Kumokawa Maria

Kumokawa Maria (雲川鞠亜) is a character introduced in Shinyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index, as Kumokawa Seria's younger sister. Seemingly a background character as a maid-in-training of Ryouran Maid School and friend and classmate of Tsuchimikado Maika in her first introduction.

She is reintronduced as a during the Natural Selector tournament, where she receives reports that Kihara Kagun, her beloved missing teacher would be there. She later gets caught up in the experiment of Othinus in Baggage City, and the bloodbath that ensues in the battle between the Kiharas and Academy City forces and GREMLIN and the Baggage City forces, and tries to survive. She is arguably the main heroine of the 4th Shinyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index Light Novel Volume.

Appearance
She has long black hair in ringlet curls and has a moderate chest size. Her maid outfit has the appearance of a certain electronics street with a fluorescent yellow based color. The outfit itself had a mini-skirt, black thigh-high socks, frills a nameplate in the shape of a rabbit attached to her skirt, and a black corset.

Personality
She is cheerful, confident and prideful due to her abilities and talent as a maid are superior. Her goal is to find and service an incompetent and stupid master; to do this she works her pride to be damaged to a level where it will not break.

She also has a strong sense of justice, helping people who are a threat to her life, not allowing Shuri to kill people, and even merely subdued Kihara Enshuu even after all she had done to her. She is referenced as someone similar to her sister, as someone who could not do not do anything to prevent terrible things from happening despite knowing about it.

Furthermore, she is greatly acquainted with scientific principles, analytic, and is pragmatic, allowing her to solve situations without needing any special powers or assistance. For example: using her maid outfit to cause a dust explosion, as well as using a blowdryer to destroy "bugs". She is also determined, going all the way from Academy City to Baggage City just to find a single person. Moreover, she has one of the best grades in her school, and the narrative states her as a transcendent genius.

She has no problem in showing off her skin to other women if the situation calls for it, or use her bare thighs to subdue enemies.

Her behaviour in the 4th NT novel makes her the funny man to Shuri's straightman, like a comedy duo.

Background
She was once a student of Kihara Kagun and like her fellow classmates had respect and gratitude towards him. She was however, part of the students who have witnessed Kihara Kagun kill a murderer, and though Kagun was acquitted of the charges of murder, he resigned as a teacher and left the city. This event, and the his resignation and departure, weighed heavily on the students' minds, most especially Maria, who had wishes to bring him back to Academy City.

Maria would later become a maid-in-training in Ryouran Maid School and would become friends with Maika. She may have learned of the dark side of Academy City, as well as the exploits of Kamijou Touma through her sister, though it is not apparent how much she knows.

Homecoming Arc

 * Main article:Homecoming Arc

She is first seen coming upon her friend Maika, and having a one-sided conversation about her pride, where Maika states that she has already heard her say that. Maria later asks Maika on how she is overly excited, so Maika tells her how earlier in the day she saw someone she thought dead in front of her. Maria becomes excited because this, misunderstanding her relationship with Touma, though calms down because her pride may swell up again. Maika then tells that they are merely friends, which excites Maria again, thinking that it will strengthen her after Maika shoot her prediction down, much to Maika's chagrin.

Baggage City Arc

 * Main article:Baggage City Arc

After receiving reports that Kihara Kagun would be in Baggage City, Maria determined to go to the city during the Natural Selector tournament by the Science Guardian, despite the fact that she could get captured.

At the height of Academy City's invasion of Baggage City and the ensuing chaos that occurs therein, Maria comes upon an underground passageway, and thither, finds Oumi Shuri, trying to kill a soldier. Maria blocks her attack, and immediately after forcibly takes Shuri’s kunai away using spinning. She spins again, which allows her to be of a higher position than the man, slamming her knee into his jaw, incapacitating him. She was now on top of the man, with her weight pressing down on him. Shuri, sitll being cautious, prepares for action against her. Maria is asked by her who she is, to which she confides her identity of being from Academy City, and that she is looking for someone. Seeing that she may be a trouble to her mission, Shuri takes out a shuriken and prepares to fight; however, Maria just warns her that she'd lose, as Shuri can only use both hands to fight, while she can use all four limbs. Not believing in this, she takes out a liquid red red pepper water cannon and shoots her with it. However, Maria simply dodges by standing on her two hands, and begins spinning back upright. Unimpressed by this Shuri asks for a match, to which Maria agrees, with her giving back the kunai back to Shuri. Here, she reiterates her desire to finish her mission. Hearing this, Maria decides to beat her to protect her life from the chaos that is currently happening in the city. Immediately after, using all four of her limbs, Shuri loses her consciousness to Maria.

