Kamisato Kakeru

Kamisato Kakeru (上里 翔流) is a character introduced in Shinyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index. Similar to Kamijou Touma, he holds a mysterious power in his right hand, the World Rejecter, a power that is the exact opposite of what the Imagine Breaker represents. With this and his similar background, he can be viewed as a counterpart to Touma.

His appearance in the story marks the abrupt end of the Magic God subplot that began since the end of the Othinus debacle after defeating most of the remaining Magic Gods in the world.

Appearance
Both he and the narration describes him as a normal high school boy. He has brown hair and eyes, and wears a uniform consisting of a white formal shirt with a red, yellow, and blue striped tie, a blue jacket buttoned by two gold buttons and grey trousers.

Personality
Kakeru has a firm and somewhat pessimistic view of himself as a 'normal high school boy', someone who he thinks is merely average or below in everything, not someone whom girls would look up to or fall in love with, and someone likely to be killed first on running into a supernatural incident, being nothing without special powers. This view may have come about partly because of his doubt and lack of trust in himself and others.

Believing that his situation would not occur naturally or logically, especially to a 'normal high school boy' such as himself, Kakeru thinks that the girls which have gathered around him have been twisted by the power he has been given. As a result, he hates the World Rejecter and the Magic Gods whose wishes ended up creating it, enough to hunt them all down and wipe them out. Despite this, he willingly makes use of their abilities and continues to save girls with his right hand, as a form of revenge in his own way.

Kakeru has a tendency to view the world through his own ideas and assumptions of similarity or difference, imposing them on himself and his surroundings, and assuming to understand. When confronting an adversary, he tends to try to prepare beforehand and acts calm and aloof (and in the case of Kamijou Touma, initially somewhat overfamiliar) while explaining his views to them and imposing them. However, if his views and righteousness are challenged, he will lose this composure and angrily deny and spite his opponent.

Unlike Touma, who would try to seek a solution where everyone would be saved even when one doesn't seem possible at first glance, Kakeru tends not to look for another way and is more willing to give up and cut one off to save another. He is also more willing to inflict potentially lethal injuries. However the two are similar in their intolerance of injustices inflicted on others and their tendency to fight to save girls they come across who are in trouble.

Kakeru has a habit of placing his hand to his neck and trying to crack it, though he is usually unable to do so unless he is angered. He also has respect for those he sees as strong, the kind without the conflicting desires that would make them a target for World Rejecter.

Background
Not much is known about Kakeru other than the fact that his existence is unknown even to Aleister Crowley. At the time of his first appearance, only Laura Stuart knew he existed. What is known about him prior to getting the World Rejecter is that he was truly an ordinary high school boy who lived in an ordinary town outside of Academy City. He was childhood friends with Elza but had stopped talking to her, and was classmates with Claire, admiring her from afar, both of whom he believed were ordinary persons like himself, unaware that they were a Magician and Gemstone respectively. In his conversation with Patricia Birdway, it is implied that he once had a girlfriend prior to getting a harem. Regardless, Kakeru was a normal high school boy who knew next to nothing about them prior to getting the World Rejecter.

Around the beginning of November, when the Magic God Othinus became uneasy with the world, a strange power began affecting Kakeru. It was not until two to three days prior to December 3, the time when High Priest, Niang-Niang, and Nephthys descended into the word, that the World Rejecter fully manifested in his right hand, born out of the wishes of the magic gods after becoming disappointed with the Imagine Breaker. In that short amount of time, he not only saved one hundred girls but also became acquainted with the world of magic and science.

However, perturbed by the dependence and affection of the girls that surrounded him, Kakeru began to believe that the World Rejecter had changed them, not believing at all that it was his actions when using the World Rejecter that drew the girls to him. Despite his complaints, he began using them when he was in trouble. Sickened that he had become the center of a veritable harem and believing that the magic gods deliberately put the power in his right hand, Kakeru decided to embark on eliminating all the magic gods for giving him the World Rejecter. Along the way he later learns of the Imagine Breaker and its wielder, Kamijou Touma, opting to find him to "lighten his burden" due to their similar circumstances, essentially wanting him to agree with his way of thinking.

