Kamijou Touma

"…Even if it hurts, we have to keep moving forward. That’s what’s important, right? Even if we can’t stand anymore, we have to find some way to continue. Over and over again, until we get to where we need to be."

-Kamijou Touma

Kamijou Touma is the protagonist of the Kinoverse meta series, Toaru Majutsu no Index: Rebirth Testament and an important character in Toaru Kagaku no Railgun: Next Phase. He is a "Level 0" first year Highschool Student in Academy City possesses the mysterious "Imagine Breaker" in his right hand, which is capable of negating all forms of magic, esper powers, and other divine abilities. This, according to Index, even includes his own good luck, as they are the blessings of God.

He has a very strong desire to aid all those who are in need even if it means putting his life on the line and will not hesitate to challenge an opponent who is several times more powerful than himself. Because of his willingness to help others unconditionally, he has attracted the affections of many characters in the series, which Himegami Aisa jokes about, stating that his life is like a dating simulation where he is bound to unlock more paths to more girls.

Appearance
Touma looks like an ordinary high school student except for his most striking feature, his spiky black hair. It's been mentioned that his spiky hair isn't natural, but he made it that way using hair gel after seeing it on a fashion magazine. He also has black eyes.

His father remarks that Touma looks just like his mother when he is worried about something or is thinking deeply.

Because he resides in Academy City, Touma often wears his school uniform along with an orange T-shirt underneath. This applies to both the summer and winter versions of his uniform (though when wearing the winter version he doesn't button it). Around the winter season, he wears a white hoodie under his jacket. Because of his tendency to wear his uniform in such a manner and the fact that he seems to attract trouble, many people easily mistake him for a delinquent. On holidays and weekends, Touma generally wears a casual shirt and pants.

Personality & Character
Touma is the type that acts before he thinks. He can never just sit around upon seeing someone in a pinch and will go to great lengths to protect or help the person. This he does at great risk to himself, which typically results in him being hospitalized for several days after each confrontation. When fighting seriously against a particularly strong opponent, Touma will usually first declare that he’ll “destroy that illusion” of theirs, before actually engaging. When asked about the reason why he saves people, he answered: “I don’t need a reason to save someone”. Even when he is in a blank slate after losing his memories, Touma still displays this personality. Although lacking his memories, Touma does not appear to mope over the loss of them in particular, as the beliefs from his pre-blank state continue to motivate him, allowing him to understand what he needs to do even if he doesn't remember why. However, after losing his memories, he seems to approach people more cautiously, carefully choosing what emotion or mood to display when meeting someone he thinks he might know. This is to prevent them seeing through his ruse and exploiting him. When Touma meets Stiyl once again after saving Index, he displayed politeness and casualness towards him which made Stiyl suspicious. Touma then realized his mistake quickly and created an explanation for his behavior. Touma also bears no grudge towards former enemies and is willing to help them if they asked for it.

Aiwass has commented that Touma is only doing whatever he feels is right and is labeled "righteous" by other people impulsively as he compared the differences between him, Accelerator, and Shiage. Touma is someone who will follow what he believes regardless of what others try to convince him of. In addition, Villian commented that Touma is just like William Orwell, someone who follows his own ideals no matter what, though there are differences between the two: William is someone who stays true to his ideals and firmly believes it is the right path no matter what happens, and no matter who speaks against it; while Touma does not have set ideals and therefore can be manipulated into helping other people's plots. And when he does do something wrong, Motoharu describes Touma as someone who will carry that mistake all on his own, along with his own. Even so, he works to correct his mistakes in order to bring a smile to everyone's face at the end of the road, no matter the cost to himself.

Even though he is a well-mannered person who is kind to people in general, Touma will not hesitate to strike female opponents who harm innocents or disrespect life, such as Sherry Cromwell (who was going to start a war between Science and Faith that would result in the death of millions), Agnese Sanctis (who was tasked to eliminate Orsola), Oriana Thomson (who hurt Fukiyose Seiri and Himegami Aisa), or Vento of the Front (who planned to destroy Academy City and anything related to science to settle her grudge on what happened to her brother in the past).

Despite his righteous and heroic personality, Touma occasionally displays poor choice of words which results in him getting bitten by Index, having bolts of lightning thrown by Misaka Mikoto, and creating misunderstandings with the other girls he encounters.

During World War III, after his first clash against Fiamma of the Right, when Touma questioned Fiamma's actions about how rightful they both are, Fiamma dared him to confront Index about his memory loss which left Touma saddened due to the guilt. During his fight with Accelerator, he regained his confidence but the guilt still stays with him.

