Awatsuki Maaya

Awatsuki Maaya (泡浮 万彬) is a side character introduced in Toaru Kagaku no Railgun. She is a Level 3 Academy City esper whose ability involves the manipulation of buoyancy. She is often seen together with her friend, Wannai Kinuho.

Etymology
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 * Awatsuki means "foam, bubble, froth, lather, suds, scum, spume, head-on beer" (泡) (awa) and "float/floating, rise to surface" (浮) (tsuki).
 * Maaya means "ten thousand, myriads, all" (万) (ma) and "refined, gentle" (彬) (aya).

Appearance
She sports dark-bluish hair and eyes. Her bust size is large enough for Misaka Mikoto to be jealous over. According to Ogino Kentarou, Awatsuki's bust size is 85.

Personality
She is shown to be kind, and is also considerate and forgiving of other's flaws. She is also seen to be respectful towards a senpai. She also has diverse knowledge on swimsuits.

Background
She is a Tokiwadai Middle School student, and is part of the swimming team of her school along with her close friend Wannai Kinuho. She is also a classmate of Shirai Kuroko. She resides in the School Garden dormitory of Tokiwadai, just like Kinuho.

Three Stories Arc
They appear in the Index manga during the morning of August 30, just after breakfast. Here, Maaya stops Kinuho from bothering Mikoto, as she sees Mikoto restless and in deep thought (but is actually thinking about the newest chapter of the manga she's following).

Element Arc
On December 8th, in the middle of the abnormal heat wave, she was present when Mikoto arrived at School Garden with Kamijou Touma in tow. Later that day, she participated in the expedition to destroy the Crystal Tower that was seemingly guiding the Elements.

Level Upper Arc
She appears alongside Kinuho, when Kuroko and Mikoto are forced to clean the empty pool as punishment. As members of the swimming team, they are supposed to check the pool's filtration system, where they meet Mikoto for the first time, and are excited by her presence. She later offers Mikoto a drink, which upsets Kuroko. They leave but return shortly, where they witness Mikoto electrocuting Kuroko for being perverted. After seeing the awkward situation, they leave once more.

In the manga adaptation, they appear the day after the AIM Burst is defeated; however, in the anime, they appear before the existence of the Level Upper is even confirmed by the city.

Both Maaya and Kinuho appear again in Episode 13 of the anime, where they recruit both Kuroko and Mikoto for a swimsuit modeling photo shoot. After many bizarre situations, they are given duties to cook curry; however, it's revealed that neither of them know how to cook curry. They later ask Kongou Mitsuko (who had lied to everyone that she can cook curry) to teach them. After suffering many inconveniences, Mitsuko finally tells them that she doesn't know how to cook curry either, but they are somehow forgiving of her, and later ask Konori Mii to help them. They are able to cook seafood curry, and are able to become friends with Mitsuko.

Poltergeist Arc
She and Kinuho reappear during the Tokiwadai Midsummer Festival, where it is revealed that they reside in the School Garden dormitory instead of the one where the festival is being held. They had been invited by Mitsuko to enjoy the festival. They later see Mikoto's violin performance.

Maaya later reappears during the swimming team's practice, giving Kinuho a towel. Both of them later state their desire to visit Mitsuko in the hospital she was in (as she had been injured by the Poltergeist occurrences in the city).

They last appear in the epilogue of the anime, listening to how Mitsuko had apparently solved the Poltergeist Incidents.

Silent Party Arc
Maaya once again plays a supporting role during the arc. Here, she is first seen with Mitsuko and Kinuho. The two girls in the swimming are tasked by their upperclassman, to which Mitsuko readily helps. Later, they come upon a purse snatcher that is easily dispatched by Mitsuko and her Aero Hand. After Mitsuko requests for Kinuho and Maaya to call Anti-Skill, Aritomi Haruki arrives to berate Mitsuko for using her powers. Kinuho and Maaya arrive just in time for Haruki to wow the crowd with his reasoning, they try to make their case but Haruki disappears before they can mount an intelligent discourse.

