Misaka Misuzu

Misuzu Misaka (御坂美鈴) is a character introduced in Toaru Majutsu no Index. She is the mother of Misaka Mikoto and wife of Misaka Tabigake. She is a minor character, first appearing in the 9th volume.

Ever youthful in appearance, she is often mistaken for younger, as if she was Mikoto's older sister. Moreover, she is even friends with the similarly youthful Kamijou Shiina. She is currently studying in a university.

Appearance
Misuzu looks very young for her age. Her youthful appearance leads many people to assume that she is Mikoto's older sister, shocking them once they learn the truth. She is attractive and well-endowed with large breasts, in contrast to her daughter's small chest.

Personality
She is like the polar opposite of her daughter, both in personality and figure. While Mikoto is serious, more mature and responsible Misuzu is irresponsible, laid-back and alcoholic. Also, Misuzu has a large and bouncing bust while her daughter has smaller breasts, which Mikoto is self-conscious about. She teases her daughter about that.

In spite of this, she truly cares for her daughter. This is shown when she becomes part of the Recovery Movement in parents and guardians wanting their children back from Academy City, as well as her hesitating asking her daughter when she comes under attack by Skill-Out as she doesn't want to drag her into her problems.

Misuzu appears to have a low tolerance for alcohol. While drunk, she has a habit of clinging to young men that she finds attractive, as Touma and Accelerator found out on Octorber 3 when she got drunk and clung onto Accelerator as he called a taxi to take her to her lodgings. Touma ran into her when she refused to get into the taxi and ended up exchanging phone numbers with her.

Background
Not much is known about her other than the fact that she decided to go back to college.

Daihasei Festival Arc
While looking for Tokiwadai she bumps into Kamijou Touya and then proceeds to ask him if he can help. Being a gentleman he try to, but the map doesn't list it. The group then over hears Kamijou Touma arguing with Misaka Mikoto, in which of their schools will have a lower score than the other is forced to do whatever the winner tells him or her to. The parents watch this scene with relief and bemusement.

Later during the lunch break she comes while teasing her about Touma and their penalty game they are noticed by Touya and Shiina. She introduces Mikoto to them as "family of the one she likes", much to Mikoto's shock, and invites them to lunch together. When meeting at the restaurant the others are surprised that Misuzu is actually Mikoto's mother having believed her to be her older sister. She then unpacks their lunch cheese pot with a mini gas stove to cook it on. Mikoto then strikes her. Mikoto is surprised at the insane amount of food her mother prepared, and Misuzu justified it as a hearty lunch to properly give her nutrition to develop certain areas to which Mikoto assumes she means her breasts.

After lunchtime was over, Kamijou Touya, Shiina and Misaka Misuzu, having booked their seats beforehand, quickly headed to the next arena.

Skill-Out Uprising
She returns to Academy City as part of the Recovery Movement, a group that wants to take their children home due to the worsening political situation after Vento of the Front’s attack on Academy City. The Board of Directors does not want that, since the children are valuable test subjects and in a worst-case scenario, they are valuable military assets for the city. The Directors actually go so far as to hire Skill-Out to eliminate her, offering amnesty to Skill-Out if they succeed.

She first appears drunk to Accelerator, easily overpowering him. He later calls a taxi for her to get her to her intended destination. Only after she left did Accelerator recall that she is part of the Misaka family, and is later told by the GROUP liaison to kill her because the higher-ups cannot trust Skill-Out, though Accelerator refuses, leading to his choker-type electrode to be interfered with, making him incapable of using his power.

She then appears drunk before Touma and Index, after the taxi stops, whom recognizes him back in Daihaseisai, and Touma recognizes her in turn. She later asks him where the Dangai University Database Center is, and later asks for Touma’s number. Touma later has a taxi take her there.

Unsurprisingly, she is attacked in the facility, leading to her calling Touma for help instead of Mikoto, because she doesn’t want her daughter to be involved in whatever she has to face. She is then caught by Skill-Out during their attack, at the same time as Touma and Accelerator infiltrated the facility.

Seeing the danger that Misuzu being caught in the middle of the Skill-Out's argument, Touma decides to find a suitable weapon to defeat the Skill-Out without them being able to counterattack. Touma later finds a gun that was carelessly left by the Skill-Out in the open, opting to use it to threaten the Skill-Out, Touma tries to carefully acquire the handgun without drawing the attention of the Skill-Out, since it was somewhat close to them. Touma's plan however, fails after Misuzu noticed him. This forces Touma to hide from the oncoming Skill-Out, Hamazura Shiage, who decided to check on the disturbance that Misuzu noticed. Now with the risk of trying to get the handgun increased, Touma decides to attack Shiage first with the bullet proof glass. The attack connects to Shiage's face, which painfully removed his nose piercing, quickly taking him down. However, Touma is unable to get the handgun as he discovers that there was actually two Skill-Out that came to investigate. The Skill-Out however was shaken by fear after Touma takes down Shiage. The other Skill-Out however, started shooting at Touma, out of terror as the Skill-Out that came to investigate with Shiage was shot down by friendly fire.

Touma who has been using his bullet proof glass to protect himself from the gunshots, decides to run towards the Skill-Out that were with Misuzu. However, Touma eventually loses grip of the glass and making Touma utterly defenseless. However, before being shot Accelerator arrives to take down everyone who was holding the gun in the room, which ignites a firefight between him and the remaining Skill-Out. Touma uses the firefight to his advantage to quickly and carefully free Misuzu of her binds and escape the facility.