Maria then moves Shuri to a control room for the supply of hot water to Baggage City. When she comes to, Maria gets attacked again by her, but easily subdues her. As she tries to talk to her, suddenly, someone fires a bazooka missile into them, though it was merely a distraction, as she was knocked out by the bazooka being used as a blunt weapon. Maria is knocked out for the most of the fight and the apparent arrival of Kihara Kagun, the main in white and helmet that saves Shuri from Enshuu. Kagun later tells Shuri to find Kamijou Touma if they want survive. After waking up, Shuri recounts the battle, and Maria quickly states that the man in white must be Kihara Kagun, the person she is looking for. Shuri then tells her that they should get moving, but not before Maria clears their clothes of potential bugs. Much to Shuri's chagrin, Maria strips before her, and starts blowdrying her clothes as to destroy the Data Pheromone System, she reckons, to have been implanted by Kihara Kagun to throw off her search for her. They later keep moving in the underground passageway where it is eerily abandoned and I quiet. However, they later see several abandoned Academy City military equipment scattered by Kihara Enshuu as a trap. Despite Maria's insistence on not touching it, Shuri tries to pick one of them as a change to get cutting-edge Academy City, though she later finds out that the equipment is useless and the move on.

Maria is later asked by Shuri about Kamijou Touma, though she gives an unsatisfactory response, and talks about on how her sister should know more. A tank suddenly falls above them, where it explodes due to its explosive reactive armor. Thinking that there would still be someone inside, Maria induces a dust explosion to explode the remaining armor, by flapping her maid outfit (though requiring for her to strip). They later find out its remotely controlled by a S. Berylan. Still blocked, they are later forced to crawl inside to get to the outside, and thither they witness one of Academy City's HsB-07s that have taken damage from Marian Slingeneyer's assault. However, because of the blasts all around them, a building collapses and the ground they stood upon collapsed as a response, though they are fine and manage to get to a safe area. Here, they begin doubting if they could meet Kamijou Touma in this chaos, and figure that they should get out of Baggage City instead.

Still in the underground passageway and trying to find a way out they accidentally stumble upon Marian Slingeneyer's secret room, and after seeing her "furniture" and hearing her threat, they begin running. Being followed by her, and they somehow managed to run back into the passageway where the tank lied, though Shuri states that they could use it to stop Marian's pursuit. Suddenly, one of Marian's traps, humans shaped into rectangular pillar shot around the narrow passageway, filling it and trapping their escape route. Marian catches up to them, and says that if they want to escape they'll need only see them as obstacles, not just living human beings. Having no choice, they are forced to engage Marian in order to escape. As Marian aims at Shuri, Maria kicks at Shuri in order for her to avoid her gold weapons, and warns Shuri not to fight. Maria tries to figure out Marian's powers through a scientific analysis. However, ever haughty, Marian explains that the moment that her gold touches them the alteration of their body begins. Maria employs a passive strategy to counteract this, building damage on Marian slowly, and then the both of them charge towards each other. Despite the danger, Maria's techniques manages to keep Marian's weapons at bay, and manages to trick Marian, allowing her to wrap her legs around Marian's right leg. With that lock on, Maria was able to exert pressuer on Marian's leg, hurting her. Marian attacks Maria, but the latter gets away before she can hit her. Maria then takes a stance and warns Marian that she can use 8 parts of her body to beat her. However, as soon as Maria charges, Marian uses her remaining human materials, there the floor, walls, and ceiling begin to exude fat, slowing down her advance, and with the water pressure sends forth nuts and bolts towards her. In a moment of preoccupation, Marian attacks, though Maria tries to headbutt her, though Maria is quickly struck downb by a rogue bolt knocking her out. Maria is left unconscious for the rest of the battle as Shuri turn the tables on Marian.

After getting knocked out with her fight against Marian Slingeneyer, Maria awakens in a different facility. Here, Saflee Opendays introduces herself to her, saying that she had found her collapsed in a passageway. She also introduces to her Osad and Mistray Flakehelm, whom she apparently saved and could not abandon. Maria asks about Oumi Shuri, to which she states that she saw her chasing Marian away, much to Maria's relief. Maria later notices that she is cold, and Saflee tells her that the heating facilities have been destroyed, and it is all the Kiharas fault. Saflee continues that if the people in Baggage City were in domed facilities, then they would be safe from the cold. However, that is only assuming those who have turned the city of battlefield will left them alone. Saflee states that they have half a day to defeat the rampaging "bosses" in Baggage City, or else millions of people will die. With that Maria teams up Saflee, with their first target being Kihara Enshuu, who is creating a biological weapon using mold, and head for the plant factory. Maria later questions on how Saflee knows this, to which she states a man wearing a helmet and a coat told her, which Maria assumed to Kihara Kagun, the man he was looking for.

