Toaru Majutsu no Index II Episode 20

Synopsis
Index stumbles upon an unexpected sight.

She discovers a bloodied Accelerator and a group of men wearing military uniforms, lead by a man in a lab gown: Hound Dog and Kihara Amata, respectively. Accelerator seizes the opportunity that Index's sudden appearance gave and flies to one of the vans of Hound Dog using his ability. With a painful threat to the driver, he speeds off and takes Index along with him, with a certain doctor's hospital as the decided destination.

However, Kihara plans to end Accelerator's life as soon as possible and prepares a grenade launcher to destroy the car Accelerator is boarding. At that moment, a woman with a pierced face interrupts his motive. Kihara fires upon her nonetheless, but the woman - the Roman Catholic Church's Vento of the Front - remains unscathed. Vento prepares to confront the attacker, but Kihara does not show any interest to fight her; instead, he boards one of the cars of Hound Dog and speeds away.

Meanwhile, Last Order takes Touma to the wreckage and retells what happened, although she did not mention any names. Touma plans on investigating himself, but is forced to hide when operatives of Hound Dog return, cleaning any traces of the incident from their vehicles.

Elsewhere, Accelerator settles down inside the car, with Index busy reading a book on fairy tales. He wonders why someone like her is around, and she reveals that she wanted to return the pack of tissue she received from him earlier that day. Accelerator then tells her that he is looking for his companion (Last Order), and plans on parting ways with Index.

Accelerator then asks his hostage driver to pull over, then asks Index to look for a frog-faced doctor on the nearby hospital and to tell that doctor about electrodes for the battery he needs to stay connected to the MISAKA Network. Index tells Accelerator to wait for her before leaving, which the latter deliberately disobeys.

Touma discovers that his enemies, whoever they are, might know their presence and runs away, carrying Last Order with him. This starts a pursuit that would end up with both him and Last Order dead if they are not careful.

With Last Order's help, they barge inside a restaurant. Touma is horrified by the sight of more civilians unconscious inside the building, and barely survives and rain of bullets when Hound Dog stumbles upon their location. The two are forced to leave the building again, to avoid any civilian casualties.

Accelerator manages to stop by a phone booth and contacts none other than Heaven Canceler. Accelerator is somewhat relieved to find out that the doctor knows about what is going on care of the MISAKA Network, and Heaven Canceler tells him that Last Order is fine, though she can't fill out details on her current location and her only companion. Heaven Canceler soon expresses her surprise about the involvement of Index, and his asked by Accelerator to make her stay for the meantime.

Heaven Canceler soon wonders if what more measures Accelerator is going to take, judging from his current actions; Accelerator declares his plans on killing Kihara Amata and Hound Dog. However, Heaven Canceler urges him to reconsider his plans and to focus more on retrieving Last Order.

Meanwhile, two other characters move towards differing goals.

Tsuchimikado Motoharu discovers that their enemy is God's Right Seat and runs off elsewhere. Meanwhile, Yomikawa Aiho receives an image of the target, and orders a report on an area; there's no response on the other and of the line. Upon her first thought of Vento, she falls to the effects of God's Divine Punishment.

Hound Dog soon traces Accelerator's position to the Recycling Processing Plant. He plans on eliminating his scent to prevent any confrontations from Hound Dog, but he discovers that they already have hijacked the security systems of the area.

Meanwhile, Mikoto stays at a branch of Green Mart shopping for a suitable umbrella to use when she receives a call from Kuroko. Kuroko expresses her disappointment for being stuck on Judgment work and not being able to accompany Mikoto, however, even Mikoto is unavailable for the meantime. What's worse is that Uiharu is always reminding her of the paperwork piling on her desk.

Touma soon finds out that the soldiers who are tailing him are no longer on the move; instead, a voice of a woman startles him: Vento of the Front. She then announces her intent to end his life, and her fight against the Imagine Breaker boy begins.

Accelerator's fight against the Hound Dog has already begun as well. As the Hound Dog ultilize their Scent Sensor to track down Accelerator, he shuts down the electricity before taken them on one by one.

Touma fends off Vento's attacks one by one while asking Last Order to hide. Vento is amazed to witness the power of Touma's right hand personally, but decides to up the ante by introducing attacks that come from a different direction than intended by her hammer. Initially, Touma is puzzled about her her attacks are directed; but after blocking a sizable amount of them, he realizes that it's the cross dangling from her tongue that directs the attacks, not the hammer she wields.

