Characters / A Certain Magical Index Level5s

A Certain Magical Index / Scientific Railgun / Scientific Accelerator character index
Main Characters
Touma Kamijou | Accelerator | Railgun's Main Cast (Mikoto Misaka)
Science Side
The Level 5s | The Teachers and Students of Academy City | Academy City Founders, Researchers and Law Enforcement
Academy City's Dark Side | The Sisters | Other Science Side Characters
Magic Side
England and its Allies | The Roman Catholic Church | GREMLIN | True GREMLIN | Other Magic Side Characters
Other Characters
Other Light Novel, Manga, and Anime Characters | Audio Drama, Video Game, and Movie Characters

Among Academy City's esper ranks, Level 5 is the highest level an esper can currently obtain, making those who have achieved it the strongest espers in the city. Beyond the requirements of power output and versatility, becoming a Level 5 requires approval from Academy City's Board of Directors, including that of Aleister Crowley.

So far, only seven out 2.3 million students have successfully achieved the status of Level 5. This page lists them in order of their ranking, as well as some special cases related to the rank.

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The Level 5s

As a whole

• Ax-Crazy: Accelerator, Teitoku, and Shizuri, at least before they experience Character Development.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Almost all of them have been through something terrible in their lives, which explains why they can be a bit moody. Gunha's more sunny, but his backstory's currently unknown.
• The Dreaded: The most common response that people have when they learn they're up against a Level 5 is to shit their pants, unless they're Too Dumb to Live. Several people exploit this by adopting the #6 ranked's name, using it to make themselves seem more fearsome.
• Dysfunction Junction: None of these guys can be considered well adjusted. The only one who comes close to appearing 'normal' is Mikoto, and even she has her own personality quirks. This leads to a humorous set of scenes during Railgun's Daihasei Festival Arc where the festival planners are scrambling to contact the other 5s to do the athlete's pledge since Mikoto's been through some bad PR as of late. Only Misaki and Gunha agree, with the rest vehemently (and violently) refusing, and in Etsu's case, being unreachable. Gunha promptly ruins the speech.
• No Fair Cheating: If they participate, they're banned from using their powers' primary applications during sports events like the Daihasei Festival (i.e. Mikoto isn't allowed to just shock everyone to pull a win).
• Person of Mass Destruction: As the strongest espers in the city, each of them are able to take on an entire army by themselves and having the tactical equivalence to nuclear weapons. That said, the 'destruction' part is subverted for Misaki and Etsu, whose abilities are more deceptive and supportive instead.
• Red Baron: Each of them have a special name for their ability that they may be called (or in the case of Accelerator, ''only'' called) when not referred to by name or ranking. Furthermore, Mikoto chose her epithet herself after her Signature Move, suggesting that the Level 5s themselves are allowed to name their abilities. The known epithets are:
  1. Accelerator
  2. Teitoku Kakine: Dark Matter
  3. Mikoto Misaka: Railgun
  4. Shizuri Mugino: Meltdowner
  5. Misaki Shokuhou: Mental Out
• Rotten Robotic Replacement: Academy City is constantly studying the Level 5s' powers and attempting to replicate them in robot form, called "Five_OVERs", that they can mass produce. In addition, as a form of insurance were the Level 5s ever to rebel, Academy City also produced a cyborg that's capable of using all of their powers (though not at the same time).
• Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: With the exception of Mikoto and Misaki, most of them don't seem to bother with school even though they technically are all students. Gunha's teacher notes that he often skips school to go out saving people, and Kakine gets a text in his manga chastising him for skipping class again. Given that they're TeenGeniuses, it's possible they don't need it.
• Smug Super: They're powerful, and they know it. This typically sets them up for a humbling moment where they get defeated either by someone much weaker than them or someone much stronger than them.
• Swiss-Army Superpower: A common theme in the ability of a Level 5 is not just how powerful it is, but how many applications of it there are. As an example, Mikoto's electricity isn't quite as destructive as Shizuri's Meltdowner, but the sheer variety of things the former can do by manipulating electricity means that she's still ranked higher than the latter. Later in the series, a few characters are even introduced that have powers on par with a Level 5, but because they're overtuned to towards a certain purpose (usually destruction), they're kept at Level 4.
• Superpower Lottery: Level 5s are the ones lucky enough to gain the strongest esper abilities in the city from the Power Curriculum Program. Their powers can further be sorted into whether their power is the strongest version of an existing power (e.g. Mikoto's Electromaster and Misaki's Mental Out) or if their power is completely unique to them and them alone (e.g. Accelerator and Teitoku's Dark Matter). There's also Gunha, whose nature as a Gemstone meant he was born with his powers.
• Teen Genius: Having an extremely powerful esper ability requires that you're able to calculate everything you want your ability to do, meaning all the Level 5s are geniuses who are stated to be able to outcalculate supercomputers (with the exception of Gunha).
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Anytime two Level 5s are forced to team up, expect their dynamic to be this. This could be because of past grievances (Accelerator and Mikoto), rivalry (Mikoto and Misaki), or just because of their personalities (Accelerator and Shizuri). The sole exception may be Gunha, whom the rest think of as an idiot.

Accelerator

Accelerator

He Who Wields the Power of God

The #1 ranked Level 5 esper.

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See Accelerator's list of tropes here.

Teitoku Kakine

Teitoku Kakine

The One Who Has Touched the Territory of God

Voiced by: Masaya Matsukaze (Japanese), Daman Mills (English)

^{Click here for his new look in NT Vol. 6}

"The normal rules don't apply to my Dark Matter."

The #2 ranked Level 5 esper, and the leader of SCHOOL.

His ability, Dark Matter, allows him to create entirely new forms of matter that aren't bound by the laws of physics. Kakine's power is hinted to be related to Accelerator's in some way, and he is the only other esper with the potential to become a Level 6.

He's first introduced in the Battle Royal Arc as the volume's Arc Villain, with the events culminating in a duel between him and Accelerator. In NT6, He returns as a villain with the power to Self Duplicate and regenerate to once again cause trouble for Accelerator, before eventually being replaced by Beetle 05. For tropes pertaining to Beetle 05, see below.

Stars in his own one-shot manga, A Certain Scientific Dark Matter.

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• Affably Evil: Provided you don't directly oppose or hinder his objectives, he's actually a half-decent guy.
• Always Someone Better: Despite his immense power, Accelerator is number 1 and he's number 2. This gets rammed home when they both "Awaken" during their first battle, yet Kakine still loses despite fully mastering his power and Accelerator being reduced to an unthinking Unstoppable Rage.
• And I Must Scream: His brain is preserved and forced to create a constant stream of Dark Matter after his "death" by Accelerator. Happens again in New Testament 8 when he his compressed into a ball, and noted to still be alive in this state. He was later left to sink into the ocean with the Sargasso base.
• Arc Villain: For the Battle Royale Arc overall, a position he technically shares with Saku Tatsuhiko (Tatsuhiko is attempting a full-on rebellion to take over Academy City, while Kakine is the most powerful villainous threat whose own goals are mutually exclusive but more personal towards the other members of the cast).
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Spends most of his time around his enemies bragging about how powerful Dark Matter is. While it is potent, this leads him to think he's able to punch far above his weight class, including against Accelerator, Aleister Crowley, and Othinus.

Too bad for him, Accelerator is still stronger than he is.