Travelling together, Maria pays no particular attention to Saflee getting hit by Shuri's paper airplane, as they arrive at their destination. Sensing the cold, the both of them rationalize that they could not possibly destroy the plant factories and time, and that it would be more logical to destroy the electrical transformers for them. Finding them, they discover one of the containers line there open up, and cometh Enshuu, anticipating the weakness of the plant factories and her plan. Referencing Kihara Amata's combat patterns, Maria and Saflee begin their fight against Enshuu, as the microbes continue getting irradiated. The both of them charged towards Kihara Enshuu, with the latter keeping them both at bay. Enshuu then takes out a multi-purpose lighter and set aflame one of the containers that she had put oil on (surprising Saflee), rapidly melting the ice that formed between the containers that were piled on top of each other. There, the containers collapsed, which Enshuu further caused by setting aflame other containers. Using her remotely controlled helicopter-like toy she was able to gather information and set-up a small space that would not be affected by the collapse of the containers. Despite the difficulty however, Maria athleticism allows her to escape the falling debris and meet up with Enshuu in her safe zoneAngered by her actions and her talking about Kihara Kagun, Enshuu references several Kihara thought patterns at the same time. Maria steps outside of the safe zone, and kicked Enshuu on the cheek, which made Enshuu collapse on the snow. Enshuu, injured, tries to retreat from her. Here, Maria tells the reasons why Enshuu lost, she tells her that she will not become what she have analyzed, which means that her personality will be the one influencing the combat patterns she tries to mimic. Enshuu tries to use Kihara Kagun's personality but is shut down quickly by Maria, punching her in the gut. Enshuu tries to use Kamijou Touma, and then Kumokawa Maria's combat pattern, but this simply irritates her, and Maria simply beats her down every time she changes her combat patterns. Here, she tells Enshuu that she cannot win, and breaks down, saying that as a Kihara she shoud win. Enshuu then turns her multipurpose lighter into something akin to a flamethrower and charged forward, finally using the Kihara she knows fully well, herself. She is however, mercilessly kicked down into the snow.

Maria then tells her the other reason why Enshuu has lost, she tells her that she used herself to use those combat patters, a part of herself was shown when she used them, and with this Maria was able to analyze her combat pattern. Angered, Enshuu increase the output of her multipurpose flamethrower, despite the heat probably burning her as well. Out of pure instict as a Kihara, she charges forward with her flamethrower. In kind, Maria responded and attacked her, Enshuu however persists. But then, Enshuu's hand was then pierced by a kunai, Oumi Shuri and Saflee Opendays has arrived, and with this opening Maria knees Enshuu in the temple. Enshuu is later tied up by them.

Maria and the others later witness the death of Kihara Kagun after his battle with Kihara Byouri. Here, Maria goes towards her dying teacher. Kagun could only say "sorry" to her before dying completely. Maria breaks down, and begins shouting at his corpse, demanding him not to die and apologize for leaving all of them, but to no avail. Here, her quests ends, so near and yet so far away. However, Maria's little tearful sojourn is interrupted by Marian Slingeneyer's appearance, who is utterly disraught of her companions demise, and in her anger, decides to user her sword, Dáinsleif. Maria quickly picks herself up, and with her comrades upon seeing the sword, an indescribable feeling of danger ran through them, the three of them try to act positive regarding this and make a plan, even with that feeling and being in an advantage. However, Marian raises her sword, and lightning strikes it, surprising them. Maria gets a queer premonition and tells both Shuri and Saflee to scatter and try to do their plan. Marian begins unsheathing a little bit of the blade, and immediately after, Shuri's heart stopped. Saflee would soon follow soon after.

Alone, Maria tries to comprehend what had just occurred, and concludes that it must be the sword, as well as the effects it has on them, stopping their hearts before something even more terrible happens. Marian is impressed by Maria's analysis, althought this will not save Maria. Marian unsheathes the sword, and immediately after, her consciousness begins drifting away from her. Suddenly, a right hand appears from nowhere, somehow allowing Maria to retain her life, and immediately after, she discovers Kamijou Touma appears, finally destroying the distortion that has engulfed Baggage City. There, she witnesses the truth of what happened to Baggage City, and feels that Baggage City no longer reeks of death and oppression. Of Touma, she sees him accept the fact that he could not save Kihara Kagun in time. Despite this, Marian is angry with herself for failing to save him as well as angry at Touma for denying Kagun the cruel world that he died in satisfactorily. From there, Maria witnesses the battle between Kamijou Touma and Marian Slingeneyer and her sword, at the height of the battle, Maria starts muttering about Kihara Kagun and his true nature—that he may not have been all just a teacher but may have been a magician and killer himself, however he was still her teacher. She casts away her pride and pleads to Touma to not let Marian smear that memory of her teacher, and Touma acquiesces. After much struggle, Touma fulfills his promise and defeats Marian.