While escaping, Accelerator notices Touma taking Misuzu away, believing him to be a part of Skill-Out as he does not realize the boy's identity, Accelerator aims his gun at Touma. However, Accelerator later lets them get away after several Skill-Out arrive at the room after hearing the firefight, and is forced to take care of them first and then go after Touma later who he believed will not kill Misuzu before getting into a safer grounds, as well as the fact that Touma did not carry a gun with him.

Both Touma and Misuzu to escape the facility successfully, however, they both later came upon an injured and distraught Shiage who has somehow managed to escape the firefight and was now blocking their path. Here, Shiage accuses Touma of being one with their client, Academy City, and tricking them. However, Touma states that he does not know what Shiage is talking about and only came at the request of Misuzu. Misuzu watches from the sidelines during Touma’s entire fight with Shiage.

After the incident, Misuzu later tells Touma, who was being sent to the hospital for his injuries, that she came to Academy City to take Mikoto away due to the impeding war between Academy City and the Roman Catholic Church. However, Misuzu states that she changed her mind after seeing that there are apparently many people who will protect Mikoto in Academy City.

With the help of Etzali convincing the higher-ups, they call off the kill order on Misuzu after she decides to leave Mikoto in Academy City.

Homecoming Arc
She and Shiina are at indoor pool of the fitness club, she brings up that her husband is away from home for his job, and her daughter is living in a dorm making her feel lonely with just herself at home. Shiina counters that she understands with has so many trips that it seems like he never actually settles down in their home. Misuzu then remakes on how surprising it was for her come here today as she hadn't been coming for a while. Shiina then explains about Touma going missing and briefly seeing him in the corner of a report from Russia, and so she didn't really have the energy to spare for any hobbies. Though the full details where obscured to Misuzu as Shiina said them quietly and quickly where she had been unable to catch it all of it, but as her friend continued to speak to herself a frightening shadow start to appear behind her smiling figure, and that made her back away from her friend.

Magic God Othinus Arc
During the GREMLIN invasion of Tokyo, Kamijou Shiina and Misaka Misuzu are in a sports club, forced to stay inside as the streets have become overrun with panicking people. Misuzu pulls out her phone and discovers that the internet has become frozen and that they are only able to connect to the disaster messageboards, putting them in the dark on what exactly is happening. Shiina asks what they should do, to which Misuzu says that she lives alone so she should be fine, and Shiina replies that she should be fine as well. As she spoke however, Shiina held her phone and began pushing the buttons, prompting Misuzu to ask if she is making a call despite the probability that it won't get through. Shiina then says that she would like to leave a message on the message board, prompting Misuzu to join in.

Daihasei Festival Arc
In the Toaru Kagaku no Railgun Daihasei Festival arc counterpart, her role is generally unchanged from the main story, but when the story surpasses the time period covered by the original arc, she becomes a little involved in the plot.

Misaka Misuzu first appears after Mikoto’s three-legged race with Kongou Mitsuko. Mikoto, Uiharu Kazari, and Saten Ruiko would later meet up with Misuzu. Mikoto notes that her clothes are dirty and that changing them would be difficult for the next event, to which Ruiko says that Mikoto should ask someone to go in her place. This however makes Mikoto accidentally divulge on her little bet with Kamijou Touma, which entices Misuzu and later has both Kazari and Ruiko discuss the person who is "helping Mikoto a lot", much to her embarrassment.

She doesn’t reappear until the next day, unaware of the battles her daughter is partaking or that her life is in danger. Moreover, she doesn’t even know that the memories of her daughter’s friends were tampered with by Shokuhou Misaki. Wanting a hostage against Mikoto, believing her to be the one that was attacking their "villas" (hideout), Kouzaku Mitori, hacks into the GPS functionality of the ID system for Daihaseisai visitors to locate Misaka Misuzu and use her as a hostage against Mikoto.

Meanwhile, Misuzu meets with Kazari who is with a lost boy waiting for his father to pick him up. Kazari divulges on how the IDs of the visitors have GPS functionality, and as such can be tracked by Judgment headquarters if someone is lost. As they talk together, Mitori later finds them both and knocks them unconscious intending to use them as hostages against Misaka Mikoto.

Misuzu is asleep through the entirety of the arc. She is saved by Shirai Kuroko during Mikoto’s confrontation with Mitori. They later return to Judgment 177 Branch Office, and later lets Kazari and Misuzu have some medicine and some sleep.

To protect Misuzu, Mikoto requested Kuroko to tell Misuzu that she collapsed of heatstroke and that she will be kept in the office for protection under the guise of getting a new ID issued. Presumably, she enjoys the rest of the Daihaseisai after the events of the arc transpires.

The Fifth Friday of September
In SS2 it turns out Misuzu and Kamijou Shiina became friends after meeting at Academy City's Daihaseisai, they regularly see one another at the swimming pool of a fitness gym in Kanagawa. One day they discuss several topics from their husbands constantly on the move for their jobs, the cancellation of both their children's midterm tests, to what determines if someone can gain psychic powers or not through Academy City's power curriculum.

Misaka Mikoto
Mikoto often comments her mother acts more like a child than she does. This causes their relationship to be slightly antagonistic, as Misuzu's irresponsible demeanor and childish behavior are the polar opposite of her daughter Mikoto's mature and responsible nature, with the latter regularly and openly shouting "shut up, stupid mother" in public and the former frequently teasing her daughter for her lack of "development" (her breasts) and relationship issues.

Despite this, they do love each other dearly, as seen when Mikoto is willing to go shopping with Misuzu for souvenirs and tells her mother to not fall for scams.

Design Evolution
Misuzu's design remains static throughout the series. Haimura refers to her as an older sister with a refreshing personality.