• Awesomeness by Analysis: He can read past events in a given location by examining the impressions left in the surrounding area. He compares this to how a CD stores sound and images by having tracks etched in it. This was how he was able to imitate the Misaka Sisters for his Shape Shifter Guilt Trip.
• Badass Boast: Delivers a lot.
  Kakine: "Are you making fun of me? Cause it sounds to me like you want to become a nice corpse."
  Kakine: "This is a difference in the freedom our powers give us. And that difference is insurmountable for you. I need not even do anything. I do not simply have an infinite supply of Dark Matter. My inspiration also knows no bounds. No matter how many cards you gather in your hand, I can push it back with brute force as numbers means nothing to me. Nothing you do will ever even reach me. To reach me, you first need to climb over the wall of infinity that continues on eternally."
  Kakine: "I don't care who you are. It doesn't matter what you've built up. I'm not interested in what you'll give to the world. Good and evil? Kindness and malice? Gain and loss? Positive and negative? We can let historians decide that a hundred years from now. All I know is what fate you deserve for trying to use me as a tool!!"
• Berserk Button:
  • When he's told his ability — more specifically, his white wings — would have appeal to kids for a demonstration during the Daihasei Festival, he wrecks SCHOOL's hideout. Considering his one-sided rivalry with Accelerator, being told you have appeal to kids is the ego equivalent of a kick to the balls. Toaru Kagaku no Dark Matter manga later reveals that this is actually a fresh wound - Ringo Yuzuriha, young girl whom Teitoku recently failed to save, absolutely adored his wings, and this argument reminded him about her death. Ringo's death also reminded Kakine of the death of his childhood friend several years prior, who also similarly adored his wings. In general, comments about his wings is a touchy subject, though he later on brushes off Accelerator insulting his wings twice.
  • Kakine is absolutely furious when Accelerator actually shows him mercy after defeating him thanks to Yomikawa. He's unable to understand how someone like Accelerator was able to escape the Dark Side and goes into a hate filled rant while torturing Yomikawa intent on taking everything important away from Accelerator.
• Be the Ball: Othinus crushes him into a ball.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Post-ressurection, he seems to have taken an interest in creating an army of car-sized bugs.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: After his resurrection.
• Brain in a Jar: After his "dismemberment" by Accelerator, both his brain and body are preserved and stored separately. He eventually made a new body out of Dark Matter and was released. His original flesh and blood body was captured by GREMLIN at the end of NT Vol. 6. They use a device to force it to create Dark Matter that they can mold into the sacred spear Gungnir.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: One may even say "Brilliant AND Lazy" in Volume 6 after his resurrection. Both he and Accelerator spend most of the volume trying to read each other's moves and plan accordingly. Kakine even goes as far as to choose specific locations and screws with Accelerator's mental state, forcing his Reflection to become useless. However, once he directly faces off against Accelerator and Mugino, Kakine's regeneration and infinite Dark Matter essentially allows him to take everything the two Level 5's have and regenerate from it. The novel makes the point that Accelerator, even with his Black Wings and Mugino simply do not have the power and/or energy to fully destroy him and that Kakine can basically be lazy and outlast them until they either make a mistake and/or run out of energy.
• Came Back Strong: Zig-Zagged example. He took a final level in badass during the last leg of the fight with Accelerator, but it did nothing to save him from his now-berserk opponent tearing him apart. After reviving in New Testament, however, his time as a Brain in a Jar and mastering that newly awakened power to re-create his body allows him to overpower Accelerator and Mugino working together thanks figuring out how to clone himself and regenerate constantly. In the end, he only loses again due to quite-literal internal sabotage.
• Combat Pragmatist: Intended to take Last Order hostage as "insurance" against Accelerator, though the latter intercepted him as he was interrogating Uiharu for Last Order's whereabouts, admitting that a fair fight with Accelerator was troublesome (though he still proceeded to fight Accelerator head on). It's revealed in Toaru Kagaku no Dark Matter that Kakine spent a month gathering and analyzing data on Accelerator's calculation patterns in preparation for their eventual fight. In New Testament 6, Dark Matter Kakine's strategy was to stall Accelerator via Zerg Rush and his new immortality until his battery ran out before finishing him off.
• Combo Platter Powers: His ability, Dark Matter, allows him to create and control matter that does not exist in this universe and defies the laws of physics of everything it makes contact with, allowing him to give various new properties to normal matter.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: He spent Volume 15 one-shotting everyone he went up against without getting a scratch, until he went up against Accelerator.
• Death of Personality: Beetle 05 basically erased him and took his place. He later recreates himself again using his flesh-and-blood organs, only to be trounced by Othinus.
• Determinator: Even being impaled with his own wings by Accelerator is only enough to incapacitate him for a few minutes.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Though not above hurting kids, even Kakine thought the Dark May Project was messed up.
  • He generally avoids hurting innocents as long as they don't oppose him, and may even leave you alive if he doesn't think you're a threat (see Not Worth Killing below). To Hamazura, this actually makes Kakine slightly nobler than Mugino, who would happily kill anyone who makes her mad.
  • In NT6, one of his orders to his cloned Dark Matter beetles is to keep bystanders out of danger.
• Equivalent Exchange: Completely averted like a great big middle finger to physics. Dark Matter is explicitly a form of matter that doesn't exist in this universe outside of what Kakine makes with his ability, and the only limit on how much he can make or even what properties it has at any time seems to be his own stamina and imagination.
• Evil Counterpart: To Accelerator. He's likely how the former would have turned out had he failed to save Last Order from Ao Amai.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Daman Mills gives him a smooth baritone voice, compared to...
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Masaya Matsukaze, who gives Kakine a raspy, soft and malicious tone.
• Fatal Flaw: In NT Vol 6, Mugino points out that, despite his immense power, he always loses in the end because he overestimates himself and doesn't know how to quit while he is ahead.
• Fighting a Shadow: If his body is destroyed, he will recreate himself using Dark Matter and return to create even more of it. It's also noted that even the Kakine that Accelerator and Mugino fight in Volume 6 is merely just a portion of the entire system that makes up Teitoku Kakine as a whole. Near the end of New Testament it's revealed that both the 'Kakine' that appeared in New Testament 5 and 6 and Beetle 05 were actually the Dark Matter ability itself becoming sentient, with parts of the original Kakine's personality imprinted on them, being directly compared to the Emanation of Touma.
• Foil: To Accelerator. Where Accelerator excels at destruction, Kakine's entire ability revolves around creation. This is actually lampshaded in NT Volume 5. In NT Volume 6, he is compared to Mugino the same way.
• Freudian Excuse: A Certain Scientific Dark Matter implies that one of the reasons he's so desperate to negotiate with Aleister is that he wants to change the city so that people like his Childhood Friend and Ringo don't have to die anymore.
• Friend to All Children: After the protective side of him takes over (with Takitsubo's help) in New Testament 6 a rumor spreads which says that any child who is in trouble just needs to call for him and he will show up.
• From a Single Cell: Post-revival, he can recreate his body as long as there is even the tiniest particle of Dark Matter.
• Heel–Face Turn: After Beetle 05 takes control of him.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: A villainous example. He openly refers to himself as a scumbag and a mongrel twice in Volume 15. He also believes he is unable to protect anyone.
  Kakine: In the end, you're the same as me, unable to protect anyone. And after this, many more will die, killed by a mongrel like me.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • In Volume 15, Accelerator uses his own Dark Matter against him to finish him off, having learned how to redirect it even before Awakening.
  • In NT Vol 6, he spreads his consciousness too thin, allowing one of the rhinoceros beetles he created to develop free will and then take him over.
• Humanoid Abomination: After his resurrection.
• Imagination-Based Superpower: Since Kakine can give just about any properties he wants, he can merge his Dark Matter with mundane objects (such as air) to create all sorts of effects, including Attack Reflector, Intangibility, brainwashing, firing radiation, Nigh-Invulnerability and Flight.
• Immortal Life Is Cheap: Gets his body repeatedly destroyed by Mugino and Accelerator during their fight, and it doesn't hinder him in the least.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: When Uiharu wouldn't tell him the location of Last Order, he tries to get the information out of her by stomping on her shoulder, dislocating it, and continuing to put pressure on it. In the anime, this is also how he 'persuades' Frenda to reveal the location of ITEM's hideout.
• Jerkass: Even worse than Accelerator.
• Lack of Empathy: Just as much as, if not more than, Accelerator.
• Light Is Not Good: Despite his angelic appearance and using weaponized light as his main attack, Kakine isn't a very nice person.
• Meaningful Name: His name can roughly be translated as "Emperor of the Front Fence."
• "Not So Different" Remark: At least that's what he thought, and before Accelerator met Touma and Last Order, he might have even been right. Volume 15 heavily implies that much like Accelerator, Kakine too went through something difficult that turned him into the bitter person he is today. His own spinoff manga finally sheds light on it and reveals Kakine is effectively an Accelerator that failed to save the people he cared about.
• Not Worth Killing: He has absolutely no compassion or remorse, but he will sometimes leave his opponents alive if they are completely helpless or already dying, just because he thinks it would be beneath him to waste energy on them. Such is the case when he realizes Takitsubo is dying from Body Crystal overuse and Shiage can't do anything to hurt him, so he just leaves the ITEM base despite his original goal being to kill Takitsubo due to her AIM Stalker ability.
• Obviously Evil: He wears a dark maroon suit and most of the time has an evil grin on his face, so it makes you clear that he isn't a nice guy at all even if he's pretending to be.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Toward Accelerator.
• Our Angels Are Different: He's the only other Esper aside from Accelerator who has the potential to "Awaken" and reach Level 6 naturally, while Mikoto only did so through outside means. Despite this, his "complete" Awakening still loses to Accelerator's uncontrolled one.
• Our Dark Matter Is Mysterious: His "Dark Matter" isn't really what science knows as dark matter (which theoretically should exist). He defines it as matter that just plain doesn't exist outside of his power (The correct scientific term for it would be Exotic matter).
  Kakine: The Dark Matter that I produce is a substance that does not exist in this world. I don't mean it hasn't been discovered, but that it should theoretically exist; I mean, it actually does not exist. Matter that doesn't exist operates under laws which don't exist. Like say, turning the light from the sun into rays that can kill a man.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Kakine's power strong enough that he can wipe the floor with almost anyone in Academy City if he wanted to, including other Level 5s. Yet, as noted above, he seems forever doomed to play second fiddle to Accelerator. Even when he's revived and is able to give the latter trouble with his regenerative abilities, he soon after has the misfortune of going up against Othinus, who subdues him with a single Neck Lift.
• Person of Mass Destruction: If not for Othinus' intervention, he likely would have destroyed the entire island-sized Sargasso along with the remaining GREMLIN members in a fit of rage.
• Pet the Dog: His interactions with Ringo Yuzuriha in A Certain Scientific Dark Matter are a string of these, like when he lets her sleep instead of demanding information out of her straight away.
• Pitiful Worms: Uses this line on Accelerator at one point.
  Kakine: Be crushed by the symbol of your own sins and die, you worm.
• Power Gives You Wings: He prefers to manifest his Dark Matter as six white angel-like wings coming out of his back, which Accelerator mocks by calling him a "fairy." When he "awakens", the wings' composition changes slightly, though it's not seen exactly what effects they would have because he gets trashed by Accelerator shortly afterwards.
• The Power of Creation: Once again, his esper ability lets him create material that can not only defy the laws of the universe, but also give it specific or even mutually-conflicting properties to make whatever he wants out of it.
• Protectorate: Beetle 05 has vowed to protect Fremea Seivelun.
• Punch-Clock Villain: When he's not hired for something, he's somewhat normal.
• Razor Wings: His most common form of attack. Sometimes, he chooses not to 'slice' and instead cause something else to happen.
• The Resenter: Toward Accelerator.
• Redemption Demotion: After the Split-Personality Takeover, he does not actively use Self-Duplication to prevent his previous personality from taking over.
• Reduced to Dust: One of the things his Dark Matter can do, which is how he kills Souji Kihara in the A Certain Scientific Dark Matter manga.
• Self-Duplication: When he succeeded in recreating his body, nothing prevented him from using this power to create a never-ending army of his copies to overrun Accelerator with numbers.
• Shape Shifter Guilt Trip: In NT Vol 6, after Accelerator effortlessly destroys his army of copies, he then makes an army of copies that look, sound, and act like the Misaka Sisters. Accelerator falls into despair, unable to harm them, and is almost killed until Mugino steps in and reminds him that they aren't actually the Misaka Sisters, just extensions of Kakine. This restores Accelerator's will to fight.
• Split-Personality Takeover: In NT Vol 6, one of the rhinoceros beetles he created, Beetle 05, develops free will. Not wanting to harm anyone, it gains the strength to take control over all of Kakine's creations. It disintegrates them, then transforms into Kakine and declares he is now him. Accelerator and Mugino muse that this beetle must have held the part of Kakine's personality that actually cared about others, buried deep down.
• Superpower Lottery: Being able to create a form of matter that does not exist in our universe and can give new properties to mundane things and lets you create human flesh certainly counts. His Dark Matter is one of the few things that can actually break through Accelerator's reflection and in NT Volume 6, it is heavily implied that with time, he could even create and implement entire Personal Realities. Indeed in Volume 8, he ends up producing a holistic Esper.
• Tricked-Out Gloves: Briefly wields the Pincet Glove aka Tweezers in Volume 15, which he uses to capture and extract information from the Under_LINE nano-cameras. The Pincet Glove used to be a very bulky and impractical device, but only because of extraneous attachments designed to deter theft; the real glove is small enough to comfortably fit on his hand.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: He is said to inherit Byouri's ability to change into several forms based on cryptids. He doesn't use it until his resurrection, though.
• Unobtanium: After becoming a Brain in a Jar, the Dark Matter it continuously produces was used as the basis for combat masks equipped on certain Academy City soldiers to create Elite Mooks.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Stabs Yomikawa just after she saves his life from Accelerator.
• Unknown Rival: Accelerator didn't really care about him until he made it personal by hurting Yomikawa.
• Unwitting Pawn: His hatred and envy of Accelerator was nurtured and encouraged by Crowley. He was also intended to act as a spare part in Crowley's plan, in case Accelerator failed to live up to his expectations.
• Villain Ball: Stabbing Yomikawa just to piss off Accelerator.
• The Worf Effect: As soon as the original Kakine comes back to life, Othinus crushes him.
• Would Hit a Girl: Let's see: He fights with and defeats Mugino, beats the shit out of Frenda (only in the anime) to get the information he wants, attacks both Saiai and Takitsubo and leaves them for dead, nearly kills Uiharu, wanted to use the innocent and adorable Last Order as bait so he could have a glorified pissing match with Accelerator, and then stabs Yomikawa after she saves his ass from Accelerator.
• Zerg Rush: His strategy to fight Accelerator in New Testament Volume 6, sending his never-ending army of copies against him.

