Hamazura Shiage

Hamazura Shiage (浜面 仕上) is a main character of the Science Side in the Toaru Majutsu no Index series.

Shiage is a level 0 and former Skill-Out with his best friends Komaba Ritoku and Hattori Hanzou. As former lacky, grunt, chaffeur, and informant of ITEM, he delved into Academy City's darkness and turned into an anomaly that disrupts Aleister Crowley's plans and calculations time and time and again.

Personality
Shiage is considered a balance between Touma and Accelerator. Like most members of his Skill-Out gang, he is lawful; however, while he and Touma share some of the same traits, such as their reputations as delinquents, their victories over higher-ranked espers through tactics, and their interference with Aleister Crowley's plans, he isn't as idealistic or as nice as Touma, at least not at first. In battle, he prefers to avoid fighting if possible or to finish the fight as quickly as possible, which is somewhat like Accelerator's personality.

He falls in love with Takitsubo Rikou, and because of this, he decides to fight the 4th-ranked Level 5 esper, Mugino Shizuri, also known as Meltdowner, in order to protect Rikou.

As far the plots advances, he began to show a nicer side similar to Touma, as seen when he aids Russian villagers during pirate attacks, convinces Acqua to not give up on life, and how his reclutancy to fight Mugino leads to him forgive her and express his desire to get back everyone together as ITEM again.

Shiage is suggestive to anything sex-related, as shown when he got a nosebleed simply by seeing Kinuhata Saiai putting a stuffed bunny doll behind Rikou to give her a bunny girl look.

Profile
The reason Aleister decides to eliminate Shiage isn't that Shiage is a threat in general, but that he's an anomaly that goes against Aleister's plans. His victory over Mugino is considered something that should have never happened; he is a powerless Level 0 and Mugino is a Level 5, but every attempt to kill him so far has failed, and Aleister's plans have begun to go awry ever since.

Aiwass once comments that Shiage is someone who is never noticed by people and doesn't have any talent, but for the sake of the person he loves, he’ll become the hero.

Skill-Out
October 3rd.

After Accelerator kills the former leader, Komaba Ritoku, by orders of the Board of Directors, he becomes the leader of his Skill-Out gang. On the same day he becomes the new leader, he accepts a deal with the Board of Directors to kill Misaka Misuzu in order to prevent leakage of students because of the Roman Catholic Church's allegations after Vento of the Front's attack. If Skill-Out kills Misuzu, then the Board of Directors would allow Skill-Out to continue existing and not be destroyed completely like their previous boss. He looks for ways to fake her death, but ultimately the plan ends in failure as they are defeated by both Touma and Accelerator, Shiage himself was felled by Touma twice during that night.

After that humiliatation, he leaves the gang's leadership to his friend Hattori Hanzou, and becomes a chauffeur and informant for ITEM, where he falls in love with Takitsubo Rikou.

Enemy Level 5
October 9th.

He gains a more active role during the battles between the underground organizations of Academy City. While under ITEM, he helps drive them around among other things as a grunt, jacking cars on the spot for use as getaway vehicles. While ITEM and SCHOOL are fighting each other at Kirigaoka Girls' Academy, in which powers such as destroying half a building in one blast are used, Shiage sees a car, and has the sudden urge to steal it due to its beauty. Before he could try, he is found by Yomikawa Aiho; in his words, "though she is a top-class beauty, she's still an Anti-Skill, the natural enemy of Skill-Out members like him." Yomikawa had once caught Shiage fourteen times in one night and thrown him into a cell personally. Before Yomikawa could arrest Shiage, he is told by ITEM's leader, Mugino Shizuri, to follow SCHOOL, and left the scene as he managed to escape Yomikawa.

After discovering the murder of Frenda, Shiage betrays and fights Mugino to protect Rikou who was being forced to use the Crystallized Esper Essence in order to activate her powers and track down Kakine Teitoku, which in turn quickened the deterioration of her own health. Shiage manages to defeat Mugino by stabbing her in the eye, which makes her lose control of her power and disintergrate her own left arm after shooting at him; and shooting the rest of his bullets into her. She stood up after that, but he dropped her with a punch to the face before she could fire again. After Shiage leaves Mugino for dead on that battlefield, Hanzou shows up and offers Skill-Out's leadership back to Shiage, but he refuses since he wants to focus on saving Rikou.



Brave in Hand
October 17th.