After the battle, Maria asks what he is going to do, and he answers that he'll have to destroy Marian's sword. Maria then asks on how Touma found out about GREMLIN in Baggage City, to which he answers that Kihara Kagun (Bersi) was the one who told him (not personally), leaving various hints as well helping him get off Hawaii. Touma then asks Maria what kind of person he was, to which she replies that she is someone worth pursuing. An expression of disappointment draws upon Touma's face as he recounts on how he could not save him, though Maria says it is fine as Kagun died with satisfactorily. Suddenly, Othinus comes out of nowhere and rips Touma's right hand off. Kumokawa Maria is unable to comprehend what has happened, and is totally ignored for the entirety of Othinus' appearance. Here, she sees in dizzying rapidity, Othinus crushing the "Invisible thing" inside Touma's right arm, as well as the arrival of Ollerus, the short-lived stand-off between him and Othinus, as well as the arrival Fiamma of the Right, as well as the reconnection of Touma's right hand back to him.

Ichihanaran Festival Arc

 * Main article:Ichihanaran Festival Arc

Eve of the Festival
Maria apparently arrives in Academy City before Touma, though by what means is unknown.

Maria first appears greeting her sister, Kumokawa Seria, surprised that a such-in such as her came out during the festival preparations. Seria comments on how it's only because people won't shut up being her turn. Maria thinks this this a veiled insult, and asks if she is talking about the beauty contests being held at various schools for the Ichihanaransai, and curses Seria if she her "assets" have grown. Seria notes on how she will not be entering, and that her role is only behind the scenes, as such, she doesn't like standing out too much. Moreover, she states that Shokuhou Misaki will just manipulate the votes using her powers, rendering her entering useless.

Maria then accuses her of saying that she doesn't stand out a lot already, to which Seria just says that it is just a difference in chest size. Maria says that Seria shouldn't become arrogant regarding that, and stop looking down on her. The two then argue about the values between large breasts and flat chests. However, much to Maria's consternation, Seria begins talking about Kihara Kagun, that she deems that Maria loves so much that it gives her nosebleeds, and involves his name in their little breast talk. The talk then transfer to what Maria was doing in Baggage City. Here, she asks if Maria really did fell in love with Kamijou Touma, and states that she will go "full-on soap opera mode." Maria then answers that it is a defamation of her character, and asks where she heard that rumor.

Abilities
Her ability is Violence Doughnut (暴風車軸), an ability to increase the centrifugal force in her by 0.5 to 2 times. Centrifugal force, one of the basics when fighting, increases destructiveness, but her bones and muscles are as only tough as a human's, so her trait was that her bones will snap if she punched really hard.

She is also trained the fighting styles of Capoeira, breakdance, and Pole dance, making her a mixed martial artist. Despite of her low level, and compounded with her personality, Maria is one of the most formidable melee combatants in the series, able to use her head, both of her fists, elbows, knees, and legs, as offensive weapons, and maybe many others such as her thighs. What's more, she is nimble and agile, able to weave through difficult and fast, able to move through obstacles quickly. Due to her queer mixture of styles, and pragmatic use of her body, opponents find her surprising to defend against in a melee combat.

Design evolution
Despite appearing in New Testament 2, Maria gets a character design only during the 4th New Testament light novel volume. Her design is based off the fake maids that hand out flyers in Akiba.

Quotes

 * (To Oumi Shuri from NT Volume 4): "Don’t do that. If you don’t have a water cannon loaded with liquid red pepper, you won’t be able to hurt my eyes. If you want to hurt my pride, you better bring along a flamethrower."
 * (To Oumi Shuri from NT Volume 4): "It can’t be helped then. I’ll hurt your pride to protect your life."
 * (From NT Volume 4): "It’s cold! This is no place to be wearing a maid uniform!!"
 * (To Kihara Enshuu from NT Volume 4): "Whether you have 5000 Kiharas or Kamijou Touma as your 10,000th personality, that is nothing more than having the same cards as an opponent in a card game. You have not become Kamijou Touma. You have only put together the same deck as him. No matter what deck you put together, you are making the decision of which cards to use in battle on your own."
 * (To Kihara Kagun from NT Volume 4): "Damn it, don’t die with a satisfied look! I’ll beat you up! I’ll beat you to death if it will wake you up! Besides, I hate people like you the most! That’s why you have to give it your all! But, why… why must you just simply die like that!"
 * (To Kamijou Touma from NT Volume 4): "Please. Please!... Do not remove the word teacher from his gravestone! Do not let that word be buried by some unknown enemy that only wishes for slaughter and destruction and who comforts herself with that sword!!"
 * (To Kamijou Touma from NT Volume 4): I do not know much, but I do know. I may not even know whether he was good or evil in the end, but I do know him. He is the one that saved some lives including my own and, for me at least, he was a teacher whose mystery was worth pursuing."