Magic God Invasion Arc
While Kihara Noukan was busy killing the High Priest, Kakeru was out and about and using his World Rejecter in "exiling" the magic gods. His first appearance in the story is him easily exiling Niang-Niang, much to Nephthys's shock, right after they decided to destroy Academy City in order to kill the one (Noukan) who can kill them.

After defeating Niang-Niang, Kakeru explains that he has defeated all the other magic gods apart from the High Priest and Othinus as well as the nature of his power to Nephthys. Nephthys tries to stop herself from falling into the temptation of the World Rejecter, mustering enough willpower to try and create a new phase to change the world to defeat Kakeru, as she had the ability to hold her powers in reserve. However, it is too late; Kakeru crushes the phase she tried to embed into the world, and she is then consumed by the World Rejecter.

Despite this victory however, Nephthys manages to escape thanks to her being a mummy, with organs separated from her body, allowing her to escape after leaving her primary organs to be consumed, much to his dismay.

World Rejecter Arc
Later that night, Kakeru approached Touma and Othinus as they were returning from the shops. Judging from Touma's response that he had made contact with Nephthys, Kakeru declared that he had business with the Magic Gods. The two were about to clash, but they were suddenly interrupted when two other beings, one red and one black, locked in battle, ran into them.

After Touma managed to escape from the clashing duo, Kakeru was able to neutralize them and took one of them away with him, identifying a girl under the black creature. Once he'd spoken to Ellen and sent her a sample of the black creature for analysis via drone, Kakeru removed the black substance covering the unconscious girl and learnt of her identity; Patricia Birdway. At the same time, Touma returned to the scene of the battle, wondering whether Kakeru was alright, and found Leivinia Birdway under the red dress.

Taking Patricia to the Kamisato Faction's safehouse, an apartment near to the Tsukuyomi Residence, Kakeru received a few small scratches from her after she woke up. When Ellen arrived, he blocked Sample Shoggoth's attempt at lashing out and had Patricia explain her situation, learning she was infested with a parasite which had consumed her body's fat and had her life in its grasp. Not long afterwards, Claire and Elza arrived. Kakeru made a few efforts to get the girls to focus on solving Patricia's problem, but ended up giving up and being dragged along with them, first to a public bathhouse and then to a restaurant after their dinner was botched. During this time, Patricia noticed a hidden pain behind his expression.

After the others had apparently settled down for the night, Kakeru followed Patricia after she slipped away in order to search for her sister in District 7. Revealing himself to her as she was tiring, he managed to drag the rest of Patricia's situation out of her, learning about her sister's plan to save her and that she would die in her stead if Patricia didn't stop her, and confronted her over her lack of a plan. Asking Patricia how she defined salvation, Kakeru explained to her about his World Rejecter, demonstrating it on a nearby wind turbine, and offered her the option of the 'salvation' it could provide. However, Patricia rejected his offer, knowing that it wouldn't save her sister. Reassuring Patricia, Kakeru eventually managed to persuade her to let him help her. Seeing them, Ellen, Elza and Claire also resolved to help, together with the assembled Kamisato Faction.

Ambushing and incapacitating Tsuchimikado Motoharu, Kakeru and his faction set a trap for Touma in his apartment. After Touma was snared and dragged out by Claire's vines, having come to get some food from his neighbor, Kakeru approached him with an offer to talk after introducing Claire and Elza as well as describing their abilities.

Kakeru explained to Touma about his circumstances, how he had been normal until recently, how he had only acquired World Rejecter a few days ago, and found himself the center of a harem of girls after saving them. He expressed his belief that his power was responsible and his disgust at the Magic Gods for apparently forcing it on him and twisting the girls' hearts, trying to persuade Touma, whom he thought was similar. However as Touma challenged Kakeru's viewpoint, he began to lose his composure and rejected what he was hearing. Eventually angered to the point of cracking his neck, he accused Touma of having been corrupted by the power given to him by the Magic Gods. Recognizing a clash was now inevitable, Kakeru left briefly with his faction, but before he went, he told Touma to check with Leivinia to see if she was hiding anything.