Touma returns to Academy City essentially the same, quite unfazed by the many threats to his life, as shown by his nonchalant reaction to Kuroyoru Umidori attacking him in his own bathroom.

However, after later events, specifically the events that led to the creation of Science Guardian and the distortion that occurred in Baggage City, Touma has started to stop trusting the people he meets, despising the fact that his actions, such as saving someone, are being manipulated into creating more suffering for others' ends. However, during his confrontation against Leivinia Birdway, Touma finally disregards his fears of failure, betrayal, or being manipulated.

Along with this, Leivinia sums up his personality - wanting himself to be put in danger instead of other people, having him fight, getting himself hurt - as insanity. Indeed, even the Will of the Whole Misaka Network would later question on his "unconditional need to place himself below everyone else". Despite Leivinia being a person who investigates leaders and charismatic leaders, she cannot understand what drives Touma, whom promptly tells her that he has no reason to abandon people who need saving in the first place, a clear reference to his "I don't need a reason to save someone" mentality. Moreover, Aiwass' comments on Touma being labeled "righteous" by other people are referenced. Leivinia compares him to Aleister Crowley and Laura Stuart, and refers to him as having the seeds to do something indescribably great, which will give him great power if he controls it, or will be disastrous for him if he does not.

In the Agitate Halation Arc, Touma was willing to defeat Rensa, knowing full well that he might kill Yakumi Hisako (who had turned into an AIM thought being and had entered Rensa's body) with his right hand, in order to save her. However, this could also be because he was confident that Rensa would be able to save Hisako before he could destroy her. Indeed, Hisako survived and was spared from being completely destroyed by Imagine Breaker after Touma defeated her, due to Rensa's actions.

Later, after finally falling into the nadir of despair in the Omega World (a world where everyone has been saved perfectly) and attempting to commit suicide, Touma finally does something for his own convenience after some convincing from the Will of the Whole Misaka Network. Here, he accepts that he wants to go back to his own world, where his actions had meaning instead of being in the perfect world, and was willing for it to be unmade. Despite this, during his fight with Othinus, the creator of that world, there was still some hesitation in his heart, as he too wanted to protect that perfect world. These hesitations were later thrown to the wind in his battle with Othinus, and after he lost he conceded victory and the world to her.

Biography
Touma is the son of Kamijou Touya and Kamijou Shiina, who live outside of Academy City. During his childhood, he was often seen as a jinx because of the misfortune that his right hand creates and he was called "god of pestilence" by people around him. Once, a bankrupt and superstitious person blamed Touma for his own misfortunes and tried to stab him. A TV station heard about the incident and tried to make a supernatural show based on Touma, as well as releasing images of him without his family's consent. Because of this, Touma's father sent him to Academy City when Touma graduated from kindergarten, as it was a place where many unique and gifted people lived free from superstition and Touma could be free from the kind of things he had experienced back home. This, however, was somehow a deliberate plot by Aleister Crowley to bring Touma into the City, and one of the most obvious effects of this is the birth of Kazakiri Hyouka out of fear of the Imagine Breaker.

However, during his time in Academy City as a child, Touma wrote letters to his father; from there, he determined that even in the city of science, people still treated Touma differently due to his terrible luck.

According to Tsukuyomi Komoe, Touma used to be a "naughty boy" in the past. It is also during this time that Touma discovered that his right hand can somehow dispel supernatural powers, specifically the psychic powers used by the students of Academy City. This power, named Imagine Breaker, was only known by a few of Academy city's high-ups, especially by Aleister Crowley and Heaven Canceller. Since then, Imagine Breaker was secretly held as a power of great importance, despite Touma himself being officially classified as a Level 0.

Touma is treated as a precious person by his current high school classmates due to all their bad luck being attracted to him, as shown when they rejoiced upon hearing that Touma forgot his homework. Because of him, they get off lightly from things such as the teachers being annoyed at them for not submitting homework. This is unlike how Touma's life was before he entered Academy City, raising the question of whether Imagine Breaker's power was sealed away sometime between him entering Academy City and the present day, seeing how the bad luck affects Touma alone instead of before when it also influenced the people around him.

