the last chapter.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Touma and Saten meets again in another world, with the latter regaining her memories about the past ordeals. Frenda also comes back to life.
- Eye Scream: When Saten fights Laura, she gouges her left eye as a symbol of throwing away her humanity.
- Half The Woman She Used To Be: How Frenda dies in the fic's reinterpretation of English Civil War arc.
- Never My Fault: Mugino blames Saten for her every problem: the disappearance of Touma, the defection of Frenda, the death of Kinuhata, and her basically horrible life after ITEM got disbanded.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Not even a day has passed since Uiharu landed in jail, and other inmates who held grudges against the authority ganged up on her and beat her up to the brink of death.
- Say My Name: "Ruuuuuuuuu-iiiiiiiiiii-koooooooooo!". Courtesy of Mugino.
- Stalker without a Crush: Thanks to Hamazura's death in "Twain" and his role is partially given to Saten, she becomes a target for Mugino's villainous obsession in "Echo". Take note that Mugino is one of the very few characters in this fic who actually calls Saten by her given name.
- Title Drop Chapter: Chapter 38 of this fic is titled "Echo of a Lost World'.
- Villain Protagonist: Saten is this once she takes control of Index's John Pen magic and becomes a serious candidate to be a Magic God. She will stop at nothing to complete her quest, not even her former friends in Academy City.
- We Used to Be Friends: Once Saten makes up her mind to become a Magic God by using Index's John Pen magic, she abandons Academy City and leaves her friends behind. She has a brief brawling with Kuroko before departing with Frenda, and when she finally returns to Academy City with Index in her control, she encounters Mikoto and Tsuchimikado again, this time as enemies.
- Woman Scorned: Misaka Mikoto. While she is already Hot-Blooded by default, being reminded that Touma formed a romantic relationship with Saten (especially after Saten becomes Evil Former Friend) instead of her is what really set her off.
- You Cannot Fight Fate: Frenda dies in a similar way she dies in canon, except in this fic, instead of Mugino, it is Index (while being mind-controlled) who finish her off. Downplayed that while Frenda doesn't know how she dies in canon world, Saten (with her right eye) sees how it happened in canon world beforehand and tries to prevent it from happening in Psi world, to no avail.