Mikoto Misaka

Mikoto Misaka

The Railgun

The #3 ranked Level 5 esper.

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See Mikoto's list of tropes here.

Shizuri Mugino

Shizuri Mugino

Meltdowner

Voiced by: Ami Koshimizu (Japanese), Lydia Mackay (English)

"We still have a long way to go. The path ahead is especially long for those of us who have killed."

The #4 ranked Level 5 esper and the leader of ITEM.

Her power, Meltdowner, converts electrons into a highly destructive form of matter that exists somewhere between particles and waves, allowing them to be fired as a high-powered beams. While kind and gentle to her friends, she has an unpleasant personality once angered.

First introduced in the Battle Royal Arc of Index, Mugino would later appear as an antagonist in Railgun's version of the Sisters Arc. She would then go on to star in her own spinoff, Toaru Anbu no Item.

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• Action Girl: While reliant on her powers most of the time, she is quite tough and versed in hand-to-hand combat.
• Artificial Limbs: Replaces her missing arm and eye with masses of pure energy and later, literal Artificial Limbs.
• Ax-Crazy: She's calm and casual most of the time, but when angry she lets forth a truly vicious temper.
  Mugino: Gya ha ha!! Oh, now where to start burning her? Maybe I should roast that little face of hers. Or maybe I should press against her pink *** and burn it pitch black!! Hey, what do you think, Hamazura? You'd better come out, cause I'm gonna burn her into a black mummy! Or can you still get off to fucking a hole like that!?
  Mugino: "I'll count to three. If you don't come out, I'll burn Takitsubo's *** as punishment. Of course, if you'd rather just abandon her, then you can just sit there masturbating to the stench of her virginity being burned away."
• Barrier Warrior: She can make shields of energy that are tough enough to withstand Mikoto's electric attacks.
• Big Damn Heroes: Saves Accelerator in NT Vol 6 when he almost falls victim to Kakine's Shape Shifter Guilt Trip.
• Blood Knight: Battle-hungry? Check. Unnerving temper? Check. Obsesses over Shiage after their fight? Huge check.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: She has a well-endowed chest, and is considered to be the most attractive of the ITEM girls In-Universe due to it. Frenda even brags about Mugino's chest size when trying to argue that she's 'superior' to Mikoto.
• By the Hair: Grabs Takitsubo by her hair and mocks her helplessness as part of her revenge on Hamazura.
• Character Development: Was once The Social Darwinist who looked down on Level 0's, later accepts Shiage as the better fighter even though he doesn't have powers because he beat her. Becomes much calmer and friendlier in New Testament. Case in point, when Last Order teases her because she can see her panties, Mugino simply laughs and walks away, while the old Mugino would have probably killed her on the spot. She also starts learning how to cook in an effort to be more normal. When a naked Cendrillon appears in her apartment, she takes the whole thing in stride... well, until she loses her temper after Cendrillon teases her about her feelings for Shiage.
• Comedic Sociopathy:
  • "I'm the girl who killed your sister. Nice to meet you." She casually says this to Frenda's little sister.
  • Mugino is pretty good at this, such as this little exchange when she was giving Shiage a countdown to come out before she roasted Takitsubo. Mugino did not give a nice, slow count, as was usual. Instead...
  Mugino: Three-two-one-go!
  Shiage: FUCK!
• Continuity Cameo: Along with the rest of ITEM, in Episode 12 of Railgun. In the manga version of that scene, there was a completely irrelevant conversation that had nothing to do with the plot.
• Cool Big Sis: To her fellow teammates, which goes well with her position as a leader.
• Cyborg: As of New Testament, she has one electronic eye and a cybernetic left arm. Her eye can also be linked into security cameras with some wires..
• Defusing the Tyke-Bomb: Shiage beats her twice, learning more about her state of mind in the process. She attacks a third time in what is intended to be a suicide attack by taking Body Crystal, causing her power to cause a sphere of destruction around her temporarily. After this, Shiage considers shooting her but decides not to, opting instead to at least try calming her down. It works.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Her form of payback.
  • When Mikoto knocks her out in their fight, she wakes up a few minutes later, pissed about the headache.
  • In the Febri arc of the second season of '"Railgun'', she shows up unexpectedly to blow up STUDY's robots simply because they tried to mechanically replicate her abilities.
  • She kills Frenda after she gives up ITEM's base of operations to SCHOOL, despite clearly seeing that she was tortured into giving up said location. And then when Shiage decides to leave ITEM and take Takitsubo with him, her response to that is to try and murder him too.
• Do Not Go Gentle: When she teams with Accelerator against Kakine in NT Vol. 6, she says that maybe Kakine is right that she and Accelerator cannot be redeemed and will still go to Hell no matter what they do. Even so, they shouldn't just give up and die, they might as well kick some ass before they go.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: When she succumbs to the Body Crystal's side effects before she can kill Hamazura, she starts screaming at him for giving a pitiful look.
• Effortless Amazonian Lift: Despite being a skinny teenage girl, she can Neck Lift grown men and throw them across the room.
• Energy Weapon: Her entire method of attack revolves around these, hence the name "Meltdowner". By manipulating the state of electrons she's able to generate incredibly powerful and destructive laser beams. Among the other things she has been shown to be capable of doing with creative applications of her powers are:
  • Beam Spam: Carries special silicon cards to facilitate this effect.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: Averted. Her beams are incredibly hot, and being near them can fry you.
  • Mundane Utility: She can make a ball of energy to light her path.
  • Recoil Boost: She can cushion her fall or launch herself through the air by firing downwards.
  • Sphere of Destruction: Surrounds herself with one in a last-ditch effort to finally defeat Shiage. He stalls until her energy runs out.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: The end result of her power.
• Even Evil Has Standards: She is sickened and horrified when she sees Fraulein Kreutune apparently eating someone, and remarks that she would have had the same reaction even if she were her old, evil self.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In Volume 22, she says it doesn't make any sense when Shiage spares her life after defeating her for the third time. Shiage says that even after everything she's done to him and Takitsubo, he still cares about her. She calls him an idiot, but agrees to come with him.
• Evil Counterpart: Her power shares the same general domain as Mikoto's (the fight between them shows them sensing each other's ability), and she's implied to be a backup plan if Mikoto turns out unviable, just like Kakine being Accelerator's backup plan.
• Evil Laugh: "Gya-ha-ha!!"
• Eye Scream: Hamazura rams the edge of Takitsubo's body crystal case into her eye so hard he ruptures it.
• Fatal Flaw: She has a dual one in Wrath and Pride. Her pride leads her to take risks she doesn't need to, and having her pride hurt causes her to descend into rage that clouds her judgement and leaves her vulnerable to being blindsided. It's because of both of these that Mikoto survived their battle during the Sisters Arc, as well as what leads to ITEM's downfall and her death/defeat by Shiage during the Battle Royale Arc since she couldn't just Know When to Fold 'Em.
• Faux Affably Evil: She's warm and friendly, but it's mostly an act. She's completely okay with murdering her "friends" if they get in her way. In NT, she makes a sort-of Heel–Face Turn and is still basically a crazy murderer, but values her friends more.
• Foil: She specializes in destruction while Kakine specializes in creation. Pointed out in NT Vol 6.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Her right eye, after she loses it in Volume 15 and before she gets an artificial one in New Testament.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: It doesn't take much to piss her off.
• Heel–Face Turn: Towards the end of volume 22, when she agrees to help reform ITEM. An assassin thinks this has made her soft. She corrects him quite thoroughly after he steps on one of her berserk buttons. He'll live, though, since Academy City has very good medicine.
• Heroic RRoD: Eventually, she pushes herself so far trying to kill Hamazura that she needs to start taking Body Crystals just to keep up with the stress and damage her body's maintained. Finally, right when she's going for a sure-fire kill, her body just crashes on her and her beams disperse, leaving her barely able to move, much less use her ability.
• He Is Not My Boyfriend: Gets very embarrassed and loses her temper when Cendrillon teases her about her feelings for Shiage.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: What ultimately defeats Shizuri in her first battle against Shiage is her own power blowing her left arm off.
• Implacable Woman. Seems to be the Level 5 most fond of this, especially during her first fight with Shiage. This backfires when Shiage proves she's Not So Invincible After All.
• It's Personal: In NT Vol 6, The reason why she decides to help Accelerator fight Kakine.
  And it isn't like I don't have my own reasons to be here. I was attacked by a false Frenda last night. You were the biggest factor of the darkness active at that time and the interest in playing with the dead was the same. I don't know what your purpose in that was, but I'm going to make you pay for disturbing her grave, you piece of shit.