However, Touma's classmates, mainly the male students, do resent Touma for one thing – his impossibly good luck at getting girls' attention. This is due to many girls sympathizing with Touma's bad luck, and has gotten to the point where Fukiyose Seiri, the only one who is critical of Touma's lazy attitude to life, is called the 'Girl of Steel Walls' and 'the Girl who is completely wary of Touma'. Many of Touma's classmates say, "Though Touma keeps saying he's unlucky, he has the best position," and joke about if nobody can stop Touma, humanity will end due to him taking all the girls[12]. Surprisingly, Touma still hasn't gotten into a serious romantic relationship even with this kind of female attention. This is possibly due to his friendship with Tsuchimikado Motoharu and Aogami Pierce, the latter often joking of supporting Touma to build a harem that covers every type of fetish imaginable. Touma said he'd break Aogami and Motoharu's fantasies on this topic using his Imagine Breaker. Motoharu has named Touma's 'ability' to get girls chasing after him without much effort as the Kami-yan disease, and applied this to Stiyl Magnus after hearing about how Stiyl got chased by Tsukuyomi Komoe and couldn't even throw her off easily using the 'Opila' runes. Komoe also once half-seriously said he might have an esper ability (AIM diffusion field) that causes girls to trickle down to him. Most people around him, such as Index and Misaka Mikoto, consider it "normal" for him to have girls around him and are usually quick to jump to conclusions about what he's doing (or done).

Due to Touma being a Level 0, he has to take even more make-up lessons than usual as he does not have the required academic achievements. This does not mean that Touma is unintelligent, as in many occasions he has shown quick thinking in combat. Lessar even outright stated that Touma is extremely smart in some aspects but not others. It is also shown that Touma at least has a good grasp of physics, being able to calculate the flight path of an HsB-02.

Even before the start of the series, Touma could not ignore someone in trouble and would help people regardless of who they are. Indeed, this is how his life is intertwined with Nanami Lucia, Mitsuari Ayu and Shokuhou Misaki. During a special 2 week long field trip, Touma had saved Lucia from a precarious situation, although the details remain unknown, as Lucia doesn't appear to recognize him, and Touma not remembering due to the incident that occured with Index two years later. Despite his memories being permanently lost, it seems he is still able to develop a sense of familiarity after seeing hearing her sing and seeing her in her mermaid form. This seems to imply that during this period, the two was close to a significant degree.

Ayu is a girl who was at an impasse in her development as an esper and attempted to commit suicide in Ground Geo on the same day as Touma met Misaki. He would've been able to save her if not for him dropping his cellphone when he ran into Misaki. Touma would later visit Ground Geo as it was the sight of Ayu's suicide attempt and there he met Misaki again, inadvertently preventing her from erasing her own memories out of depression. They would later meet up several times, with Touma giving her a cheap whistle. Their relationship could be compared to that which later developed between Touma and Mikoto — acquaintances that often run into each other in the city. Touma later protected Misaki from Deadlock by using his own body as a shield. The result of this encounter is also quite similar to that of Touma and Index, ending with Touma losing his memories of Misaki, though this case is different in that Touma also received anterograde amnesia specific to her (any new memories he forms of Misaki are soon forgotten).

As for Mikoto, Touma first meets her when she was being harassed by thugs. At first, she was impressed that he was the only one who was willing to come to her aid (even though she could have handled the thugs all by herself). She then became annoyed by him after he accidentally insulted her, resulting in her discharging a powerful amount of electricity at the thugs as well as Touma, though he was unaffected because he used his right hand. This became the catalyst that made her consider him someone she must beat. For some time, Mikoto continually stalked Touma demanding him to fight her, even though she was still unaware of the power of his right hand.

Powers & Abilities
Touma’s ability is Imagine Breaker (幻想殺しイマジンブレイカー Gensō Goroshi (Imajin Bureikā)?, lit. “Illusion Killer”), a mysterious power that resides in his right hand that he has had since birth. It is able to negate all supernatural powers including magic, esper, and divine powers, the last of these demonstrated by Archangel Gabriel’s fear of touching him. It is also speculated by Index that it negates the divine protection of God and his blessing, as well as the red string of fate. Touma is the current holder of the Imagine Breaker, and the mysterious power itself has a preference to Touma being its bearer, as there is meaning in Touma having it in his right hand, or in Fiamma’s own words: “the right hand is only the right hand when it is growing from his right shoulder.” According to Othinus, Touma’s knack for escaping dangerous situations through external factors and his inability to die is a form of misfortune as well, and she refers to it as the “greatest of all [his] misfortunes”.

Since it is not an esper power, the people testing esper abilities cannot detect or properly classify it, so he was classified as Level 0 as he has nevertheless passed through the Power Curriculum Program. As such, Aleister Crowley considers him neither an esper nor a magician but rather a normal person with a unique ability. This gray area allows Touma to participate and get involved in the intrigue of the other side without causing a political backlash for technically being part of the Science Side.

