Tsurigane Saryou

Tsurigane Saryou (釣鐘 茶寮) is a character introduced in Toaru Kagaku no Railgun as a competitor for Jailbreak Trial. Originally a member of the Kouga School sent to infiltrate Academy City years prior, she is later shown to be a traitor, having allied herself with Kimi and her group.

Appearance
Tsurigane looks like a teenage girl. She wears school uniform with full-body climbing harness and carries Tanto (短刀) at her back. Her hair is short and tied in a low ponytail style.

Personality
She uses a facade of clumsiness and incompetency around her older colleagues, but is actually a two-faced backstabber.

Background
Tsurigane is a member of the Kouga School of ninjutsu. She infiltrated Academy City by disguising herself as a Child Error and has lived in Academy City for ten years. Despite being a member of the Kouga School, she appears to be bad at ninjutsu. Kouga School's training ends on age of five. She became an orphan at age of five.

At some point, Tsurigane became involved in the Dark May Project. She also became part of another team consisting of herself, Raifu, Aohoshi, and Kimi. She hid this fact from the Kouga. When Kimi was imprisoned, Tsurigane and the other two came up with a plan to break her out, using the cover of the Jailbreak Trial, and also find a skilled hacker in the process. Tsurigane proposed to bring in her ninja comrades so that they would win the trial if they weren't able to find a hacker. She assured Aohoshi that her comrades have high specs, though Aohoshi remained doubtful.

Jailbreaker Arc
Tsurigane first appears during the Jailbreak Trial. She is helped by another ninja while climbing the wall of 2nd Reformatory (Juvenile Hall). Two days before starting the Jailbreak Trial, she had helped her fellow Kouga sneak into Academy City easily. She suggested that they participate in the Trial to Oumi Shuri to observe Academy City's technology and achieve Shuri's purpose.

Although she joins the Jailbreak Trial as a team with Oumi, Yasu, Asai, and Sakata, she shows herself to be clumsy and incompetent, and in need of more training. However, this was a ruse. Later, after the jailbreak competition was concluded with Uiharu Kazari's victory, she is left alone with Shuri. Seemingly feigning injury, she tries to attack her in the back. Shuri catches the blade with her own, but it has already injured her. Knowing what Tsurigane has done, poisoning her, she runs away. Tsurigane later meets up with her real team, consisting of herself, Raifu, Aohoshi, and Kimi, with their plan to kidnap Uiharu.

Tsurigane later plays cards with Kimi and Raifu. Aohoshi tells them that she has obtained information on the winner of the trial, Uiharu. Tsurigane ends up losing the card game to Kimi.

They kidnap Uiharu that night, taking her away in a recreational vehicle (RV). Raifu mentions that Uiharu's capture was easy, but Tsurigane says that it is at times like these that they should be ready for anything. Suddenly, she senses something - Kuroko landing on the RV. Tsurigane climbs to the roof and engages Kuroko in battle, eventually forcing her to teleport away. She thinks about how she didn't expect the kidnapping to be noticed so soon, then sees barb wire rushing towards the RV and shouts a warning to the others. The wires bring the RV to a stop, so Tsurigane orders her subordinates to steal a new vehicle for them. Mikoto arrives and fights with Kimi, but is overpowered by the latter's dragon and Kuroko retreats with her. Afterwards, Tsurigane and her group leave in two vehicles, using the entrance-way road that leads to School District 11.

Eventually their vehicle crashes and Tsurigane is revealed to have been already outside hanging on a tree, she throws a needle but Kuroko dodges it. Tsurigane then engages in a battle against Kuroko, noticing she wasn't Mikoto she throws away some of the tools that she had prepared. While Kuroko teleports behinds her Tsurigane attempts to stab her using her dagger, but Kuroko blocks it with a tile she then jumps upwards and throws some needles while jumping from tree to tree at high speed, preventing her from teleporting. Kuroko is forced to stay on the defensive blocking them using her tile. Kuroko figures out that they are poisonous after it slashes one of Kimi's minions but is shocked at the fact that Kuroko figured out her powers in such a short amount of time to which Tsurigane explains her AIM observation power with years of experience of combat. Kuroko teleports at a distance then grabs a club weapon and Tsurigane comes with a suprise attack from behind but Tsurigane figures that she will teleport in front of her. Kuroko throws a rock as a feint attack and lands a hit on her using the club weapon.

However Tsurigane managed to regain her footing using her athletic skills and complementing Kuroko how she hid her tile under her clothes with landing a hit on her despite Tsurigane ability AIM observation powers to which Kuroko tells her how she was able to slash her clothes right before she attacked Tsurigane. After Tsurigane tells Kuroko that she also knocked one of her teeth, Kuroko sarcastically offers a judgment treatment. Tsurigane tells Kuroko that she already betrayed Oumi whom Kuroko thought she is the mastermind behind all of this and Tsurigane asks her about her earliest memories which Tsurigane reminisces about how she was in the mountains chased by wild dogs and Oumi saving her. She tells Kuroko she doesn't care about Uiharu kidnapping and that her goal was simply to betray her previous organization and she wants to die the same way the wild dogs that was killed by Oumi in her memory. While Kuroko is bored about her chatter, Tsurigane tells her about how to find a quick death such as the guillotine as she wants to die the same way. She asks Kuroko how does she wants to die, Kuroko imagining Mikoto romantic love for her as how she has serious illness. Both Tsurigane and Kuroko continue their battle with Tsurigane breaks part of Kuroko tile and slashes her club in half, she keep using her AIM observation powers to predict where Kuroko might teleport next as she tries to slash her but Kuroko teleports a centipede at her scaring Tsurigane but Tsurigane dagger stretches to Kuroko's neck after attaching it to a wire though Kuroko barely manages to dodge the attack, she kicks Kuroko but she managed to stop her wire-dagger attacks by coming closer and grabs her, though Tsurigane attempts to use a needle to stab her. However Tsurigane quickly manages to hold her wire-dagger as she tries to slash Kuroko but at the last second Kuroko teleports behind a tree. When Kuroko tells Tsurigane that she will arrest her as a judgment officer for the ATM robbery, Tsurigane charges at her using her wire-dagger while throwing her needle from behind and comes closer for Kuroko teleportation range preventing her from teleporting but Kuroko manages to dodge it distracting her enough for a surprise attack to use her wire-dagger from behind that managed to slash Kuroko's hand, however as a last resort she teleported away with little strength left only for Tsurigane to find her using her speed, surprising a wounded Kuroko as she corners her.

Abilities
Tsurigane is trained in Kouga ninjutsu. She is also a skilled actor, capable of fooling the veteran ninja Oumi Shuri into thinking that she is actually a poor ninja. With the advantage of surprise, she is able to land a hit on Shuri as well as parry her attacks. However, Tsurigane does not believe that she could find Shuri after the latter escapes.

Having been through the Power Curriculum Program, Tsurigane possesses an esper ability, initially referenced by Shuri when thinking about esper powers she wanted to see for herself, though not the right kind for her to see. It is later revealed to be an AIM observation power, which allows her to "see" and visualize the AIM diffusion fields of other espers. As a result of her years of both combat and AIM observation experience, Tsurigane can identify changes in the AIM diffusion field which occur when an esper performs calculations in order to use their ability and from those changes, she can accurately predict how their ability is going to be used.