Kamijou Touma/Abilities

This article pertains to the abilities and powers of Kamijou Touma. Though most of it details the Imagine Breaker, the article also includes his other skills that he uses to even the odds against his opponents.

Imagine Breaker
Touma's ability is Imagine Breaker (幻想殺しイマジンブレイカー), 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. 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 realised 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.

Further speculation
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, it was not for the Imagine Breaker ability, but for it to act as a medium for his Holy Right to gain a corporeal form. Immediately afterwards, an "invisible thing" gathered on Touma's right shoulder which made all that Fiamma had pale in comparison, but 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 the power 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 Touma attempted to negate Mikoto's attack, 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 then 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"
Later, 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, allow him to judge accurately what to do next. Minute changes in the battlefield, like when Mikoto exuding 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, as in actions that are not voluntary in the part of one who is doing it, like blinking. It is like a heightened sense of perception or an instinct, to which Accelerator and Leivinia Birdway calls it Precognition or Mind's Eye, though it is not about knowing something before it happens like what true Precognition is, but knowing the little details that lead up to something happening. Literally, the original Japanese text calls it as Premonition Perception or sense of foreboding (前兆の感知).

The narrative states that Touma himself 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 is noted that if he actively tries to take note of these things (referring to the information that he subconsciously takes in and react to), 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 Touma, with his 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 seventh light novel of Shinyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index, 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 will not be able to '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.

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 when he tries to help other people, even when his opponents are Skill-Outs that carry deadly weapons. Also Touma has an incredible amount of stamina as displayed during Mikoto's attack on him where he took in every attack she threw and was still able to combat and beat Accelerator. He possesses a high threshold of pain, as demonstrated against his battle with Aureolus where his entire arm was cut-off and he was still able to think straight enough to beat Aureolus, although Stiyl said he just got "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 3.

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 the British Halloween, Touma displays the ability to be able to sneak and hide from others very carefully. During volume 20, Fiamma was amazed at how well he has gotten at doing it while he was trying to fight and locate him during his current ventures in Russia.

Touma has also displayed an aptitude for fighting cleverly against more conventionally-armed foes. In volume seventeen, knowing that there is a gun-wielding terrorist waiting for him directly in the cargo hold of a passenger plane, he pours heated coffee and tea into a ventilation shaft which he uses against the terrorist, tricking him into firing on the shaft and dousing himself in boiling liquid, rendering his gun useless at the same time while Touma is able to directly confront and defeat him. By "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. While demonstrating a knowledge of underlining working magic styles from his past experiences and the fighting tactics of his opponents, as he could quickly find the weak point in his opponents' spells, fighting styles and personalities where he would use them to his advantage to force them to draw or defeat them.