However, Shiage's actions interfere with Aleister's plans and later sends his assassins of the entire dark side of Academy City on a massive hunt to eliminate him. Running, Shiage tried to hijack a mini-copter to get to where Rikou is, but the pilot pulled out a knife from nowhere and threatened him. Though after the pilot sees how desperate Shiage is to try and save Rikou, she decided to help. Later, Shiage jumps out of a helicopter without parachutes down towards something that he’s not sure will save him from a hard landing, while firing down at three men holding Rikou hostage.

During the time he met with Accelerator, who was looking for a terrorist group near the same location that Rikou was, Shiage misunderstood him, thinking that his presence was due to another of his dirty jobs, and that Rikou might end up dead just like his friend Komaba Ritoku.

Shiage said then that if Accelerator wanted to kill someone who no longer wanted to stay in the darkness, then he'll take him down. Accelerator knew it was a misunderstanding, but still complimented him for his actions and bravery, then charged. Shiage planned to force Accelerator into a situation where even a bullet would work on him, taken from his experience against Mugino. He then got blasted back by the air pressure created by Accelerator, but Shiage blew apart a passing security robot and threw it at Accelerator, hoping the magnetism from the broken robot would affect the collar Accelerator wears. But before the robot reached Accelerator it got blown away.

Accelerator then charged right into Shiage and held him up by the collar, then blew him across the room. While Shiage was crawling up, Accelerator told him that if he stays down, he'll let him live, and if he gets up, he's dead. Shiage refused to give up, and told him they both have reasons to do what they do.

Accelerator was going to turn Shiage to mush right there, but when he saw Rikou stumbling towards them, he told Shiage if he planned to use her as a shield to keep fighting, he'd do Shiage a favour and rip him apart. He then said that if the girl gets worse from fighting, it would be troublesome for him, and he would retreat, saying that's how a villain should do things. Accelerator then manipulated the vectors under his feet and disappeared in a blink of a eye. Shiage finally realized that he misunderstood the situation, went to hold Rikou and cursed himself for being so useless. Rikou told him he wasn't useless, since for her, he's willing to fight in a building where the Anti-Skills can't. Shiage isn't convinced, thinking if he was a 'main character,' then Rikou wouldn't be hurt. However, he also thinks that though he's not a top-tier villain like Accelerator, it doesn't matter if he's a punk as long as he can protect Rikou and make her smile.

After that, while trying to escape from Aleister's assasins, he once again met with Mugino Shizuri. She survived her wound thanks to Heaven Canceler's Dark Legacy, now in hands of Aleister Crowley. After seeing Mugino toying with Rikou, he had finally had enough and decided to step out and fight head on with Mugino once more. After getting Mugino to chase him, Shiage managed to hide in a hanger filled with cutting edge weaponry, and tricked her to blow up a fighter jet she thought he was hiding in, and ended up blowing up the whole place with a chain reaction while Shiage ran away as fast as he could.

After the massive explosion, he went back to check to see if she was alive, and found she propelled herself using recoil force from her own attack like a rocket engine to escape the blast, and got ambushed by her. Shiage ran again and hid himself, but then Mugino pulled on his sympathy, saying how she and Kakine ended up like this and how bad it is, before kicking him while he was distracted. After that, Shiage crawled into a testing room for the new jets and their defense, and activated the program that engulfs the whole room except his location in a fierce combination of gale and heat. Mugino was blasted away.

After a hard battle of fighting her and protecting Rikou from her attacks, Mugino, who now has a sense of twisted love for him gives up and helped him and Rikou to escape Academy City by allowing them to steal a jet which was programmed to fly to Russia and shooting down their pursuers.

Fiamma of the Right and World War III Arc
October 30th.

After reaching Russia, because Shiage didn't know how to pilot the jet, he and Rikou, using a parachutte, jumped out of the jet after setting it to self-destruct, and landed in Russia close to Elizarina, the country where Vento had taken Sasha to. As they travelled in a small car near the Elizarina border, Shiage planned to rob a corner store next to a petrol station for some supplies and wanted to avoid hurting the employees. When he charged inside, there were already three robbers in there that had tied up the female employee, threatening her with a dagger. When the Russian robbers asked "Who the hell are you?" in Russian, Shiage just replied, "A robber, so put your hands up!" in Japanese without understanding a word they said.

After hearing many gunshots, Rikou sees Shiage coming out of the shop with merchandise, such as food and warm clothing. When she asked if it went well, Shiage replied he got thanked by the employee and got all the things for free, even fuel for the car. They drove off again with Rikou remaining confused about what happened.