Vento realizes that her attacks are becoming too useless for Touma's right hand; as she declares to unleash a more powerful array of attacks upon him, Touma advises Last Order to flee the scene and call for help.

Meanwhile, the team of Hound Dog is easily eliminated by Accelerator, who has somewhat enjoyed turning the facility into a bloodbath from Kihara Amata's units. However, Touma is not so lucky; despite being able to dispel any attack from Vento, he is forced to stay defensive due to the number of civilians inside the restaurant. Vento then reminds him that he is the sole target of the Roman Catholic Church, and his value far exceeds even Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

As quick as the battle begins, it ends.

The last surviving member of the Hound Dog unit mobilized on the Recycling Processing Plant breaks down to tears as Accelerator approaches. Meanwhile, Vento is forced to flee the scene when she suddenly vomits blood in the middle of her plans to attack.

Inside Judgment's headquarters in District 7, Kuroko and Uiharu eat their dinner at the office. While Kuroko is still immersed at the thought of missing Mikoto for the night, Uiharu is more preoccupied at what she just saw on the television: a footage of a woman clad in yellow marching alongside unconscious Anti-skill units. As Kuroko proceeds on eating, he notices that Uiharu has fallen unconscious.

Accelerator manages to douse enough detergent on himself to fool Hound Dog's Scent Sensor, but he finds a survivor amongst the ones he took care of. The Hound Dog unit attempts to climb to safety and calls to an Anti-skill van for help, then tells Accelerator about his failure to rescue Last Order. Before the Anti-skill could react, a door came flying through their van, and all they saw of the Hound Dog operative is a pool of blood.

Meanwhile, Tsuchimikado discovers that there are traps prepared where he treads, and nimbly passes through them with ease. As he understands how complicated things are, he looks at the bright spectre on the other side...

And Yoshikawa Kikyou manages to stumble upon an unconscious Aiho. She then hears a radio message stating Accelerator as primary suspect for murder.

Adapted From
Toaru Majutsu no Index Light Novel Volume 13

Major events

 * Vento of the Front meets Kihara Amata.
 * Touma meets and does battle with Vento of the Front, though she escapes.
 * The Imaginary Number District is activated
 * Tsuchimikado Motoharu does battle with the Roman Catholic Church attack force.
 * Accelerator becomes a wanted criminal.

Characters
By order of appearance
 * Index
 * Sphinx
 * Kihara Amata
 * Hound Dog
 * Accelerator
 * Vento of the Front
 * Kamijou Touma
 * Last Order
 * Heaven Canceler
 * Tsuchimikado Motoharu
 * Anti-Skill
 * Yomikawa Aiho
 * Misaka Mikoto
 * Shirai Kuroko
 * Uiharu Kazari
 * Yoshikawa Kikyou

New Character

 * Orson
 * Rod
 * Nancy
 * Vera
 * Saigou Ryouta
 * Sugiyama Edao

Abilities

 * Redirection - Accelerator, level 5
 * Electric powers - Last Order
 * Divine Punishment - Vento of the Front
 * Imagine Breaker - Kamijou Touma, level 0

New Abilities

 * Wind Hammer - Vento of the Front

Locations

 * Academy City
 * The hospital the Heaven Canceler works in.
 * Judgment 177 Branch Office

New Locations

 * Olla Podrida
 * Third Resource Recycling Processing Facility

Trivia

 * This episode marks the first time a recap section features the voice and sound effects of an actual scene it is recapping.
 * The scene where Accelerator fights the Hound Dog unit in the factory is extremely toned down from the Light Novels. Although the scene in which he shoots the hound dog member at point blank range in the jaw before kicking her down into a mechanical press is still present.
 * The design of the Scent Sensor is vastly different from how it was described in the light novel, where it was described more as a small, pistol-shaped device instead of the minesweeper-like design seen in the anime.

Referbacks

 * The location of Accelerator's battle against the Hound Dog is strikingly similar to the location of Misaka Mikoto's fight against Therestina Kihara Lifeline.

Cultural References

 * The missile launcher that Kihara Amata uses is similar to the Panzerfaust 3.

Animation Trivia

 * Accelerator bends his neck in an unnatural way during his stay at the control center of the recyling facility.

Unanswered Questions

 * How does Kihara Amata stay conscious regardles of Divine Punishment?
 * What happened to Orson?
 * Where did Accelerator get that shotgun?
 * Why did Vento start coughing up blood?
 * Who was the figure who confronted Tsuchimikado Motoharu?

Quotes

 * Touma: "If we don't survive first, then we'll never save him. If you want to save him, make sure you don't die first." (to Last Order)