Not long afterwards, Kakeru and his faction began their attack on the Kamijou Residence. With help from Index, Touma made use of a distraction created from the use of Spell Intercept on Elza's coins in order to reach Kakeru. Tackling Kakeru, he intended to keep the Kamisato Faction's attention focused on them and disrupt their formation. As the fight proceeded down the stairway, Touma confronted him on forcing a clash between the sisters. Fighting back, Kakeru described their intentions to deal with the immediate threat of Leivinia's fruit and deal with the non-immediate threat of Sample Shoggoth by figuring out ways to control the parasite or having Patricia hooked up to devices to feed nutrients into her bloodstream, despite the fact that Patricia would be left in a state where she would only be alive in a medical sense. He then declared his admiration for Patricia's courage in facing her circumstances without giving up as his reason for supporting her.

As Touma challenged his idea of salvation and righteousness, as well as his decision to cut off one of the sisters rather than save both, effectively driving Patricia to the edge and praising her to jump, Kakeru mocked him, claiming that there was no way for them to save both, accusing him of hypocrisy and of being one that doesn't choose or take on burden and will thus lose everything. He was then stunned when Touma provided an alternative method which the rookie hadn't considered; using Claire's ability to inject replacement fat into Patricia's body to replace the ones she had lost and displace the parasite, allowing it to be safely dispatched without killing her.

Kakeru helped Touma reach the battling Birdway sisters, and watched as he and Claire put the plan into action. When Sample Shoggoth started lashing out and Touma was forced to protect Claire with the Imagine Breaker, killing it prematurely, Kakeru saw Nephthys sacrifice herself in order to save the dying Patricia. With Patricia's issue now dealt with, Kakeru turned his attention to Othinus, the only remaining Magic God, and once again asked Touma if he didn't feel that they had the right to take revenge for what the Magic Gods did to them. Touma replies that if he thought the Magic Gods were nothing but evil after seeing Nephthys's sacrifice then he was truly his enemy. Kakeru then faced Touma alone as the other girls stood back, wondering before they began what would result from his World Rejecter and Imagine Breaker, the ultimate weapon and shield, clashing.

During the battle, Kakeru managed to overcome Imagine Breaker with the World Rejecter, however immediately after it was removed, he was heavily wounded by the other existence within Touma. Afterwards, he communicated with Ellen and spoke about what had happened. As the girl was in disbelief at the implications of Kakeru's words, their communication link was cut off and Kakeru was confronted by Kihara Noukan, whom he identified as the city's grim reaper. Managing to swing his limp arm and erase some of Noukan's weaponry, Kakeru described his realization that the incident with Patricia Birdway was engineered by Academy City as a trap for him, suspecting Sample Shoggoth to be a Dark Matter construct, and his anger at the masterminds who had set things up.

Noukan opened fire on Kakeru with the Anti-Art Attachment's weapons but it proved ineffective as it was a valid target for the World Rejecter due to its connection to Aleister Crowley and his conflicting desires, its attacks neutralized and the components gradually erased. When Noukan was completely stripped of his weapons, Kakeru offered to spare him if he fled, together with the offer of a 'new world', but Noukan stood his ground, declaring that he would live and die in the current world following the path set by the original Kiharas and not be swayed by the salvation offered by the supernatural, leading Kakeru to remark that Noukan was strong, unlike the ones behind him. The ensuing battle left Noukan mortally wounded and he was placed into cold sleep by his student Kihara Yuiitsu in order to preserve his life.

Element Arc
Following the initial confrontation with Kihara Yuiitsu, the Kamisato Faction went underground while preparing their counterattack. Not long afterwards, they encounter the Elements which Yuiitsu had released into the city to draw them out. On discovering that they were slowed in temperatures exceeding 42 degrees, they had Karasuma Fran cause an intense artificial heat wave using her microwave communication space station, Bunny Grey Messenger. During the subsequent heat wave, they made District 7's White Springs Shopping Center into their base.

Early on December 9th, the Kamisato Faction, with Kamijou Touma in tow, made their way to the Windowless Building where Yuiitsu was lurking, dealing with the Elements that attacked them en route. In the space under the Windowless Building, they faced Yuiitsu who was wielding her own A.A.A. made from devoured Elements. They eventually overcame her but Yuiitsu's final gambit with the Windowless Building's rocket boosters forced Kamisato to use World Rejecter with conflicting desires, resulting in him being exiling to the 'new world'. Before disappearing, he asked Touma to look after the girls.