• I Was Just Passing Through: In the final episode of Railgun S, she saves Mikoto from STUDY's robots. She had no idea Mikoto was there. She was just pissed at STUDY using her as a lab rat.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: She might be technically more powerful than Mikoto and therefore want to kill her and take her place, but she's not stupid enough to actually think she can beat Kakine, who is on par with Accelerator. Later subverted when she decides she wants payback, to the point of endangering Takitsubo's life to track down SCHOOL, even though she can't come up with a good response when Shiage points out that she ran away from Kakine twice.
• Lack of Empathy: Cheerfully greets the family of those she has murdered by introducing herself as the murderer. The weird thing is she actually meant well. That's as good as she gets when it comes to attempting to take responsibility for her actions.
• Lady Swears-a-Lot: Her mouth is NOT as beautiful as the rest of her face.
• Laser-Guided Tyke-Bomb: Over the course of numerous fights with Shiage, he comes to the realization that Mugino used to be a mostly normal girl who actually cared about her friends. Academy City just decided she's much more useful as their own personal assassin/enforcer.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Does not know about the Magic side.
• Love Redeems: Played with. Her yandere fixation on Shiage makes her even more dangerous at first, but after he reaches out to her and tries to make amends she reforms at least enough to avoid disappointing him.
• Made of Iron: Her pain threshold is staggering. When fighting Mikoto in Railgun she is only knocked out briefly by a heavy metal doll ramming her head at high speed and actually uses her beams as recoil to survive a fatal fall, wanting to continue the fight despite her obvious heavy injuries. When fighting Hamazura in Volume 15, she endures her eye being ruptured, accidentally blowing off her own arm, and multiple gunshots to her upper body while consumed in rage, only going down with a punch to the face to knock her out.
• Mafia Princess: The ITEM spinoff reveals that she's essentially a criminal Ojou. The Mugino family is among the five wealthiest in the world, making their fortune in wheat on the surface, but also as The Syndicate. Unlike many, she wasn't forced to join the dark side, but was born into it.
• Minor Injury Overreaction: Once went completely berserk after Mikoto gave her a small cut on her temple while battling her.
• Modesty Shorts: She only wears these occasionally.
• Ms. Fanservice: In NT2 she says that she's the level 5 in charge of sex appeal so she wears see through underwear.
• Morality Chain: She acts like a good guy around Hamazura and isn't quite as sadistic and murderous even when he isn't around after her Heel–Face Turn, but it's mostly just because she doesn't want him to hate her.
• Morality Pet: She's grown protective of Fremea after killing her older sister.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: While trying to get revenge on Shiage, she tried to kill his girlfriend, because Mugino hates and loves Shiage at the same time. After her Heel–Face Turn, she seems to have accepted being #2 in Shiage's harem.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Despite her merciless personality and initial Never My Fault attitude, she still feels remorse for killing Frenda and even visits her grave.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: She's a Level 5 esper with an ability dubbed "Meltdowner"...
• Never My Fault: While suffering from the Body Crystal's aftermath, she screams at Hamazura that he's responsible for her life going haywire. Her team falling apart is largely her own fault for outright killing Frenda (for selling out their location to SCHOOL) and hunting down Hamazura for the Body Crystal to make Takitsubo's searching ability go into overdrive with no regard for what happen to her body afterwards.
• Nominal Hero: She is, in theory, an ally in the NT volumes, but she's apathetic, cruel and totally okay with being a brutal killer so long as Hamazura doesn't know about it. She figures that even if he does, he'll forgive her, but does her best not to test that.
• Not Quite Dead: Volume 19 reveals that she survived her battle with Shiage Hamazura in Volume 15, and she's become even more psycho and unstable than before, with an obsessive crush on him.
• Oh, Crap!: In New Testament 5, when Frenda seemingly comes back to life and says she wants revenge for Mugino killing her back in Volume 15.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Towards Mikoto and later Shiage.
  Mugino: Don't let pitiful bastards like that take your life. The one who's going to rip you to pieces is me!!
• The Perfectionist: She always has to be the best and do things perfectly, but when it's clearly impossible she instantly changes her goals to something else to hold up her pride.
• Personality Powers: Her power produces heat and explosions, and she has a very explosive temper.
• Power Incontinence: Her inability to control her own power is what led to her losing her left arm. If she had better control, she'd be the ranked as the third Level 5 instead of the fourth.
• The Power of Love: In NT Vol 6, she declares that she's now running on her love for Shiage instead of her anger and pride, and that she's now stronger than ever.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one to Kakine while pointing out his Fatal Flaw.
• Sanity Has Advantages: If she wasn't so insane, she would have crushed Shiage easily without him being able to do the slightest thing about it, never have ended up fighting him, or even never have made an enemy of him in the first place.
• Say My Name: Once she becomes obsessed with Hamazura, she starts to shout his name in a threatening Punctuated! For! Emphasis! manner ("Ha.ma.zu.ra!").
• Shock and Awe: Has a very limited control over electricity due to how her power affects electrons, to the extent that she can make Mikoto's electric attacks turn away from her.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: In New Testament Volume 6 when an enemy assumed that her love for Shiage and her guilt over killing Frenda would weaken her. Bonus points for her admitting without shame that she loves him.
  Mugino: As long as I have Hamazura, this is fine. I'll get into trouble and into fights. There will even be deadly fights. But it will all work out in the end. No matter how many people I kill and how much I destroy, everything will be resolved in the end somehow and we can all be happy. All my past experiences have shown that to be true. That's how it was during the fight between ITEM and SCHOOL. That's how it was when we fought underground in District 23. That's how it was when we met during the fierce fighting of World War 3. And so I know it will be fine as long as I have Hamazura. No matter what happens, he will forgive me in the end.
• Slasher Smile: Though she is quite fond of Kubrick Stares, Psychotic Smirks, and combinations of the three where applicable.
• The Social Darwinist: Played straight until Volume 22, where she subverts this by lashing out at Academy City's "Parameter List", a cost-control mechanism that restricts funds to unworthy (read: Level 0) students (read: Hamazura) and allocates those funds to more powerful and promising espers.
• Sore Loser: Being defeated by Shiage soured her immensely, especially since she's a level 5 while he's a level 0.
• Stronger Than They Look: Strong enough to incapacitate her foes with a single kick, knock out a tiger in one punch, and ragdoll grown men around with little effort despite being just a slim teenaged girl.
• Super-Reflexes: She's fast enough to escape a bomb going off in her face, and to move away when somebody aims a gun at her.
• Unskilled, but Strong: She's actually better than the #3 Level 5 Misaka in regards to raw firepower, but the latter's abilities provide a wide array of applications while she just has a straightforward laser generator that can (and does) harm her if she isn't careful.
• Villain Ball: It's frequently noted by the novels and Shiage himself that she could easily kill him with one shot of her high-speed, high-power lasers, yet chooses to drag out his suffering for as long as possible, eventually giving him a window to turn the tables on her. This ends up screwing her over in their last battle, as by that point she could easily destroy him, but she's so far gone mentally and determined to drag it out that she starts firing off beams haphazardly and when she goes for the sure-fire kill, her body gives out on her.
• We Have Reserves: How she makes an enemy of Shiage, coupled with the fact that her "expendable" henchman had just tried a You Shall Not Pass! for his sake.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Delivers one to Accelerator, saying that his Death Seeker attitude when it comes to atoning for his sins is just him taking the coward's way out. He takes it to heart, now determined to live to continue protecting his loved ones.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Mikoto makes very good use of the many possible applications of magnetism and electricity. Mugino doesn't. All she has is beams. You'd be surprised how many problems a portable laser cannon can solve.
• Willfully Weak: In terms of direct attacks, she's actually quite a bit more powerful than Mikoto. However, she lacks immunity to her own power and can't handle the recoil from the full use of her ability. If she truly went all-out with an attack, the recoil would kill her.
• Yandere: Towards Shiage, after he defeats her the first time. It turns into genuine affection (not that she would ever admit it to his face) once she undergoes a Heel–Face Turn.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: When she learns about the Level 6 Shift project, she laughs and says it has to be one of the most ridiculous things she has ever heard.