As they drive along, Rikou says that she's planning to find the balance in the scales of the situation, so that even though Shiage’s a small piece, if he can get in the right position to tip the scales, they can then make demands towards Academy City. Suddenly, Rikou’s physical condition got worse, and Shiage panicked and stopped the car. After that, a Caucasian man tapped on the windows, and Shiage reached for his hidden gun then lowered the window. The Caucasian was a tour guide before so he can speak Japanese, and is offering Shiage an 'equivalent exchange;' taking Rikou to their village’s doctor, in exchange for some fuel since their electricity generator just ran out of fuel.

The doctor treats Rikou, but says there’s nothing he can do due to the difference in technology, and that it's risky to treat her. All Shiage cares about now is for her to feel as little pain as possible. Rikou said Academy City started this war for a reason, and if they can get to that reason they can use it as a bargaining chip. Shiage is resolved to head off alone to find the cause since he don’t want to burden Rikou.

The blonde man who brought them there is named Daiguruv. He and Shiage end up talking, saying that the village is nervous since people from nearby villages were taken by the Russian military into concentration camps, but they were fortunate enough to be saved by another Asian youth and many managed to escape to this village. Shiage feels guilty since he’s from Academy City that’s responsible for this, but Daiguruv says it’s not his fault since this village is close to Elizerina Republic and the Russian military had their eyes on it for a while.

To prevent Elizerina from taking over the area, the Russian Government spread a large amount of landmines near the area. The villagers make a living by unearthing those landmines and trading them with NGOs for food and other supplies, even though it might be safer detonating the mines on the spot. The soldier mentioned they were waiting for a convoy to deliver something before they got attacked. Though he’s from the opposing side, Daiguruv said he'd still save him, though he did mutter that they have a lot of guests. Shiage then thought that ‘something’ would be delivered and thought it might be what he and Rikou were looking for.

Then, a ten-year-old girl ran out of the clinic Rikou was in and told them something urgently in Russian, which Daiguruv translated for Shiage and told him the pirates were coming. The Russian government had reinstated the medieval practice of hiring mercenaries to rob the resources of other countries and making them their own, with a large share going to the pirates. This has the benefit of weakening opposing countries and strengthening their own.

The incoming pirates had armoured vehicles and due to the snow, it was hard for the villagers to run. Shiage hid Rikou under the clinic inside the basement. Daiguruv could hear two tanks making their way down, and said conventional reasoning of how the military works doesn't apply to these people. Suddenly, the tank dropped down from the ceiling, as the pirates didn’t realise this would happen when they rammed the building. As the pirates came out of the hatch, Shiage and the others climb up just in time to avoid the building being ripped apart by gunfire. An explosion suddenly appeared in front of them and blasted both Shiage and Daiguruv off their feet. Daiguruv then carried Rikou for him. Shiage saw a machine gun turret behind a sandbag wall 10m away, and ran there to try and take it.

Shiage then found one of the tank’s anti-aircraft guns was changing its aim towards a 30-year-old mother running away with her 10-year-old girl while holding a baby in her arms and saved them. With a voice louder than gunfire, he yelled out for them to keep running; the tank focused its attack on him and the machine gun was blown apart. He saw Daiguruv running towards him with Rikou in his arms. Shiage was angry to the point where he wanted to start fighting back, and asked Daiguruv to take care of Rikou for a while. The man asked what was Shiage going to do, since they don’t have RPGs or AK guns and Shiage replied that he was going to use the landmines the village had dug up.

Shiage took a landmine and set it up, while the villagers made some sort of device to enable the landmine to be detonated like a hand grenade, just pull the pin and wait for something to go over it. He threw a landmine at the tank, but since the landmine is set to explode towards one direction it missed the turret and blew upwards, not stopping the turret’s turning. It turned out Shiage was aiming for that to begin with as the blast destroyed the stone building the tank was next to and the debris came down and stopped it from turning, and the tank could no longer move. Then Shiage walked up to the tank, since these are not conventional soldiers, they don't have weapons to shoot footsoldiers equipped on the tank. He told them, "It’s a cold day today. It's a nice day for a barbecue." in Japanese, not caring if they understand it or not. he then chucked a Vodka bottle into the air hole. Then when the pirates came scrambling out of the tank, thinking it’s a Molotov Cocktail, he readied his handgun without hesitation. The pirates came out of the armoured vehicle due to it being stuck and decided to fight on foot, but found if not taking into account proficiency in fighting, the villagers have more guns and people than the pirates. The attack on the village stopped.