There are many unknowns regarding Touma’s power, and many are the speculations of the true extent and form of his power. Terra of the Left hinted that Imagine Breaker might extend itself further away from its bearer’s right hand, based on Terra’s personal knowledge of Fiamma of the Right’s Holy Right ability. Ollerus stated that Imagine Breaker is the reference point of the world, bringing the world back to normal when it is distorted. It appears that Touma might not be capable of negating all “artificial” supernatural abilities. Tsuchimikado Motoharu is convinced that there are things that Touma’s Imagine Breaker cannot destroy, including ley lines or a person’s life force from which a magician’s mana is produced, as evidenced by the fact Touma hasn’t killed someone through a simple handshake. This claim is corroborated by Leivinia Birdway, stating that although Imagine Breaker works exceedingly well when it is normalizing abnormal values, it does not show much power when dealing with something that is uniform from the start. Because of this, if a supernatural power/object is sufficiently powerful or massive enough in size it will not be completely negated right away, as shown by the examples of Dragon’s Breath, Innocentius, Accelerator’s Black Wings,and others. To compensate for this glaring weakness, Touma has realized that he need not negate but simply cast it aside, disrupting it so to speak. It is during the state where he cannot negate it completely that Touma can physically touch or grab the power, disrupting it instead of instantly destroying it. This is exemplified during Touma’s fight with Accelerator in Russia, in which he pulled one of Accelerator’s black wings to throw him off balance and dodge his attack. That single touch was capable of negating the vector-controlling power of said wing as well

Beyond the Right Hand

Aleister Crowley has also gained interest in Touma’s power and integrated it into his plans, and from his comments to Heaven Canceller it’s likely that he arranged the events that led to Touma being sent to Academy City by Kamijou Touya, which resulted in the birth of Kazakiri Hyouka out of fear of the Imagine Breaker. Aleister has monitored Touma’s danger level to Academy City and labelled it equivalent to DEFCON 3, and found that Imagine Breaker can affect 97% of his plans. It is unknown what the true extent of Aleister’s plans for Imagine Breaker are, but he has stated that his plans are similar to Fiamma’s, only in a different format: to change the world by preparing a temple filled with strange power, drawing out the power of the right arm within that temple, and adjusting the thickness of the phase itself with that power. He told Fiamma of the Right that if Fiamma looked at it in a different viewpoint, he should be able to understand the true nature of that power, and if he did, he would have reached his goal before Aleister could.

When Fiamma severed Touma’s right arm along with the Imagine Breaker in order to absorb that power into himself, an “invisible thing” gathered on Touma’s right shoulder which made all that Fiamma had pale in comparison. Touma unexpectedly crushed that power with an even greater power and then took back the Imagine Breaker. Though the true nature of these powers is unclear, Touma is shown to be able to communicate with the “invisible thing”, referring to the power as “you” before refusing to use its power, crushing it and regenerating his lost right arm.

After Fiamma’s right arm was severed by Aleister, it was confirmed there is more to Touma’s right hand than just “a right hand that can negate supernatural ability”. Touma’s right hand is a vessel that can be used to house a greater power, and this is the main reason why Aleister and Fiamma seek Touma’s right hand, not for Imagine Breaker.

While attempting to stop the Level 6 Shift attempt on Misaka Mikoto, when Eight Dragons emerge from Kamijou Touma’s severed right arm, Touma attempted to negate Mikoto’s attack, but it was too powerful and his right arm was blown off. Eight dragons, including the same dragon from the fight against Aureolus Izzard, then emerged and devoured the attack, returning Mikoto to normal. His arm reappeared shortly after without any help, to the confusion of Mikoto.

When Touma and Kamisato Kakeru clashed with their respective right hands, Kakeru’s World Rejector severed Touma’s right arm and sent it to another world. This caused something to emerge and badly injure Kakeru. The entity then disappeared and Touma’s right arm regenerated. Kakeru believes that this is due to World Rejector not erasing everything at the same time, but rather working from the outside in. As a result, it erased Imagine Breaker but there was a slight time lag afterwards, allowing the entity within to attack him. Touma, on the other hand, is less certain. He believes that the entity that could defeat World Rejector cannot be the same as the one that was easily crushed by Magic God Othinus (Magic Gods being easily erased by World Rejector) He thus wonders if there are multiple entities inside him.