Misaki Shokuhou

Misaki Shokuhou

The Queen of Tokiwadai

Voiced by: Azumi Asakura (Japanese), Teri Rogers (English, Railgun 1/S), Mikaela Krantz (Railgun T - present)

"Oh, my, my, my, my!♥ Your timing ability is a little too convenient. If this had nothing to do with me, I'd be a little disturbed. But... When it's about me you look like a prince. Girls really are selfish."

The #5 ranked Level 5 esper.

Being the second Level 5 to attend Tokiwadai, her followers and Misaka's followers often come into conflict. Her ability, Mental Out, involves the manipulation of memories and the human mind. She is also the leader of the largest clique in Tokiwadai, and is a bit of a Wild Card.

Though alluded to since the very first volume of Index, she is first properly introduced in Railgun's Daihasei Festival Arc, before being integrated in the main Index novels beginning with NT7. She also plays a major part in Astral Buddy, before getting her own spinoff in A Certain Scientific Mental Out.

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• Achilles' Heel:
  • Her mental powers have no effect on animals and robots, so if she is attacked by them, she is extremely vulnerable.
  • She actually has to aim at a person to use her mental powers on them, so if they're moving too fast, it would take considerable luck for Mental Out to work.
• A-Cup Angst: She was flat and ashamed of it when she was younger, especially when Touma mocked her for it. One year later, she's grown much taller and filled out enough to look three to five years older than she actually is, much to Mikoto's despair.
• Agony Beam: Mikoto's electrical field prevents Misaki's mental powers from working on her. However, when Misaki tries, Mikoto gets a painful shock.
• Alpha Bitch: She calls herself "The Queen" due to being the most popular girl and being the head of the largest clique at Tokiwadai. This is partially due to her Mental Out ability, though she's shown to be popular even without. Initially, she's presented as a straight example, with the haughty act one would expect from an Alpha Bitch, and even has a rivalry with the protagonist Mikoto, constantly targeting her for bullying. But after she's later revealed to be Good All Along and to genuinely care for her clique, and tones down her antagonism towards Mikoto, she's presented more as a Lovable Alpha Bitch
• Alternate Character Reading: The name of her esper power, Mental Out, can also be read as "Psychological Control".
• Amplifier Artifact: "Exterior," which can boost her powers to beyond what even a level 5 should be capable of. It's a cloned portion of her own brain, enlarged to gargantuan proportions. It was originally intended to be able to give anyone her powers, but she didn't like that idea, so she stole it for her own use. In chapter 61 of the Railgun manga (Railgun T, Episode 10), Gensei Kihara hijacks it and uses it to force Mikoto to join with the MISAKA network and undergo the Level 6 Shift.
• Anchored Ship: Touma will never be able to remember who she is. This is different from the amnesia he got while saving Index in that it predates it and applies only to Misaki. Even after that event, he's met her several times, but always forgets her again afterward. She knows it's pointless to have any hopes for him, but if he ever does regain the ability to remember her, she's still waiting.
• Animal Motifs: Her surname contains the character for "honey bee". She sometimes calls herself Queen Bee and she is referred to as the bee in scientists' reports.
• Athletically Challenged: She is terribly out of shape due to skipping P.E. constantly with her powers as the most powerful telepath in Academy City. She struggles to keep pace with a lightly jogging Misaka, wheezing and panting from even light physical exertion. She's also never succeeded in performing a sit-up.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Betraying Mikoto at the end of New Testament is one of the biggest sources of remorse and internal torture for Misaki, and yet against her expectations Mikoto easily forgives her and their Friendly Rivalry relationship remains intact. Both girls clearly like and respect each other much more than they let on.
• Benevolent Boss: Her clique is completely loyal to her and willingly submit to her mind control and do not mind even her most disruptive demands. In return, she keeps them out of danger, places their safety above her own and doesn't control them without their consent.
  Senya: After all, Misaki-chan acts all cool and says you're just pawns, but she actually loves all of you.
• Big-Breast Pride: She loves flaunting her chest to Mikoto while poking at the latter's A-Cup Angst. Ironically, she was just as flat-chested one year ago.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Downplayed. She's much more ruthless than what her outward sweet persona suggests to most people, and can be very paranoid and vengeful when provoked. But ultimately, Shokuhou is a kind and compassionate person which factors into her clique's loyalty to her.
• Brains and Brawn: Has this dynamic with Junko. Misaki is intelligent and paranoid, is Athletically Challenged and her esper powers rely entirely on Mind Manipulation abilities. In contrast, Junko is naive to a fault, is very athletic and her esper powers make her a Lightning Bruiser powerhouse.
• Break the Cutie: The events of New Testament 22 Reverse were not kind to her. By the end she's spent time crying while huddled on the floor, deeming herself unworthy of any trust that she'd been given, and regretting her part in everything.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Her buxom figure is a huge part of why she's considered attractive and characters often think she's Older Than They Look due to her breast size. It's also a common Running Gag for her chest to trigger Mikoto's A-Cup Angst, at one point it even creeps out Misaki by how she focuses on her breasts, despite usually having Big-Breast Pride.
  Mikoto: [after groping Misaki] I just can't seem to get over it... The sheer weight of them in my hands, their softness even through a layer of clothing, their springiness as they pushed back against my fingertips. I mean, I was the one grabbing them, but it was as if they were clinging to my hands...
  Misaki: [getting up and smacking Mikoto's head with her shoulderbag] I've had just enough of you reviewing my breasts! How long are you going to keep obsessing over that anyway!?
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • She was first mentioned in the first volume of Index as someone who might have been able to fix Index's memory loss.
  • Mikoto considered asking her to fix Touma's memory loss, but changed her mind, not wanting to be in her debt, in addition to being unable to trust her.
  • She shows up briefly in the last episode of Railgun S. Mikoto swallowed her pride and asked her to edit a few memories so that Shinobu, Janie, and Febri could live in peace.
• Chekhov's Skill: Chronologically, the first trick we see her perform with her ability is switching someone's perceptions; she demonstrated the ability to make a test subject think the apples (which he hates) he was eating were actually watermelon slices. Soon after, the researchers ask her to use this trick to pretend to be Dolly's friend. And then it turns out she was using this trick on the researchers the entire time, sitting in on their meetings after she had their helmets sabotaged.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • A non-romantic example. Misaki is shown to be possessive of her Best Friend and closest confidant; Junko, when she starts interacting with other female characters, often claiming that Junko is hers.
  • Played straight with Touma, as she is shown to be annoyed by other girls such as Mikoto or Index being close to him despite Touma being unable to remember her.
• Combination Attack: The Liquid-Proof Railgun, an attack combining Misaki's power over liquids and Misaka's Railgun and Anti-Arts Armament. Using her ability to precisely manipulate liquids, Misaki coats Misaka's coin in a thin liquid lattice designed to melt in a specific way. When the coin is fired, the coating would protect the coin from being burned up by the friction while the explosive evaporation would add extra power to shot's acceleration effectively creating a railgun shot with limitless distance and power. The attack was so powerful it was able to annihilate the Windowless Building, a feat originally thought impossible.
• Commonality Connection: Part of why she and Touma get along is that they both annoy Misaka.
• Crash-Into Hello: How she first met Touma. She later recalls him having Toast of Tardiness in his mouth (he didn't).
• Crazy-Prepared: Her paranoia and mistrust of the happenings in Academy City means Shokuhou has a variety of fail-saves up her dainty sleeves. This is best exemplified during her fight with Kihara Gensei in the EXTERIOR lab and the Graviton Panels traps she set loose on the evil scientist, which involved several layers of backup traps. And when those fail, she's revealed to have predicted that her traps would have failed and used Mental Out on herself to switch her own concepts of the limiter release code with the self-destruct code, thus causing him to defeat himself once he reads her mind.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Due to her use of her esper ability to skip physical classes, she's very Athletically Challenged and gets tired easily whenever she has to run and has no hand-to-hand fighting abilities of her own. Her esper ability is also only useful in humans.
• Curtains Match the Window: Her hair and eyes are both gold.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • Volume 11 of NT is from her perspective. Accelerator and Shiage don't appear at all, Mikoto is only mentioned in passing and Touma is only present in flashbacks and at the very end. We finally learn why she trusted him so quickly a few volumes before and in Railgun, something very unusual for her given her paranoia.
  • To a lesser extent, the Railgun version of the Daihaseisai Arc, where she is properly introduced, some of her backstory is revealed, and she plays a major role in thwarting Gensei Kihara's plans.
  • Volume 22R of NT has her as a spotlight character.
  • She would get her own spin-off manga called Mental Out.
• D-Cup Distress: Subverted. When she's called out on being Athletically Challenged, she makes an excuse by saying that she's "top-heavy", but it's clearly because she's lazy and skips physical ED.
• Easily Forgiven: By Misaka in Volume 22/22R of NT following her betrayal. Justified in that Misaki is highly remorseful and visibly broken about it, and Misaka is a highly compassionate person.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": She is usually referred to as the "Queen of Tokiwadai" rather than her actual name.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • She knows she's a jerk, but she won't abuse the power over people who have willingly become her pawns, she tries to keep mental damage to targets to a minimum and she refuses to read Touma's mind.
  • Played for Laughs when she gets creeped out by Mikoto obsessing how much bigger her chest is, and even before then despite being a Proud Beauty she certainly isn't happy at Miko grabbing her breasts in the first place.
• Everyone Loves Blondes: Her long blonde hair further illustrates her popularity at school.
• Exotic Eye Designs: She has stars in her eyes, which are actually noted In-Universe with Mikoto once calling it "Shoujo manga eyes". According to her, she was born like this. Additionally, the same stars appear in the eyes of those who she is controlling.
• The Faceless: Despite first being mentioned in the very first volume of Index, she never makes an official appearance until chapter 41 of Railgun, where she shows herself to Mikoto. Justified, as she apparently uses her power to communicate through others.
• The Fake Cutie: She has rather cheerful and goofy mannerisms that cover up a paranoid and manipulative mind. Of course, she's not actually trying to fool anyway, she just seems to find it fun to piss people off with her artificial cutesy attitude.
• Fandom Rivalry: An In-Universe example of it, there's some conflicts between her followers and Mikoto's fans in Tokiwadai.
• Fatal Flaw: Paranoia. She refuses to trust people she can't mind read, which is what partly causes her rivalry with Mikoto, whose EM field makes her immune to Misaki's powers. Even when the two have the same goals, Misaki does everything she can to sideline her until absolutely forced to work together. Touma is the exception to this rule. Due to his Imagine Breaker, she obviously can't mind read him, but doesn't seem to care. In fact, he may be the only person she truly trusts.
• Friendly Rivalry: Mikoto doesn't like her and beneath her cheerful attitude Misaki doesn't care for her either. However, they're quite capable of cooperating and they don't hate each other nearly as much as Misaki and Seria do. There's no real malice behind it and they reached an understanding while saving Misaka 10032.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Though she hides it well, she reveals that she's very envious of Index of all people in New Testament Reverse, because though their circumstances with needing to be saved by Touma were about the same and even resulted in him losing his memory, he can never remember her.
• Good All Along: Despite her malicious introduction and Mind Control powers, she is a good person who operates under a code of personal rules of "always taking a good care of those who she controls". This extends to her clique of willing followers and even applies to her enemies.
• Good Is Not Nice: Despite first appearances, during the arc of the Railgun manga where 10032 gets kidnapped, she is not the villain. She kidnapped 10032 to keep her out of the bad guy's hands, and to heal some of the damage done to her.
• Guile Heroine: Due to being Athletically Challenged she relies entirely on her esper abilities, and often makes complicated plans to deal with those who can circumvent her powers, such as when she messed with her own memory in case Gensei did manage to defeat her and read her mind, and he ended up instead getting a self-destruct code rather than a limiter release when he read her mind.
• Hate at First Sight: Chapter 132.5 of the Railgun manga reveals Misaki hated Mikoto from the moment they met as Misaki blames Mikoto for voluntarily giving her DNA to immoral scientists which leads to the creation and early death of Misaki's first friend, Dolly. As Mikoto will not know about the Sisters until a later date, all she sees is another Level 5 picking a fight with her for no reason.