Kamisato Rescue Arc
After waking up in the 'new world', Kamisato was surrounded by the Magic Gods and beaten up, though they didn't kill him. Afterwards, Niang-Niang told him that they were content to stay in the new world though they wanted the new arrival to leave as soon as possible.

When the rest of Gremlin sought to resume the punishment, Nephthys and Niang-Niang decided to protect him, resulting in a devastating tussle between the Magic Gods. During the ensuing battle, the two talked with Kamisato regarding his issues. They managed to protect him long enough for Luca and Fran to retrieve him using the former's spell and the part of Nephthys inside Patricia Birdway to link to the new world.

On his return, Kamisato had a violent reunion with the rest of the Kamisato Faction, leading him to wonder if the Magic Gods had prepared a hell which only resembled a safe return. At dawn on December 11th, he listened as Useful Spider announced the end of the 48 Hours to Restore Order, with him and the Kamisato Faction moving to leave.

Abilities
Kakeru's ability is the World Rejecter, a mysterious power that resides in his right hand. Formed from the desires of magicians to abandon and escape the current world, it allows him to erase individuals with conflicting desires and their creations, and cast them into a 'new world'.

World Rejecter makes use of excess regions within the world's timeline - though parallel worlds are not known to exist and the world or universe is confined to a single timeline, the timeline can expand or contract like a rubber string, and as such it has a fair amount of unused space. Kakeru compares it to only using ten frames in a sixty fps film, with no one noticing if subliminal footage is slipped into two or three of the leftover frames.

In order to use World Rejecter, certain conditions must be satisfied. The most important condition is that the individual who is being targeted must possess conflicting desires in their heart, which cause them to waver and not focus on a single path, clinging to their current world while at the same time wishing for a new world. On the other hand, those who have a single goal in mind and are resolved to walk down a single path without wavering, are unaffected. As well as working on individuals, World Rejecter also affects anything created by those individuals, including physical constructs and supernatural powers. World Rejecter's effective range is determined by the shadow of Kakeru's right hand and its movements. As such, Kakeru makes use of a torchlight in darkness in order to support his power. The phrase "Do you wish for a new world?" also acts as a trigger,  however it is not a definite requirement.

As long as the conditions are satisfied, World Rejecter will erase the target and exile it to the 'new world', even for powerful beings such as Magic Gods. Kakeru claimed that if the conditions were met, it could even erase the sun or a black hole. The World Rejecter has been shown to be capable of crushing a newly created Phase before it could be embedded onto the world, and even managed to somehow erase Imagine Breaker. However it doesn't erase everything evenly at once - there is a slight time lag and it works from the outside in.

As the target is erased by World Rejecter, it is relocated and exiled to the unused regions of the timeline, the 'new world'. The erasure apparently doesn't cause the victim pain and in observed cases, induces a state of bliss and hope for the new world in their heart. Though Kakeru doesn't know what lies on the other side, he knows that there is at least something there, and considers the exiling in a way to be a form of 'salvation'. World Rejecter's victims are not technically dead, however it is noted that their situation, being erased, separated and exiled from the current world and unlikely to return, is such that they might as well be.

The nature of World Rejecter makes it particularly effective against Magic Gods, who ironically played a key role in its creation, having comprised the majority of the Magic Side's power. Magic Gods tend to possess the conflicting desires which make hearts waver, these feelings having unconsciously formed World Rejecter in the first place. Being all restricted to a single world, they also have a wish to leave the troubled world behind and spread their wings in a new world of unknown possibilities despite knowing that it wasn't possible, having searched the farthest reaches of the universe and the piled-up phases but found nothing new left. As shown with Nephthys, a side-effect of seeing the World Rejecter in action and knowing its effects is that a Magic God would be greatly tempted to let themselves be banished by it, being drawn to it in a similar fashion to a bug being drawn to its death by a bug-zapper or a sweet scented carnivorous plant. On realizing the danger, Nephthys quickly tried to use her reserved powers before she could give in to temptation.