Precognition

During World War III, Accelerator speculated that Touma has been in so many fights that he can subconsciously anticipate the attacks coming his way. Moreover, probably combined with his reflexes and the courage to keep his body and thoughts moving, this allows him to judge accurately what to do next. Minute changes in the battlefield, like when Mikoto emits her electromagnetic field that makes metal items around her resonate, these involuntary movements of hers that not even she can detect, aid Touma in his judgment in where to put his Imagine Breaker. The narrative refers to such phenomena that can be perceived by Touma as "An Involuntary Movements", but implies that its scope differs to the term AIM, and most likely uses it in a literal sense: actions that are not voluntary in the part of the person doing them, like blinking. It is like a heightened sense of perception or an instinct, causing Accelerator and Leivinia Birdway to call it "Precognition" or "Mind's Eye", though it is not about knowing something before it happens like true Precognition, but knowing the little details that lead up to something happening.[15] The original Japanese text calls this ability Premonition Perception or sense of foreboding (前兆の感知 Zenchō no Kanchi?).

Touma is not aware of this skill himself (despite both Leivinia and Rensa referring to it during their respective battles), though he is able to use it to the fullest potential, using the aftermath as a basis, and then change tactics to fight according to the situation. Moreover, it's noted that if he consciously tries to take note of this information, this skill of his is more likely to fail. Furthermore, Lessar noted that even if someone else were to have the same "right hand" like Touma, they couldn't use it half as well as him, lacking the combat skills that accompany it.

It is shown by Rensa that Touma's precognition can be sealed by restricting the information that is shown to him. In the Agitate Halation Arc, she controls her cyborg body in such a way that she completely freezes her facial expression, prevents even the slightest involuntary muscle movements, and times her blinking and breathing to specific set intervals in such a way that Touma could not 'read' her based on those things. However, when Rensa is overloaded because of the presence of Yakumi Hisako in her, and flinches slightly because of her inability to stay still, Touma can easily read her movements and use precognition. Ever since he started training with Ruby, this ability has been enhanced.

Other Abilities
Touma is also a capable street fighter and quick thinker as shown in his fight with Aureolus Izzard, where he exploited the weakness of his "Ars Magna". His fighting capability is stated many times in the novels to be the result of countless fights he was involved in with other delinquents (some even being Skill-Outs armed with deadly weapons) when he tries to help other people. Touma also has an incredible amount of stamina, as displayed when he withstood multiple shocks from Mikoto and was still able to fight and beat Accelerator afterwards. He possesses a high threshold of pain, as demonstrated in his battle with Aureolus where his entire arm was cut-off and he was still able to think straight enough to win (although Stiyl claimed that he'd just gotten "high" off of the pain). Touma is also very fast and has great reflexes that allow him react to attacks. Even while intoxicated, he could easily avoid Mikoto's lightning attack while walking away from her after World War III.

In spite of the examples above, Touma still only sees his fighting capability as "capable of winning one-on-one, maybe possible of winning two-on-one, and run away when it is three-on-one".

During British Halloween, Touma displayed the ability to sneak around and hide from others very carefully. During World War III, Fiamma expressed amazement at how well Touma has gotten at doing it while he was trying to fight and locate him.

Touma has also displayed an aptitude for fighting cleverly against more conventionally-armed foes. When he had to confront a gun-wielding terrorist in the cargo hold of a passenger plane, he first poured heated coffee and tea into a ventilation shaft. This tricked the terrorist into firing on the shaft and dousing himself in boiling liquid, rendering his gun useless and at the same time giving Touma the opportunity to directly confront and defeat him. By "Index New Testament" Touma has become quite capable of analyzing magic himself without the need for magicians. This is exemplified in his fight with Freyja where he discovers what her magic is based on without a single correction from Index. During the manhunt for him and Othinus, Touma further displays how far his analyzing skills and cleverness have come. By drawing on knowledge from his past experiences and the fighting tactics of his opponents, he could quickly find his opponents' weak points and use them to win or force a draw.

After doing some training with Ruby and his battle with KAMIJOU, which resulted in some of his skills and combat abilities flowing into him, Touma had become a much better fighter than he previously was before, which would grant him better speed, strength and durability in his fights. Touma outright states that with what he had learned so far, he is able to take down a group of armed delinquents and is likely capable of beating most of the Magicians he fought in the past with more ease. Him being regarded as a Combat genius and his prior experiences, Touma's level had risen significantly, with his mentor stating that if he kept at it, Touma would be one of the most powerful mortal fighters out there.

Relationships
{TBA}