They later aid their upperclassman again, this time in the Academy City Research Exhibition Assembly venue for the preparation of said assembly. Later, they meet up with Mikoto's group and there make friends with the mysterious girl they brought, Febrie. When Febrie became lost in the venue, the girls participated in her search. Later, when they part ways Mikoto, she and the other two girls see Haruki. Wanting to tell them a piece of their mind, they opt to follow him. Here, they discover that he has a nefarious plot in store for Febrie. Mitsuko upon hearing this, tries to call Mikoto and the other girls but cannot connect with them. She later opts to find them, to which Kinuho and Maaya try to plead to her to take them, though feeling guilty with this, she convinces them let her go. Worried about her, the two later call Mitsuko. They being left out by Mitsuko would serve as a catalyst for Mikoto to eventually ask the aid of her friends against Academy City's Darkness. Mitsuko is later tasked in aiding Mikoto and the others help search for clues regarding the man who wants to reclaim Febrie in the Academic Assembly venue, but this time she brings Kinuho and Maaya along. Mitsuko later reports on their failure to Mikoto. When Mikoto says that they too have not yet found clues regarding the Powered Suit that attacked Febrie, she tells Mikoto that she'll help as well, saying that her father's company has a branch that works on Powered Suits. Apparently having free time from investigating the man who is after Febrie, Mitsuko, Kinuho, and Maaya, go out and buy a new dress for Febrie. They later go to the Judgment 177 Branch Office to see Febrie. There, they are enquired by the girls if they found any clues, and here they are forced to apologize for their failure Mitsuko tries to cheer everyone up by saying that they'll surely find a clue sooner or later. She later presents the gift to Mitsuko with much anxiousness, but becomes happy when Febrie readily accepts it. They later sees Febrie swoon as the poison that is accumulating her body is already too much for her to bear. Seeing this, Kazari tries to search for more clues on the computer. Misuko notices this, and when Kazari found a profile of Haruki, Mitsuko points out that he was the one they saw in the Assembly venue, to which Kinuho and Maaya confirms. They later discover Haruki's history with the Assembly.

Kinuho and Maaya later tag along with Mitsuko going to Judgment 177 Branch Office. This is after she checks up on the request to her father's company to investigate on the Powered Suits, to which she is informed that there have been at least 20,000 Powered Suits constructed by the STUDY Corporation. Mitsuko later informs this to the girls at the same time Kazari discovers it as well. After deciding to take on STUDY and the Silent Party without any help at all from Anti-Skill for the sake of Febrie and Janie, Febrie's sister, Kinuho and Maaya decide to help the others along with Mitsuko.

Mitsuko, Kinuho, and Maaya are the vanguard on one of the Assembly venue entrances as the Silent Party begins. They are later joined by a multitude of Judgment members. During the offensive against the Powered Suits controlled by Diffusion Ghost, Kinuho and Maaya show their mettle by teaming up, with Kinuho using her Hydro Hand while Maaya uses her Float Dial. They use their powers to take advantage of the Powered Suit's simplistic AI, drawing their attention as so they can lure it towards Mitsuko, who finishes them off. She later hears that Aritomi Haruki has launched the AIM bomb on Academy City. After the Sisters secretly helped out on the calculations, Maaya applies her Float Dial along with Mitsuko's Aero Hand under the specifications on how to launch the Ekaterina II S into space. With Mitsuko exhausted, she is held up by Kinuho and Maaya as she activates her Aero Hand, launching the mecha into the upper atmosphere, and is used by Mikoto as her ammunition for her Railgun. They later witness the debris of her mecha fall into a shower down on the city.

She briefly reappears on September 2, while looking at the sky together with Kinuho and Mitsuko.

Daihasei Festival Arc (Railgun)
Kinuho and Maaya are first seen in the arc watching an intense game of tug-of-war, to which both of them wonders what is like to be angry. Kinuho then asks Maaya to be angry at her, though she fails at this enterprise.

They arrive at the grounds for where the Balloon Hunter competition will be taken place, to which they are informed that they cannot find Misaka Mikoto, as she is part of the team for the competition. Kinuho and Maaya later go out and try and find her. Kinuho comes upon Misaka 10032 who somehow ended up in the grounds. Mistaking her for Mikoto, she is relieved to find her. She later lets Misaka 10032 borrow her a P.E. uniform seeing as Misaka 10032 was still in her Tokiwadai school uniform.

Kinuho and Maaya are not seen in the competition and presumably came there to support Tokiwadai Middle School, specifically Kongou Mitsuko who is participating.

As the second day of Daihasesai goes on, they are with Mitsuko after her last event. They later come upon Kuroko, Ruiko, and Kazari, not knowing that they had their memories of Mikoto removed by Shokuhou Misaki. Here, Kuroko airs her frustration on Mikoto coming up to her, making an accusation, and then asking them if they were joking. This surprises Mitsuko, Kinuho, and Maaya, wondering if Kuroko and Mikoto had a fight.

After Mitsuko becomes involved in trying to find Mikoto's "sister", she likely meets up with Maaya after retrieving her phone in order to contact their Psychometer teammate from the swim team in order to look in to the memories of Mikoto's sister's cat.