Difference with Imagine Breaker
World Rejecter is the exact opposite of what the Imagine Breaker represents. The Imagine Breaker represents the ideal for magicians and magic-users that will allow them to fix, repair, and remain in the current world. On the other hand, World Rejecter gives them an illusion that will let them abandon, leave, and throw out the current world.

According to Laura Stuart, World Rejecter solidified because the incomplete Imagine Breaker could not contain the dreams and desires of all magicians. Because of this, these desires and dreams overflowed to create the World Rejecter, their hope that would grant them these dreams. Nephthys concurred that the World Rejecter was a "hope" formed from dreams escaping the Imagine Breaker, largely due to the influence of Gremlin's subconscious doubts in Touma. If Imagine Breaker represents the hope for magicians to return the world back to normal, then World Rejecter represents the hope for magicians to escape the world.

Unlike Imagine Breaker, which is restricted to Touma's right hand and what it touches, World Rejecter can operate from a distance, with its range determined by the shadow of Kakeru's right hand. While Imagine Breaker is always active and restricted to the supernatural, World Rejecter appears to be consciously activated and works on both natural and unnatural things, providing that they possess or originate from one with conflicting desires.

Character Art Design
According to Haimura, his design for Kakeru was based on an early rough of Sogiita Gunha. He intentionally made Kakeru similar in appearance to Touma, though much more refined-looking and taller.

Quotes

 * (From NT13): "I am the kind of normal high school boy you can find anywhere."
 * (His catchphrase from NT 14): “Do you wish for a new world?” ("新たな天地を望むか?")
 * (To Touma, from NT14): “How conceited are you? We’re nothing but the kind of normal high school boys you can find anywhere. We’re average or below in everything. And you think someone would fall in love with a person like that? You think this ridiculous harem is a natural thing and the Magic Gods only gave the girls the last little push? What kind of convenient fantasy world do you live in? Or have they already poisoned you and tamed you this much?”
 * (To Touma, from NT14): “It’s true I didn’t gain this power because I wanted it. If I could rid myself of it now, I would. And I do need to pay a visit to the Magic Gods who forced it onto me. But that doesn’t mean I can abandon someone who needs help.”
 * (To Touma about Patricia, from NT14): “I respect that courage. I respect that small sense of righteousness that allowed her to face the pain without running away and to accept the fear without giving up. So I’m sick of meaningless talk of good or evil. I don’t care who looks down on me or criticizes me. I won’t leave Patricia all alone. Her heart was powerful enough to deflect my World Rejecter, so I’ll support her to the end.”
 * (To Noukan after explaining his deduction about the Sample Shoggoth's origin, from NT14): “If I had to say whether I was irritated or not, I’d say I’m just a tad pissed. This too might have been drawn to me by this ridiculous right hand, but just this once, I’m starting to not even care. To hell with you masterminds. I won’t let you rob anyone of anything else.”
 * (To Noukan, from NT14): "It’s useless. My World Rejecter has the power to exile people to the excess region in the same timeline. It affects anyone whose conflicting desires cause them to cling to the current world while also wishing for a new world. In other words, your efforts here are useless. It doesn’t matter how much power you have or how many strategies you’ve put together. If the one who made that power has a wavering heart that can’t focus on a single path, then my World Rejecter will react to everything related to that individual. It will be exiled and blown away. Give up. You chose to join forces with the wrong person.”

Trivia

 * The name "Kamisato Kakeru" is actually a play on words that hints at his actions against Gremlin. "Kamisato" (上里; lit. "upper village") can also be written as 神里, meaning "gods' village" or "divine village", and "Kakeru" (翔流; lit. "soaring current") is homophonous to the verb 欠ける, meaning "to be damaged/broken". Thus, as a whole, the name "Kamisato Kakeru" can be written as 神里欠ける, creating a phrase meaning "[the] gods' village is broken". This fits how, through his ability, Kakeru has eliminated multiple magic gods affiliated with Gremlin.
 * Kakeru primarily uses 'boku' (ぼく) as a personal pronoun and 'kimi' (きみ) for a second person pronoun.

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Kakeru Kamisato