Daiguruv told Shiage that the villagers had locked the pirates up in an unused shelter. Normally, the pirates deserved to have their legs broken and be devoured by wild dogs, which some villagers were actually advocating to do. If Shiage, the one that stopped a tank, hadn’t begged not to kill them, nobody would have stopped. Shiage felt his gun’s weight more keenly after that. In the end against the hated enemies who were frozen in fear against Shiage after running out of the tank, Shiage didn’t open fire. If his life were at stake Shiage wouldn’t have hesitated, but as he had time to think about it, he couldn't shoot another human.

The villagers raised an alarm, three helicopters each over 30m long were heading their way. These are probably all pirates. Daiguruv told the villagers to scatter and hide in the forests, since the pirates might have heat and magnetic sensors. Shiage decides to stay and fight, using one of the anti-aircraft gun turrets from the tank he immobilised. After removing the rubble using heavy machinery normally used to remove snow, they found the twin-linked gun have one of its barrel broken. As Shiage climbed in Daiguruv smiled mournfully and said that just one person can’t operate that – they’d need at least 3 people; one to move the vehicle, one to shoot, and one to command and look at their surroundings. Daiguruv planned to ask some of the villagers to come and help, but Shiage don’t want to – it’s one thing to risk himself but it’s another to risk others’ lives. The soldier they saved earlier decides to help them, he says that he wants to pay back the debt of them saving his life. Shiage decides he absolutely cannot lose, for the girl that he holds more important than his own life, and for the villagers that took care of her.

The Pirates fired missiles at the turret which Shiage have driven back into the forest, and after they blew out a clearing in the forest it gave Shiage's group a chance to fire back without the trees getting in the way, and managed to take out a helicopter. The other two helicopters decided to not use missiles and just pepper them with shots, and chased after the turret using the sensors in the helicopter. The sensors says they've hit their target, but later found it is metal from the cars the villagers hid in the forest to confuse the sensors and ended up being open to return fire by the turret.

The remaining helicopter is about to shoot Shiage and the others, before a 3.5m long sword ended up stabbed into the helicopter from the side. Acqua then pulled out the sword and landed, with the helicopter crashed behind him and burned brightly in orange flame, but the snow around Acqua turned to water and put out the flames, with the rest moving unnaturally. Acqua then said he might not know what happened here but he'll help.

115 kilometers away from Elizerina, Shiage sees Acqua attacking a russian fortress. The battle ends in just 110 minutes, and Shiage gets and eerie feeling just by looking at this one sided slaughter. Shiage is analyze that exceeds the limit of human realm. Shiage reunites with Rikou and the villagers and decides to go to Elizarina Independent Country Alliance. The villagers sadly say goodbye to them, and the little girl says Shiage to take care.

Later, they're trying to get away from academy city's infantry and armors as they got really close to Elizarina border. As they enter into Elizarina, one of the armors still pursues them, but they're saved by Accelerator. In the country, Rikou is healed by magic procedure, but the damage is already done and the recovery long.

During the fight against Fiamma, Gabriel and the Star of Bethlehem, Shiage and Rikou captured one of Russia's special op agents setting up the biological attack, and asked the ex-soldier who came out looking for a missing child to go back and warn everyone about the incoming attack. Shiage then went to find the abandoned nuclear base, and told the ex-soldier if he doesn't call back in 30 mins then evacuate anyway. Later, when Acqua lost all his ability to perform magic and messed up his body draining a third of Gabriel's Telesma, Shiage and Rikou came across him while they are trying to stop the biological attack from Russian Military, and Shiage asked Rikou to heal Acqua as they took out some bandages. Acqua asked them to stop, as on the battlefield resources are limited and those can be better used by saving someone else, to which Shiage just told him to shut up. Acqua continued saying he achieved what he came to do, and they should just leave. Shiage then replied in a pained voice, "What about the ones waiting for you to come back?", and Acqua froze up. Shiage continued saying Acqua has saved so many people, just like when he came to save that village and him, there's no way he'll be alone as those people follow in his footsteps; so what about everyone he'll leave behind? Shiage's words are like nails pinning Acqua down, preventing Acqua from sliding off into oblivion. Acqua flashes back to many people, the Knight Leader, the ones he saved, and most importantly - 3rd Princess Villian. Shiage grabbed Acqua by his collar and yelled at him to stand up. Blood spurted out as Acqua tried; he may have lost all his abilities as a Saint and one of the God's Right Seat, but even now as a "Ordinary Human" he clenched his teeth to stand back up.

Academy City forces wiped out the troops planning a biological attack, but Shiage and Rikou got caught up in the blast and Shiage fainted. When Shiage finally woke up Mugino is right behind him and he narrowly avoided a eye-beam by her.

