Sugitani

Sugitani (杉谷) is a character from Toaru Majutsu no Index and debuts in the 19th novel volume.

Appearance
He is a man around 30 years old with a shaved head or more appropriately, he keeps his hair in a buzz cut. He has a serious face, which is enhanced by the fact that he is often seen wearing black suits and black gloves.

Background
While most of his history is unknown, when asked who he was, he simply replied "one of Koga’s descendants". Whether he really does have a history with them or not isn't known, but he did immediately refer to them as an organization of contemptible people.

Shiokishi apparently raised him with his own hands.

DRAGON Arc
He first appears off screen with Minobe reminding Shiokishi that he was getting off topic in his debriefing of GROUP about the leftovers of Spark Signal. After Accelerator who had been chasing them finally caught up with them and proceeded to exterminate the team at ITEM's private Salon, after he was done Sugitani appeared and killed all of the defeated members of Spark Signal and departing with a threat to Accelerator should they meet again.

When GROUP and Oyafune Monaka arrives at Shiokishi's base in District 2 he his discussing the alliance in how they should deal with them, after being told that baring their entry would be more problematic they let them inside so they could withstand GROUP’s assault at first, then let the others that had sent to take the hostages come from outside and surround GROUP, flank them and then destroy them. He appears before Accelerator and Musujime after being separated from "Oyafune", he then casually takes out a cigarette while commenting on he and Accelerator meeting again. Accelerator asks him if he knew about DRAGON while Sugitani replies yes while taking out a disposable lighter from a pocket. The lighter fired out a small anaesthetic bullet of high pressure gas that instantly knocked Musujime unconscious.

He then battled Accelerator employed an ever changing strategy where he succeeded in landing a hit against him, before having a debate on good and evil. Sugitani then decided to end the fight by activating the wavelength that blocked off the Misaka Network and delver a coup de grâce to Accelerator. A second later he realized that now had a hole in his stomach, Accelerator explained that the modifications to his cane were to camouflage the function to find and cancel their ‘long distance controlling wavelength’. They then preceded to open fire on one another with Accelerator’s bullets hitting Sugitani, while Sugitani’s bullets were all ‘reflected’ away. In the end, despite his injures, Accelerator left him alive and unconscious.

Abilities
Sugitani has demonstrated with his entrances that he has exceptional stealth as in both cases it wasn't known he was there until he announced his presence. In his fight Accelerator he showed speed and footwork beyond the limits of a human that was almost like sliding.


 * Hand-to-Hand Combat: He claimed is capable of replicating Kihara Amata's the technique of drawing back his fist an instant before receiving impact to break through Accelerator's reflection, though he commented just by observing them he couldn't perfectly recreate the technique as shown that even though he landed the hit successfully he injured himself in the process.


 * Marksmanship: When Accelerator was taking out the remnants of Spark Signal he appeared and shot a the ones he had yet to take care of yet, with each target having been accurately hit by a single bullet either in the head or the center of the abdomen killing them instantly. He uses what looks like a standard 9mm hand gun except the gun shots are to loud to be that caliber.

Equipment

 * Gas lighters: He was shown carrying a number of high pressure gas lighters. Their main purpose is to fire a a small anesthetic bullet capable of rendering a person unconscious in a head on fight through it's deceptive design. Sugitani also showed that by throwing several them and using his cigarette to detonate the high pressure gas inside.

Design evolution
Sugitani's appearance remains static throughout the series. According to Haimura, other than the fact that Sugitani looks like Yakuza-type of character, he was designed to look similar to the protagonist of the series of video games.