• High-Class Gloves: She's often wearing a pair of fancy white gloves, to denote her "elegant beauty" image.
• Hypocritical Humor: When Mikoto calls her out of shape, she says only someone with the mind and body of a child would be so petty about mere physical ability. Mikoto makes fun of her Wingding Eyes by asking if she's from a shoujo manga and an offended Misaki retorts that insulting someone's body is just low.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: The researchers studying her ability used complicated technological helmets to block her powers. She suborned one of the low-level techs, had the helmets sabotaged and was able to subtly take control of the entire operation without anyone noticing.
• Iconic Item: She's almost always carrying a white shoulder bag with a star adorned in the middle, which is where she keeps her remotes.
• I Got Bigger: Inverted, as New Testament Volume 11 reveals that in the previous August (a year before the events of Index/Railgun) Shokuhou had no bustline to speak of, and only a mere 148 centimeters tall.
• "Instant Death" Radius: She has enough control over her powers so that this wouldn't happen, but just like when Ayu lost control of herself and her power, if Misaki were to become emotionally unstable and lose control of Mental Out, it would result in everything around her being instantly flash-frozen as all the moisture is drawn out of them and reducing them to desiccated mummies.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: She fell in love with Touma during an incident which ended up erasing his memory of her permanently but stays out of his life to avoid troubling him.
• I Will Wait for You:
  Misaki: "If... If someday you do manage to overturn the expectations created by the adults and you remember me... Then let's have an important talk. A very, very sweet, kind, and important talk."
• I Work Alone:
  • In the Railgun manga, she says trust and co-operation are unreliable, and she won't work with anybody whose minds she hasn't read. She eventually seeks out Mikoto for help simply because she's forced to admit that she won't be able to save the Sisters otherwise and the memory of her friendship with Dolly is one of the few redeeming characteristics about her. Following the Daihasei Festival, she's more willing to work with Mikoto if their interests align.
  • The sole exception so far is Touma, due to her feelings for him, despite that her powers obviously won't work on him.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When Misaki bluntly states that she has no intention of trusting people whose mind she cannot read, Mikoto is horrified at her paranoia. But as Misaki points out, why would you trust someone in Academy City? Trusting people got ten thousand clones murdered just because a little girl wanted to help cure muscular dystrophy.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite working alongside Misaka she isn't exactly the nicest person. However, she does have standards: She's quite protective of her minions and were she to commit a crime with a pawn or lead them to be injured, she would take full responsibility for it.
• Kick the Dog:
  • When one of the members of her clique tries to prevent Misaki from consuming more sweets (out of concern for Misaki's 'wonderful proportions'), Misaki mind controls her and the rest of the clique, telling them to 'challenge yourselves to eat 15 eclair as fast as possible.'
  • Her reaction to Kongou getting rather brutally injured by Baba Yoshio. She basically says it's a shame that Kongou was hurt, but it helped her anyway since she had no way to deal with Yoshio's Killer Robot mooks.
• Lady and Knight: Has this dynamic with Junko, her knight.
• Living Macguffin: A lot of people want to get their hands on her due to her ability.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Does not like this at all. However, both times she tried to get Touma to tell her what's really going on, she gets interrupted by outside forces.
• Logical Weakness: Since her powers are liquid based, someone with water manipulation powers would be able to resist her or undo her control.
• Long Hair Is Feminine: She has waist-long hair and is a elegant and feminine character. She even has a habit of doing Hair Flips.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: In spite of her haughty and antagonistic attitude, Misaki is ultimately a good person and a Benevolent Boss to all who follow her.
• Love Makes You Evil: In New Testament 22 Reverse, Misaki serves as the Emanation's lynchpin as she uses her powers to hold several victors of the war under her sway, solely because he remembered her. That even includes turning on Misaka, whom she'd built something of a friendship with while co-piloting the A.A.A.
  Misaki: "But he remembers me. I don’t care if it’s a miracle or a coincidence. I was never hoping for a logical answer. But… but whatever he looks like and whatever he might do…But if there are two Kamijou-sans out there… and one remembers me and one doesn’t…That’s the Kamijou-san I shared that summer with!! So I’m sorry, Misaka-saaan!!!!!!”
• Making a Splash: The true nature of Mental Out is actually the ability to manipulate fluids and moisture in the user's surroundings. Unlike Hydro Hand which is another liquid control ability, Mental Out trades out sheer power for more fine-tuned control over a smaller amount of fluids. Using Mental Out, Misaki can precisely manipulate a target's bodily fluids like blood, spinal fluids, and cerebral secretions in order to facilitate her mental powers over them. This does not however means she is only limited to manipulating body fluids. As stated, Mental Out grants Misaki fine control over all liquids and moisture in her surroundings, she can theoretically do things like freeze the moisture around her or control liquids in more traditional manners, but she is unlikely to rely on that aspect of her power.
  • Circumstances during the Tokiwadai Election arc force her to make use of this facet of her powers culminating in her eventually freezing any entire hallway to protect herself and her classmates.
• Meaningful Name: Her first name can be translated as "Wish For Control". Her full name can be translated as "Dominated Psychology".
• Memory Gambit: Finally defeats Gensei Kihara by using her powers on herself so that she'd think the limiter release code and self-destruct code for Exterior were switched. Gensei entered the self-destruct code by mistake, never suspecting a thing until it was too late because she sincerely believed it was the limiter release code.
• Mistaken for Gay: At the end of New Testament 22 Reverse, she and Mikoto end up in a compromising physical position with each other by accident just as Kuroko walks in. Kuruko does not take it well.
• Morality Pet: Touma and Dolly are the easiest ways of bringing out her good side. The latter is dead, but Misaki values her memory greatly.
• Ms. Fanservice: As with many female characters in the series, Misaki has a sizeable bust and is often the subject of Male Gaze. Her well-endowed body has also causes people to mistake her for an older lady.
• My God, What Have I Done?: She has a moment when she finally calms down in New Testament 22 Reverse, after basically giving the Emanation control over a sizable number of magicians, as well as using her powers on Index and Misaka.
• My Skull Runneth Over: If she Mind Controls a very large amount of people, she gets a major headache and can only maintain it for a brief period of time, and even then, she is only able to give out them simple commands.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: She saved Touma's life by using her powers, but in the process damaged his brain so that he will never be able to remember her face.
• Ojou: According to Mikoto, she's the most Ojou of all the Ojous at Tokiwadai, which really says something. She, however, subverts the traditional archetype by being quite frivolous, making silly poses, not caring for her weight, and saying cliché anime lines. It's just that she erases certain people's memories and that her fangirls don't say anything about it.
• Only Friend: Dolly is implied to be one of the few people she ever cared for in the past. Averted in the present day, where she has more friends such as Junko and (eventually) Mikoto.
  • The First Year arc of Railgun shows that it actually took her awhile to become popular at Tokiwadai. Initially her only friend was Junko, who she knew from before she started attending school. She made no attempts to make other friends because she knew that the rest of the students didn't trust her due to her mind control powers. It was only after she used her powers to evacuate a burning building and nearly died rescuing a cat(her powers don't work on animals) that she accidentally became popular.
• Pervert Revenge Mode: When she overhears Aogami is selling lewd dreams about her and Misaka, the two set aside their rivalry to beat him up and destroy the Indian Poker cards.
• Power Crutch: She carries various remotes in her purse. While she doesn't necessarily need them to use her power, the potential range and usage of her power is simply too complex for her to control correctly and thus she uses her remotes as a focus on what she wants to do.
• Power Incontinence: She uses a series of remotes to help control her power. There are just so many applications that it's hard (but not impossible) for her to focus on the specific thing she wants. The remotes simply help her concentrate.
• Properly Paranoid: After what happened to Mikoto, Accelerator, and especially Touma, can you blame her? In New Testament Volume 7, her paranoia allowed her to correctly guess that Tsuchimikado sent Touma on a wild goose chase in order to get him out of the way so he wouldn't interfere with whatever he's doing.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The moment when the Dorm Supervisor comes, even Misaki knows when to bail it.
• Secret-Keeper:
  • She not only knew Touma prior to his memory loss, but also knows about Imagine Breaker.
  • It's revealed that the memory loss Misaki refers to upon meeting Touma is actually a separate instance.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: She does not get along with Seria Kumokawa.
• Squishy Wizard: Given that her powers deal with the mind, and that she skipped P.E. and does not exercise regularly, she is a skinny, out-of-shape girl. In Episode 8 of Railgun T, she's panting and ready to collapse from trying to follow a lightly-jogging Mikoto. She even lost to a bunch of crows that ate her food and had to be saved by Touma.
• Super Drowning Skills: In addition to not exercising, she never bothered to learn how to swim. She once almost drowned after falling into a shallow pool until she was told by Touma to Stop Drowning and Stand Up.
• The Rival:
  • To Mikoto, who is the other level 5 at Tokiwadai. Though part of the reason she resents Mikoto is because her relationship with Touma is similar to how hers was before Touma lost his memories protecting her. It mellows into a Friendly Rivalry eventually.
  • Also to Seria Kumokawa. Both are regarded by people as high-class beauties. Both are experts at manipulating the mind, Misaki via her power, and Seria via pure manipulation and guile. Both are extremely wary of one another, keeping tabs on one another (Misaki via mind controlled 3rd parties, and Seria via surveillance technologies) leading to a sort of cold war between the two, with the knowledge that should conflict break out between the two, it would only lead to a mutually assured destruction. The ONLY time the two can ever put things aside and work together is if it concerns Touma, because both of them love him and doesn't want the other to get a head start on the other.
  • To Index as well. Touma's situation with her is practically parallel and in her she sees all the attention and happiness Index has with him, which she never can.
• The Tease: Absolutely willing to help with Touma and trusts him completely, but she also likes screwing with his head by flirting with him through a puppet and making the poor guy do highly embarrassing things. He can't even apologize.
  Touma: Why are you increasing my supposed list of crimes!?
• Telepathy: Misaki's power, Mental Out, makes her Academy City's most powerful telepath, capable of reading and manipulating minds in several different ways. However, it only works on people, not animals or robots.
  • Mind Manipulation: This seems to be her forte.
    • Brainwashing: One of the uses of her ability.
    • Fake Memories: Can implant them and erase them.
    • Mind Control: Another application of her power. She can even program delayed or conditional orders in targets.
    • Psychic Surgery: She can transplant emotions and thoughts.
    • Master of Illusion: Can create illusions by manipulating the brain of a target.
    • Psychic Block Defense: Misaki's ability can also protect her own brain from similar mental abilities, though it's weaker if she's unconscious.
    • Psychometry: Can read past memories of objects via physical touch, which is likely why she usually wears gloves.
• Unwitting Pawn: All her actions in the Daihaseisai arc in the Railgun manga play straight into Gensei Kihara's plan.
  • While Misaki wasn't directly manipulated, her stolen remotes and thus the residual memories within them were used by Sha Danshan to create a phantasmal copy of her to control Antikythera in order to forward Sha's plot during the First Year arc.
• Verbal Tic: Uses "power" and "ability" as suffixes a lot. She also ends many sentences with "~zo".
• Voice for the Voiceless: She often uses mind-controlled proxies and her own followers whenever she needs to communicate.
• What You Are in the Dark: In the second volume of Genesis Testament, she has the chance to abandon Misaka to her death in order to save herself. Despite the cold logical side of her mind telling her it would be the best course of action to take, she instead risks her life to save Misaka, justifying it by saying that Touma would be heartbroken if she died and that she personally would never be able to forgive herself for it.
• Wild Card: She's a level five with zero confidants and rarely appears in public without an escort of minions, occasionally refusing to appear directly at all. She knows a fair amount about the city, the dark side and even Imagine Breaker, but she tells no one anything and rarely moves except to defend her own position. She does have a soft spot for Touma and the Sisters, but she doesn't like Mikoto and hates Kumokawa Seria.
• Younger Than They Look: She's a middle-schooler, but she could pass for eighteen or nineteen easily. She actually developed very quickly: A mere year ago she basically looked like a blonde Kuroko.

