Hamazura Shiage

A level 0 former Skill-Out and the third male protagonist of the Science Side in Toaru Majutsu no Index after Accelerator.

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 being considered deliquents, defeating higher ranked espers using tactics, and intefereing with Aleister's plans, he isn't as idealistic or as nice as Touma and acts based on his own desires. He also pursues an romantic interest unlike Touma. In battle, he prefers to avoid fighting if possible or to finish the fight as quickly as possible, which is a contrast to Accelerator's old personality.

He fell in love with Takitsubo Rikou and because of this he decides to fight the 4th Lv.5 Esper Mugino Shizuri, also known as Meltdowner, to protect her.

Profile
The reason Aleister decides to eliminate him isn't because Shiage is a threat in general, but because he's an anomaly that goes against his plans. Him winning over Mugino is something that never should have happened and so far every attempt to kill him has failed and since then, his plans have begun to go awry.

Aiwass once commented that he is someone who is never looked at by people nor have any talent, but for the one person he loves he’ll become the hero.

Plot
Introduced for first time in the Side Stories (also known as Volume 13.5) of the novels, he became the leader of his Skill-Out gang after Accelerator killed the former leader, Komaba Ritoku, by orders of the Board of Directors. The same day he become the new leader, he accepted a deal with the Board of Directors to kill Misaka Misuzu, in order to prevent leakage of students because of the allegations of the Roman Catholic Church in Volume 13 after Vent 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 the previous boss. This went wrong as they were defeated by both Touma and Accelerator.

After that humiliatation, he left the gang's leadership to his friend Hattori Hanzou and became a chauffeur and informant for Team ITEM where he fell in love with Takitsubo Rikou. After that he plays more active roles since the 15th during the battles between the underground organizations of Academy City. After discovering the murder of Frenda, he betrays and fights ITEM's leader Shizuri Mugino to protect Rikou who was being forced the use the Esper Essence (a more advanced version compared to the one from the Railgun anime) to activate her powers to track down Teitoku Kakine, which began deteriorating her own health even more than it already has. Shiage managed to defeat Mugino by stabbing her in the eye and she lost control of her power and disintergrated her left arm when she shot at him, then poured the rest of his bullets into her and left her for dead. After leaving that battlefield Hanzou shows up and offers Skill-Out's leadership back to Shiage, which he refuses.

However, Shiage's actions interfere with Aleister's plans and later sends his assassins on a massive hunt to eliminate him. During the time met with Accelerator, who was looking for a terrorist group was 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 if Accelerator want to kill someone who no longer wants to stay in the dark side then he'll take him down. Accelerator knew it's a misunderstanding, but still complimented him for his action and bravery then charged. Shiage's planned to force Accelerator into a situation where even a bullet will 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 (the bucket-shaped kind) and threw it at Accelerator, hoping the magnetism from the broken robot will 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's crawling up Accelerator told him if he stays down he'll let him live, 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 Shiage planned to use her as a shield to keep fighting, he'll do Shiage a favour and rip him apart. But if the girl gets worse from fighting it'll be troublesome for him, and he'll 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 realised he misunderstood the situation, went to hold Rikou and cursing himself for being so useless. Rikou said Shiage's not useless, since for her he's willing to fight into a building where the Anti-Skills can't. Shiage's not convinced, thinking if it 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 himself is a punk as long as he can protect Rikou and her smile.

After that, while trying to escape from Aleister's assasins, he met once again with Shizuri Mugino. She survived her wound thanks to Heaven Canceler's Dark Legacy, now in hands of Aleister Crowley. After seeing Mugino toying with Rikou he 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 ends up blowing the whole place up with a chain reaction while Shiage ran like hell.

After the massive explosion he went back to check if she’s dead, 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’s distracted. After that Shiage crawled into a testing room for the new jets and their defence, and activated the program that engulfs the whole room except his location in a fierce combination of gale and heat. Mugino got 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 stealing a jet which was programmed to fly to Russia and shooting down their pursuers.

After reaching to 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 Elizerina, the country where Vent took Sasha to. He is pursued by the military forces station close to there until he is saved Acqua of the Back.

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 shoot 3 people holding Rikuo hostage while falling out of a Helicopter and nailing them.
 * Intellegence - He's constantly outsmarted Higher level espers, such as when he tricked Mugino into attacking a Jet while he escaped, leaving her caught in an explosion.

Trivia

 * Despite being held as the official third protagonist of the Science Side in the Light Novels, he's disregarded by a majority of the fans as a protagonist.