Successfully contacting the Psychometer, they later find that Mitsuko is missing from the meeting point. They apologize to the Psychometer for calling her in vain, to which she says that they could just call her again once they find her. As she leaves, they wonder where Mitsuko could have gone. At this point Ruiko runs into them, to which they ask where Mitsuko is. Ruiko later leads them to the park, where they see their friend on the ground bloody and beaten by Baba Yoshio. Ruiko goes up to Mitsuko's unconscious body and sees what Yoshio has done, becoming enraged. Ruiko asks if it was Yoshio who did this, to which he doesn't deny, still calling Mitsuko trash. Yoshio says that Mitsuko was only doing what she did because Misaka Mikoto asked her to. He mocks her for being a second rate who let others think for them, and even mocks her for even failing at the role she was given. Yoshio says that if they have arrived earlier then they would've seen her like the trash she is.

Ruiko is at her breaking towards Yoshio's mockery, but before she can do a thing about it, Wannai Kinuho and Awatsuki Maaya steps forward to confront Yoshio. Kinuho asks Ruiko to get Mitsuko and the cat away from the place. Ruiko tries to protest, but she sees the withheld anger of Maaya, saying that if they don't keep the cat safe then all of Mitsuko's efforts would be in vain. And as ss the waters of the artificial lake rumble and tumble about from their tranquil fury, they tell her that they too cannot hold back their anger when their friend has been insulted.

Seeing this, Yoshio mocks their feelings as he order his robots to attack Ruiko as she begins carrying Mitsuko. His efforts however are prevented by Kinuho and Wannai's intervention and she manages to get away. Wannai uses her power to make Mitsuko lighter for Ruiko to carry, allowing them to get away. Although angered that Mitsuko got away, he is confident that the Type: Mosquito that injected her with drugs would do it's side role as surveillance well, believing that as long as she can track her he can retrieve her later.

With that, Yoshio's Type: Great Dane does battle with Kinuho and Maaya. As battle goes on however, he gets an unexpected call from Kouzaku Mitori asking if he needs reinforcements, as well as if she could retrieve the clue for him. He declines on both offers, with regards to the latter, Yoshio's reasoning is that he doesn't want Mitori to hog his glory. Ending his call, he begins analyzing Kinuho and Wannai's abilities, believing them to be not at all that powerful individually, but makes up for it with their teamwork. With only a limited number of pawns, Yoshio tries to ruse his way against them. He tells them that he is looking for Misaka Mikoto's sister, and that he would like to have the clue that Wannai and Mitsuko talked about earlier, not knowing it was the cat all along. He offers them one of his Type: Mosquito robots in order to aid Kongou Mitsuko to recover from the effects of the drugs. Seeing this, Maaya believes that Yoshio is not making it up based on the fact that she touched Mitsuko a while ago and she had a fever. The both of them refuse to negotiate with Yoshio, but would take his nanodevice by force. Hearing this, Yoshio takes another but empty case and has one of the Type: Great Danes take it while he hold on to the real one. Maaya makes pursuit for the decay while Kinuho faces off against Yoshio alone. Yoshio begins walking away, intimidating Kinuho to challenge his dogs to get to him. This allows him to analyze her powers even more. Believing Kinuho to only know how to do frontal attacks seeing as how he believes that he analyzed the full extent of her abilities, Yoshio stands back as he watches Kinuho tire herself out.

Despite defeating several Type: Great Dane robots, Kinuho is slowly becoming tired and has used up all the water for her Hydro Hand ability against them. Yoshio seeing this asks her what she intends to do now. Not giving up, Kinuho says that she is trained in self-defense and that she will fight him without powers. Yoshio just mocks her however as he reveals the spare Type: Great Danes he has kept hidden. He continues to mock her, making a line on the ground on what he believes to be the maximum range of her Hydro Hand if she still had water with her. With that, Yoshio asks mockingly one what she will do now, and then commands his Type: Great Danes to attack. As they charge, Kinuho tells Yoshio that though he had cleverly analyzed her power, he should pay attention more on the things he cannot see. There, Kinuho reveals that she had kept water inside one of the underground drains near them as well as the fact that she can control four clumps of water instead of three. She covers Yoshio's head in sphere of water afterwards. Panicking, he orders the Type: Great Danes to suck up all the water, falling for Kinuho's trap. With the water inside the robots, Kinuho easily destroys from inside-out. In desperation, Yoshio is forced to use the last Type: Mosquito robot that the Professor provided him. With that, Yoshio begins to ramble on in order to distract Kinuho long enough in order for the robot to inject her with drugs. However, he then sees that his Type: Mosquito has fallen and discovers that although it has enough power, it just doesn't get enough lift. There it is revealed that Maaya has acquired the other case, and that she has used her powers on Kinuho to put the buoyancy around her to zero, revealing her powers to be Float Dial.

