Beginning Child

The Beginning Child is a historical character introduced in the sidestory Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Biohacker Arc. She was the first modern esper, the foundation of the system used in Academy City. Going missing according to official records, she was actually, eventually ending up with L.S.S., who sought to revive and monopolize her for themselves.

Appearance
From an old black and white photograph, taken over half a century ago, the Beginning Child had waist-length black hair with a luster noticeable in the photograph. She was noted to have a sorrowful and exhausted light in her eyes. She wore a student uniform different from those of the modern day, more like a hakama and not quite a kimono.

Personality
The Beginning Child apparently had a certain elegance, noted from the graceful way her hands were folded in her photograph, in a way not seen anymore (it was noted that if that form of elegance still existed anywhere, it would be in Tokiwadai Middle School). She was noted to have an exhausted and sorrowful light in her eyes in the photograph, likely the result of the attacks on her from the newspapers and skeptics of her time.

Background
The Beginning Child was initially a normal person and lived over half a century before the present. She was trained based on 's data and subsequently became Academy City's first esper. The general public of the time did not believe she actually had powers, and she had to endure continual attacks from newspapers and skeptics.

According to official records, the Beginning Child went missing, supposedly unable to bear living under constant attack from skeptics. She left behind a letter, only saying "but I do have it". However, the Beginning Child was actually frozen and preserved, with Academy City developing the system used on her to construct the Power Curriculum Program used in the present day.

A year before the start of the series, during Kamijou Touma's third year of middle school, the frozen and unconscious body of the Beginning Child had ended up in the possession of L.S.S., who sought to revive and monopolize her in order to create and use espers for themselves for profit, and to put themselves above the Board Chairman and the rest of Academy City. Being unsuccessful in rousing her with external stimuli from specimens created by Biohackers, they decided to directly stimulate her mind within with a mental esper ability, targeting Mitsuari Ayu for her Mental Stinger.

Abilities
Developed using a precursor system to the Power Curriculum Program, based on data from, the Beginning Child's esper ability isn't known, though apparently she was not able to use it when and how powerfully the newspapers wanted, enabling their attacks on her. According to Kumokawa Seria, the technology of the time was not enough to keep her in a cage and although he created her, Aleister apparently could not control her, leading L.S.S. to believe that if they could wake and fully control her, they could reach a level of technology which had eluded the Board Chairman. Being the foundation from which the present-day system for developing artificial espers was constructed, L.S.S. and Kumokawa believed that the Beginning Child could be used as a 'master key' to allow a party to develop ways of creating espers for themselves.