Mugino engages in fight against him and uses Crystalized Esper Essence, but the effect is to much to handle and she ends losing the fight. Then, Shiage as he see a powerless and trembling Mugino at the ground, decides that even if he choose to save his loved one, Rikou, that doesn't mean that he can't forgive Mugino and try to save her too. As he always regretted fighting with Mugino all that times and as he released what’s from the bottom of his heart Hamazura Shiage finally saw the image of their ‘true enemy’. It’s not monsters like Mugino. It’s people that can turn a normal girl into such a monster. He doesn’t want to spout lines like it’s due to the failure of society or circumstances. Just like Mugino’s disaster is something that can never exist in nature, she was that kind of nightmarish existence.

Shiage reprimends her, “So, you have to have the resolve to apologise to Kinuhata, even if it might means putting your life on the line. And say sorry to Takitsubou, and cry for forgiveness in front of Frenda’s grave. Then…” Shiage finally got the words he wanted to say out, “Then, we can go back to being ITEM. We can definitely go back!”. After that, he swore that he, a Level 0, will protect all of them.

After their talk, Academy City’s bomber planes drop three units to silence them. They are attacked by soldiers 「Equ.Darkmatter」. Mugino, Shiage and Rikou defeat them. The group take down ITEM's backer on the Board of directors and began to interrogate her to spilling all she knows about Academy City's 'potential ratings', known as [Parameter List].

Plot - New Testament
Shiage is out watching a movie with Rikou, a movie recommended by Kinuhata, and they were clearly not enjoying it.

Abilities
Hamazura Shiage is a true level 0 with no esper abilites. As a result, if he wants to survive, he must think ahead and rely on other weaponry.
 * Firearms - He's demonstrated that he's somewhat proficent with firearms. He was able to successfully shoot 3 people holding Rikou hostage while falling out of a helicopter.
 * Close Combat - He is shown to be a skilled close combatant in his fight against Touma in the Skill-Out Arc. Shiage himself has stated that in order to fight with espers, Skill Outs work out more than professional athletes in order to have a chance.
 * Intelligence - He has constantly outsmarted higher level espers. An example of this is shown when he tricks Mugino into attacking a jet while he escaped, leaving her caught in an explosion. He also showed as well to be a great tactician, even using himself as bait in battles.

Quotes

 * (Hamazura Shiage versus Kamijou Touma in SS1) “So that’s what happened? We’re all done for here. We’re all going to get taken in by Anti-Skill and the guy at the center of it doesn’t even know what’s going on? My life, the life of Hamazura Shiage, is about to end. This is the finale... I thought I had at least gotten wrapped up in some conspiracy or been dealing with some genius tactician, but I wasn’t even being tricked? Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”
 * (Hamazura Shiage talking about Skill Out in SS1) "Level 0's like us can't live without doing this kind of thing! We get mocked wherever we go, and when we make a place for ourselves, it gets destroyed in the name of making the area look nice. With things like that, what path other than preying on others is there for a level 0?"
 * (Hamazura Shiage talking about Komaba Ritoku in SS1) "Our level 0 leader, Komaba Ritoku, lived like that and he died earlier today. He died while trying to protect the weak! In the end, it just isn't that simple for us. When the dropouts in the back alleys try to do that kind of thing, we just get laughed at!!"
 * (Internal monologue in vol. 15) "Being the only guy in a group of girls is kind of awkward"
 * (Hamazura Shiage while running away from an Esper in vol. 15) "“Ha ha!! Being a loser is the beeeeessssttt!!"
 * (Hamazura Shiage talking to Mugino Shizuri about Takitsubo Rikou in vol. 15) "But she said she didn't want a selfish bastard like me to die. She's the kind of person who says things like that! Someone like her needs to be happy. It isn't people like you and me that should stand above everyone else. If we don't create a society where the kind idiots stand at the top guiding everyone else, this shitty world will never get any better!!"
 * (After defeating Mugino Shizuri in vol. 15) "That was too easy, Level 5"
 * (Hamazura Shiage versus russian pirates in vol.20) "It’s a cold day today... nice day for a barbecue."
 * (Hamazura Shiage to Shizuri Mugino in vol.22) "To get back everyone together as ITEM, I’m willing to stake my life on it."
 * (Hamazura Shiage to Equ.DarkMatter member in vol. 22) “This is ‘ITEM’. Don’t go forgetting that even if you go to hell!” 
 * (Hamazura Shiage to ITEM's backer in vol. 22) "If what's on the line is protecting those most important to you, things no matter how terrible can be done for that goal. That is the truth. So now I'll let you see just how cruel humanity can be."