Etsu Aihana

Etsu Aihana

The Dark Side's Bane

"Now, I will lend you Etsu Aihana."

The mysterious #6 ranked Level 5 esper.

Not much is known about this person, not even their gender, which is further muddied due to there being a large swath of people in the city claiming to be them, to the point that they couldn't be tracked down by the Daihasei Festival committee.

Their first "appearance" is in the NT10, when a mass message was sent to the Level 5s requesting them to eliminate Touma and Othinus, with the sixth's response being silence and toying with the phone. In NT12, it's revealed that they employ Yokosuka the Organ Crusher to distribute their identity to those they think deserve it. GT2 would mark the first 'real' time Etsu's ever met in person, albeit still hiding their identity, revealing their power gives others the ability to "realise their true selves".

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• Ambiguous Gender: When Touma encounters them, he thinks their voice sounds like a young boy, but at the same time it also sounds like it's been artificially altered somehow, so there's no guarantee.
• The Faceless: There is never a description of what they look like. Even when Touma physically encounters them during the events of Genesis Testament 2, all Touma could see was a silhouette due a visual distortion preventing any identification. Even when the scenery visually returns to normal and fully exposes them, Touma pays no attention and moves on to face Anna.
• Gender-Blender Name: Considering the name "Etsu Aihana" has been adopted by both boys and girls in story with nobody calling them out on using a name belonging to the other gender, Etsu's name is this by default.
• The Ghost: For an extremely long time, there was absolutely nothing known about them except that they had to exist because a 7th Level 5 existed. It actually becomes a plot point in New Testament 12; several people impersonate #6 because no-one knows anything about them. The end of the volume reveals that Aihana deliberately and secretly distributes their identity to those in need. They finally make a proper physical appearance in Genesis Testament 2, although there's still no description of what the person looks like because their visual presence is distorted.
• Guile Hero: If the end of New Testament 12 is any indication, they may be this.
• Helping Would Be Killstealing: The reason Aihana hasn't helped their imposters directly is because Aihana claims it's meaningless unless the imposters solve their problems themselves. Yokosuka calls them out on this, saying they looking down on them.
• Hero of Another Story: The ITEM spinoff reveals that Aihana has been meddling in the Dark Side of Academy City for quite a while.
• Legacy Character: Distributing their identity to other people creates this effect.
• Masquerading As the Unseen: Aihana's way of helping other people is by arranging the use of their identity, which no-one knows anything about.
• No Name Given: Like everything else about the character. New Testament 7 had an imposter #6 that introduced himself as "Etsu Aihana", but this was believed to fake until New Testament 12 revealed that "Etsu Aihana" actually is the real name of the sixth Level 5 esper.
• Red Baron: The ITEM spinoff reveals that the Dark Side calls Aihana the Dark Side's Bane for constantly disrupting its activities.
• Running Gag: Expect any mention of #6 to be very quickly glossed over.
• Shrouded in Myth: The ITEM spinoff reveals that they've working against Academy City's Dark Side for a while. Supposed actions they have done include stringing a stalker up a streetlight, wiping out a group of gunmen in a single night, and rescuing a young child and returning them to their family. Due to their lack of presence and the fact they have multiple imitators, it's impossible to tell whether they were directly responsible for these stories, whether it was partially or fully done by their imitators, or even whether the stories are true at all.
• Support Party Member: Compared to the other Level 5s, their abilities can't be used for offensive purposes. It's a form of Super-Empowering where they can transform someone into their ideal self, as long they use the name "Etsu Aihana" while doing so. Of course, this means they have no form of combat capabilities, meaning they even lose to an injured Touma in a fist-fight.

Gunha Sogiita

Gunha Sogiita

The Attack Crash

Voiced by: Kengo Kawanishi (Japanese), Matt Shipman (English)

"GUTS!"

The #7 ranked Level 5 esper.

Gunha is a Gemstone, an esper who was born with his powers. His ability is has no name and no one seems to know how it works, least of all himself. What is known is it somehow allows him to create strange explosions, attack at twice the speed of sound, and recover from being shot in the head or heart with no pain. He is classified as the lowest Level 5 precisely because nobody understands his immense power, and thus they can't even guess where he really ranks. He has a strong sense of justice and believes that everything can be solved with GUTS.

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• The Ace: Despite his lack of control of his abilities, Gunha is also noteworthy in being the only Level-5 Esper who wasn't experimented on to get enhanced to that state.
• Apathy Killed the Cat: Has no desire to find out how his powers work and how to make better use of them, and even how to properly fight, as he thinks barreling his way through is the way a man should fight. When he rushes into a situation, he never stops to ask what is going on and even brushes off people trying to explain the situation to him.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: His philosophy is to charge into situations without hesitation and punch any bad guys in sight, relying on GUTS to power through. He even brushes off people trying to explain the situation to him.
• Barrier Warrior: Created a path through Mikoto's countless black lightning bolts with an invisible force to allow Touma to reach her and stop the Level 6 Shift. The downside is that Gunha received damage for every lightning bolt this barrier took.
• Beyond the Impossible: He specializes in regularly ignoring the laws of physics. While other Espers subtly bend reality to make their powers work, his is the only one that completely and blatantly ignores the laws of physics with no known explanation. For example, he punched lightning. Some fans have calculated that particular lightning bolt (launched by Misaka who was 2% of the way into her Level 6 shift and out of control) to have enough power to level a small island!
• Big Damn Heroes: He saves Touma from being crushed by a large ball of metal scrap controlled by Mikoto, who is under the effects of the Level 6 Shift attempt done on her.
• Blood Knight: He likes fighting strong opponents. After seeing the dragon inside Touma, he admits he wants to fight him some day.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Happens with Yabumi Haratani. Whenever Gunha gives out an explanation for his powers, Haratani ends up calling him on it, followed by Gunha responding with a dumbfounded variation of "Then what did I just do?" Gets lampshaded by Mikoto.
• Born Winner: The strongest Gemstone, of which only about 50 exist in the world. And because he's a Gemstone, his powers are completely natural, as opposed to the other Level 5s.
• Bowdlerise: In the Railgun T anime season, Gunha's Rising Sun flag shirt has been replaced with a completely red one (in his Daihaseisai attire (see above image), his shirt becomes white). This is due to the how the flag was originally a symbol of Imperial Japan, thus seen as offensive towards other Asian countries like South Korea and China.
• Calling Your Attacks: "Amazing Puuunch!" He sometimes adds words like "Super", "Ultra", or "Giga" to the attack name.
  Yokosuka: Please, just beat me with an attack that sounds like it's worth losing to at least. Not that Amazing Punch attack.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Even moreso than Touma. He's constantly wandering around Academy City helping people in need and will never turn down a request.
• Chuunibyou: He may have genuine powers, but he still fits for being really out of touch with reality and thinking he is a superhero, making everyone think he is a total weirdo.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He's in his own little world where he's a superhero saving the world from bad guys, with GUTS! When Mikoto tried her railgun attack on him, his first reaction was to scold her for taking an arcade coin out of the arcade. In New Testament Volume 7, while heroes from all over Academy City were rushing to try to save Fremea and attacking each other as a result, Guhna was in the middle of it all unaffected by the project, and defending trees.
• Coat Cape: Tends to wear his jacket like a cape. Appropriate since he thinks he's a superhero.
• Combo Platter Powers: His power is stated to be impossible to define, and manifests in a variety of ways, including as a Deflector Shield powerful enough to block Mikoto's electric attacks, a Healing Factor that can stop his bleeding and even reset his bones, a scream loud enough to cushion his fall and make the surroundings rattle, forcing everybody nearby to cover their ears, Nigh-Invulnerability, the ability to create a strange explosion around him that throws people away, Super-Speed, and Super-Strength.
• Determinator: He repeatedly gets back up during his fight with Ollerus despite being totally outclassed.
• Dishing Out Dirt: When he realizes he's facing an electric esper, he decides to switch to earth attacks, because "electricity is weak to earth, right?" At which point all the concrete and steel in the area starts bending to his will.
• Double Jump: One of his many abilities, but all things considered it's probably one of the tamer ones.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Appears unnamed in one of the memories of a Level Upper user (possibly Yabumi Haritani) during the AIM Burst phenomenon in Chapter 15 of the Railgun manga, well before Gunha's actual first appearance in Chapter 44. Witnessing Gunha's amazing power appears to have been the catalyst for that esper to use the Level Upper in the first place.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Spoofed. See It Runs on Nonsensoleum below.
• Fastball Special: Subjects Touma to one while trying to save Mikoto from Gensei's Level 6 Shift Project.
• Foil: To Touma. Mikoto even wonders if they know each other after Gunha is able to withstand her electrical attacks. Railgun Chapter 63 (adapted to Railgun T, Episode 11) has them meeting and teaming up to subdue a supercharged and "not herself" Mikoto.
• For Great Justice: Making the world a kinder and gentler place..... one ass-kicked villain at a time.
• Genre Refugee: He talks and acts like he's The Hero of a Sentai anime or a Saturday morning cartoon in a series far more mature and realistic that that. Considering that he's the Hero of Another Story, he might not be far off the mark, but nonetheless, this is not his story.
• Hero of Another Story: His high school teacher notes that he misses school to help people all the time (just like Touma), yet we've barely seen any of it.
• Hidden Depths: Despite coming off as a Hot-Blooded Idiot Hero whose first plan of attack is to punch his opponent, Gunha can sometime be calm and tactiful, especially when the battle becomes more intense. After Misaka's Level 6 shift is disconnected from Exterior, Gunha is able to deduce the difference between Misaka's power from then and now, and that Touma's Imagine Breaker will not have any effect on it.
• Honor Before Reason: Despite having super speed, he always announces his presence, attacks head-on, and refuses to attack from behind, saying that a true warrior wouldn't sink to dirty tactics. This is also the reason why he sees no reason to learn how his powers work and how to properly fight.
• Hot-Blooded: Everything is fighting with GUTS for him.
• How Do I Shot Web?: An unusual example in that he knows how to use his powers, but he has no idea how they work (Touma is the only one in the series with similar issues). Ollerus tells him that he might have stood a chance in their fight if Gunha actually knew how his powers worked and took better advantage of them.
• Idiot Hero: He acknowledges this, but claims it is irrelevant.
• Immune to Mind Control: Misaki is able to mind-control him... for about five seconds, before it shatters.
  Gunha: Oh! I can move.
  [beat]
  Misaki: What?
• It Runs on Nonsensoleum:
  • Even in a series that runs on magic and Techno Babble, his powers are singled out as being one big "Screw You" to every known law of physics. Even the Kiharas, a group with hundreds of world-class researchers dedicated to the study of Esper powers, have no freaking clue how his powers work.
  • Lampshaded. At one point, he gives the same kind of fake scientific explanation for his abilities as everyone else does, only to be met with a flat statement that what he just said was completely impossible and makes no sense. It turns out that he has absolutely no understanding of the science behind his powers and was making up explanations.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Even he of all people realized he should retreat when faced with the Tokiwadai Dorm Supervisor.
• Large Ham: Makes dramatic speeches all the time and announces his arrival like a superhero.
• Lightning Bruiser: Can move at twice the speed of sound and punch lightning out of the air, smash through giant masses of rubble, and catch Mikoto's railgun with his teeth (albeit while she was holding back).
• Leeroy Jenkins: Whenever he sees a situation, he just charges in fists swinging and doesn't even ask what is going on.
• Made of Iron: Can keep fighting after severe injuries like getting his heart pierced.
• Meaningful Name: His names can be translated as "Supremacy of the Military Court".
• Nice Guy: By Level 5 standards, a pure, good-hearted, and righteous boy like him is a veritable saint.
• Now That's Using Your Teeth!: He catches a railgun from Mikoto using his teeth. It was only at 30%, but still...
• Odd Friendship: While they didn't have the best first meeting, he befriends Junko during the events of the Astral Buddy manga, with her inviting him for tea.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Even Gunha cringes in fear when he sees what the Tokiwadai Dorm Supervisor did to Misaka.
  • Seeing the near end result of Mikoto's Level 6 Shift and seeing the dragon come out of Touma's arm were serious enough to get him to speak clearly and calmly and say they can't just jump in without a plan.
• Shock and Awe: After battling Misaka and Junko, he learned how to make electricity himself.
• Shout-Out: In his first appearance in SS Volume 2 (and in the Railgun manga and in the Fanfare side story) he makes a dramatic speech that is immediately followed by explosions of colored smoke behind him.
• Smarter Than You Look: He identifies when an electric esper is using an ion sheath to defend herself, which is not exactly something an Idiot Hero needs to know.
• Stunned Silence: His reaction to hearing Touma's near-suicidal plan to finally end Mikoto's Level 6 Shift.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Compared to the other level 5 espers, who are all basically walking supercomputers. Gunha's only strategy is to charge in and start swinging unless someone manages to miraculously convince him that there's a better option. Ollerus outright admits that Gunha would have beaten him if the Level 5 had understood the true nature of his own power.
• Use Your Head: Headbutts a steel girder thrown at him by a berserk Mikoto to knock it away and laughs it off without a scratch.
• Verbal Tic: He believes in being GUTSY over everything else to such a degree that he tries to insert something about GUTS in as many of his sentences as he possibly can.
• Wearing a Flag on Your Head: He wears a shirt emblazoned with the Rising Sun in the Light Novel and Manga illustrations.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Believes everything can be solved with punching and GUTS! If they aren't working, then you just need more of them.
  Gunha: She needs more guts, I'll inject her with some.
  Touma: That's not the issue here.
  Gunha: No, she's just acting out after straying from the right path, but with some guts...
  Touma: Please listen!
• Violence is the Only Option: He resolves a dispute between two cheer squads by punching the stage the cheer squads are fighting over, with them on it.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: He thinks the world is a simple place where good and evil can be easily distinguished and all he has to do is beat up the bad guy.
• Worthy Opponent: Following their team up against an out of controlled Misaka, Gunha acknowledges Touma's power and wishes to battle him one day.

