Mut Thebes

Mut Thebes (ムト＝テーベ) is a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal, introduced in Souyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index.

Etymology
(meaning "mother" in ancient Egyptian) is a mother goddess and primal deity associated with the primordial waters of Nu, often said to have been the husband of the solar creator god and mother of the lunar god. She was a patron deity of, Egypt's capital city and site of the , where the three were worshipped as the.

Appearance
Mut Thebes looks to be a skinny girl of about 15, with blue eyes, long wavy blonde hair and brown skin. She wears a revealing outfit consisting of thin belts and pure gold ornaments, exposing her skin to support her magic.

Personality
Matching the symbolism of a mother protecting her children or a queen protecting her people, Mut Thebes will apparently do whatever it takes to protect her decided territory, currently the Bridge Builders Cabal.

Background
In Egyptian mythology, Mut is a mother goddess of protection and war whose symbol is the vulture, which devours unclean dead flesh. Unlike other deities, which may grant happiness in the afterlife, Mut is said to have visited Thebes and physically fought to protect the city and her people from enemies. She was also said to have been identified as both a goddess and the wife of the pharaoh, with the queen and Mut being seen as one and the same, though some suspect that she was actually created later on as the top god Amun needed a wife.

The background of the individual who took on the identity of Mut Thebes as a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal is currently unknown, other than the fact that she outdid other candidates to earn the position she wanted.

New Year's Arc
On January 2nd, Mut Thebes was present when Alice brought Kamijou Touma's group to the cabal's newly established consulate in School District 12, as Trismegistus told the boy of their intent to execute Anna Sprengel for her betrayal.

Mut Thebes was also present when Touma's group had dinner with Alice and other Transcendents. When Touma left to see the Bologna Succubus, she assured him that she would make sure that Trismegistus would not try anything with his friends while he was away, emphasizing that she simply did not want anything to ruin her meal time and that she happen to like sharing her meals with people who were enjoying themselves.

On January 3rd, having completed her own role in the cabal's ceremony beforehand, Mut Thebes was unleashed against Anna Sprengel, pursuing her, as well as Kamijou Touma and Aradia who were with her throughout January 3rd and 4th.

Abilities
As a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal, Mut Thebes is said to be powerful enough to rival the regular magic side on her own. Besides her roots in Egyptian Mythology, she apparently specializes in punishment and execution, and has been called an expert in executing Transcendents.

Mut Thebes is capable of acquiring weaponry by absorbing the shadows of those objects that come into contact with the shadow cast by the skin of her body, which she can then deploy from her body and wield as her own, increasing the firepower and methods of supplying punishment at her disposal.

Besides her primary use of weapons, she is capable of levitation and seems to be able to sense when her weapons take a life. Like other Transcendents, she uses common tone creation to translate and synthesize her speech into unfamiliar languages.

Like many other Transcendents in the Bridge Builders Cabal,    Mut Thebes can release a seal in order to draw on power transcending that of regular humans, with an incantation involving the declaration of "Risk 4" (リスク4) and "departing human territory" (人域離脱). In her case, its nature is that of a Dead Phoenix (デッドフェニックス) and the nature of her seal is a dual seal (二種の封印).

One tool for executing Transcendents, which she was lent for dealing with Anna Sprengel, is the Shrink Drink, a spiritual item derived from Alice in Wonderland. It takes the form of 150cm long spears, probably javelins given their length and likely reach, with glass spearheads containing a fluorescent pink liquid and the words "Drink Me" engraved on the shafts. In the story, the drink physically shrank the imbiber, and the Shrink Drink is intended to similarly diminish a Transcendent by weakening them and taking away their power, in a similar manner to the Fairy spell used on Othinus. Given its nature, Alice Anotherbible likely had a hand in its creation.

Trivia

 * Similarities have been noted between Mut Thebes and her fellow Transcendent Aradia, given their use of shadows and the snowball effect that can occur with their magic.
 * Fitting Mut's symbolic association with the vulture as well as her own association with the vulture and the phoenix, some of Mut Thebes's movements and mannerisms have been compared to those of a bird,    with her weapon deployments being likened to a bird's wings,    and her shadow ship formation being compared to a giant bird.
 * In the afterword of, Kamachi Kazuma mentioned how he chose the as he wanted an image from Egyptian mythology directly tied to  for Mut Thebes as the punishment expert and wanted to give her a spell which emphasized how to kill her target rather than the simple act of taking a life.
 * He also mentioned that Mut was meant to have the vulture as a symbol and hoped he did a good job of fusing the vulture, which lives off dead flesh, with the phoenix, which burns itself away and is reborn in the flames. However, he also added that there were theories that the phoenix was actually never a part of Egyptian mythology, perhaps all the more fitting for a Transcendent.