Confronted by the two angry girls, Yoshio begs for mercy, telling them that he was only hired to do what he needed to do, as well as point out the location of the Type: Mosquito he just used. Having none of it, Kinuho slaps him. She then says that his scorn for trust and relationships comes from not having anyone trust in him, and that it is the result of looking down on others and closing his heart to them. Finally, she warns him that if he doesn't accept his comrades and do not meet them halfway then one one will save him. With those words uttered, Yoshio runs off into a nearby storage facility, where he keeps his mecha.

With the problem with Yoshio resolved they later go back to the hospital where Mitsuko is being held. Ruiko, who is waiting for Kinuho to report on Mitsuko's condition asks who the Queen is, to which Maaya says is Shokuhou Misaki, and that the girls of her clique call her the Queen. Ruiko recognizes her name as the esper who can manipulate memories. Kinuho then comes back and reports on how Mitsuko has no external wounds that are likely to give her scars and that the nanodevice will be sent to a specialty facility. And with that, the only thing they need to do is to discover the secrets the cat holds.

Calling the animal psychometry girl from Tokiwadai again, she says that her power allows her to pick up fragments of the cat's qualia. So she says it is not like she can communicate with it, but she can understand aspects of what happened that the cat could not. Using her powers on the cat in the time around midday yesterday, she begins to see what the cat saw. She finds the location and sees Misaka 10032's body collapsed on the ground, as well as Keitz and Misaki, though she does not recognize them especially Misaki for she is far away from the cat's view. She tells them of their conversation, and then finally something that Ruiko recognizes: "What happened to Auribus oculi fideliores sunt?"

Kinuho says that it is Latin meaning "Believe more in what you see that what you hear", and makes Maaya wonder if it is a code. The session ends as the girl says that the cat's attention turned elsewhere. After thanking her, Kinuho tells Ruiko to contact Mikoto as since Mitsuko is incapacitated it would be better if Mikoto knew what has been discovered as soon as possible, With that the two thanks Ruiko, and tells her that they will be in Mitsuko's hospital room.

Both Kinuho and Maaya likely kept watch by Mitsuko's side until she was able to recover in the waning days of the Daihaseisai. Kinuho and Maaya are in the same team with Kirifu Megumi for the cavalry battle game. Kinuho is held up by the Maaya, Megumi, and another Tokiwadai Middle School student, Here, Maaya uses her powers on Kinuho in order to make her lighter. Kinuho's lightness is noted by Megumi, not knowing what Kinuho had done.

Dream Ranker Arc
Awatsuki made a brief appearance in Yumiya Rakko's dream, where Kongou declined Matsunoyama Shigemi's offer to become an idol.

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun OVA
While Shirai comes to Kongou Mitsuko and Wannai Kinuho to investigate about the "Someone's watching " situation, Awatsuki is present at the time. Awatsuki explains to Shirai along with Wannai about how one of their elders in the swim club is being stalked.

Toaru Majutsu no Index Movie: Miracle of Endymion
She, Kinuho, and Mitsuko are together in the night, where she is amazed by Mitsuko being chosen to be Mikoto's partner for the three-legged race in the Daihaseisai. She later witnesses Marie, Mallybath and Jane kidnapping Arisa, and most likely helped out Index whose hands and mouth are frozen.

Abilities
According to the booklet that comes with the 3rd Toaru Kagaku no Railgun DVD or Blu-Ray Disc, Maaya's ability is the same as Kinuho's and is called Hydro Hand. However, in the 5th booklet, it says that her ability is unknown.

During Baba Yoshio's initial analysis of her and Kinuho's abilities, he assumed it was a form of telekinesis whose limited destructive capability was offset when used alongside Kinuho's Hydro Hand. It is later revealed that her power is Float Dial, an ability that allows the manipulation of the buoyancy of the user and their surroundings. At Level 3, it allows her to lift heavy objects, walk on water without breaking its surface tension, and leap several feet into the air.

Trivia

 * Maaya's voice actress, Nanjou Yoshino, is also the vocalist of, who performs the opening themes of Toaru Kagaku no Railgun.

Quotes

 * "We didn't see anything." - Maaya, after witnessing Mikoto torturing Kuroko.