Other

Rhinoceros Beetle 05 (SPOILERS UNMARKED)

Teitoku Kakine (Beetle 05)

Rhinoceros Beetle 05

Voiced by: Masaya Matsukaze (Japanese)

^{Click here to see his human form}

"My name is Teitoku Kakine, Academy City’s #2 Level 5 and the user of Dark Matter."

During the Ichihanaran Festival Arc, the original Teitoku Kakine is revealed to still be alive after Accelerator tore him to pieces at the end of their first battle. He shows he can create a new body made fully out of Dark Matter, and is also able to make clones of himself in the shape of insects, like rhinoceros beetles, that can carry out orders on his behalf.

However one of these beetles, referred to as Rhinoceros Beetle 05, ends up breaking away from the original's control (later implied to be due to Rikou Takitsubo's AIM Stalker). After spending time with Last Order and Fremea Seivulen, Beetle 05 is eventually able to gain his own sense of self and replaces the original Teitoku Kakine as the new dominant personality of the #2 ranked Level 5.

Note: For sake of clarity, this version of Teitoku Kakine will be referred to as "Beetle 05".

For tropes related to the original Teitoku Kakine, please see above.

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• Artificial Human: He is a beetle (later human) comprised completely out of Dark Matter. He can't even claim to have assimilated the original Kakine's organs, since it's later shown that the Kakine produced out of those retains the original's personality.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: He's not a robot, but his mannerisms and behaviour before and after he goes rogue resemble one. Also subverted, in that he crapshoots from evil to become one of the good guys.
• And I Must Scream: For most of NT7, his keychain form is taken over by Rensa #29 and used to manipulate Fremea to further the Agitate Halation Project, with him being unable to move or warn her about what's happening.
• Badass and Child Duo: Once he gains self-awareness, Beetle 05 takes it upon himself to protect both Fremea and Last Order. Most of his on-screen time in NT6 is him being led around by the two and trying to keep them out of danger.
• Badass Boast: Besides his above quote, he also gives a short and simple one right before he battles Rensa #29:
  Beetle 05: "Do not underestimate a Level 5."
• Badass Minds Think Alike: He and Touma team up with nary an introduction in the Learning Core to protect Fremea from Rensa #29.
• BFG: Like the other Dark Matter beetles, he possesses a spring-loaded cannon inside his horn which can fire shells that explode on impact.
• Big Damn Heroes: Twice:
  • First at the climax of the Ichihanaran Festival Arc, where he saves Accelerator and Mugino from a constantly-regenerating Kakine by taking over the Dark Matter Network, becoming the new "Teitoku Kakine" in the process.
  • Second at the climax of the Agitate Halation Arc, revealing to Rensa #29 that taking over a single Dark Matter clone means nothing when you can self-duplicate, and that his other 50 clones have just finished disabling the bombs she'd tried to detonate around the Learning Core.
  • He also becomes the subject of a new rumour in Academy City, which states he would come to help if anyone in trouble were to call "Help me, Rhinoceros Beetle!"
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: His beetle form is the size of a car. He's not really that creepy though.
• Bishōnen Line: A heroic example. Just as he takes over the original Kakine, his form as a rhinoceros beetle breaks apart to reveal a human form that's identical to Kakine (sans the eyes). NT7 shows that other beetles he creates are able to assume the human form.
• Clone Angst: His arc in NT6 is mainly spent struggling with his identity, trying to reconcile who 'he' is compared to the original Kakine and worrying that the original's influence will eventually take back control.
• Exact Words: Part of what gets him to rebel is misinterpretation of what his orders were from the original, one of which is "protect residents from anything dangerous". He then concludes that Kakine and the other Dark Matter beetles count as 'dangerous' and attacks them, while the original targets including Last Order and Fremea are residents to be protected. Again, it's speculated that Takitsubo's influence is behind what led to this malfunction.
• Friend to All Children: Just see his interactions with Last Order and Fremea. The rumour that he'll come to help anyone in trouble also seems to be directed towards children as well.
• Fun Size: He's able to resize his rhinoceros beetle form into one that fits on a keychain that Fremea keeps with her.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: ZigZagged. His eyes as a beetle turn from green to red to show he's broken free of the Dark Matter Network, at which point he becomes an ally. Once he fully becomes Teitoku Kakine and assumes his human form, his eyes turn back to green, contrasting him against the original Kakine.
• Self-Duplication: Like the original post-revival, Beetle 05 possesses the ability to create clones of himself using Dark Matter. He even states that unlike the Misaka Network, he doesn't need his 'primary' body as his consciousness exists in all of his clones. That said, he's careful not to create too many to avoid risk of a clone breaking off and trying to do what he did to the original.
• Secretly Dying: Being cut loose from the original Kakine meant that Beetle 05 can't replenish his body with Dark Matter anymore. Throughout NT6, cracks slowly spread across his body to show his deterioration. Subverted at the end when his body does shatter...only to reveal his human form within.
• Split-Personality Takeover: At the end of NT6, he assumes the identity of Teitoku Kakine and is referred to as such in later novels.
• Took a Level in Kindness: As noted by Accelerator, Beetle 05 is Teitoku Kakine with his kind aspects brought to the forefront.
• The Worf Effect: He puts up a good fight, but is ultimately outmatched against Rensa #29 once she brings out Accelerator's Black Wings, leaving Touma to fight her on his own.
• You Are Number 6: His first appearance in the Ichihanaran Festival Arc is as a nameless Dark Matter Beetle, simply called Rhinoceros Beetle 05. Averted after the end of the arc, where he adopts the identity of Teitoku Kakine along with his name.

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