Toaru Kagaku no Railgun Manga Chapter 032

"August 20, Part 2" (八月二十日②) is the 32nd chapter of the Toaru Kagaku no Railgun manga series.

Synopsis
The chapter opens with Amai Ao running into Keitz Nokleben's room, questioning him about the splitting up of the Level 6 Shift Project. Keitz explains that splitting the project up among 183 institutes means that the mysterious attacker will either be discouraged or, if she continues her attacks, her efforts will only increase the share of the profits for Keitz's group.

Mikoto stumbles out of a telephone booth, having discovered this same information. She realises that Academy City must be supporting the project, as it couldn't have been kept secret from the city's constant surveillance. She despondently returns home. Shirai Kuroko sees her and angrily wonders if Kamijou Touma did something to her. Mikoto tries to figure out ways to stop the project and can only think of one. She asks Kuroko what would happen if she did something that brought disaster to Academy City. Kuroko replies that she would perform her duty even if Mikoto were the culprit, much to Mikoto’s relief.

Mikoto goes to sleep and has a dream about the past: she remembers herself as a child breaking a Gekota plush toy and crying; her mother Misuzu promised Mikoto that she would call up Santa to fix the toy; and young Mikoto woke up in the morning to find the toy fixed. Present-day Mikoto thinks to herself her mother used to always solve everything while she was asleep, and wishes that her current problems could similarly disappear overnight. Morning arrives. Kuroko jumps out of her bed to affectionately hug Mikoto and instead of being hit in retaliation (as she expects), Mikoto pats her on the head with a weary smile on her face.

Mikoto walks outside, thinking that she needs to solve this issue herself. She hears an weather forecast by Tree Diagram and gazes up in the direction of the supercomputer. As she is thinking, Touma calls out to her, talking about his previous meeting with Misaka 10032. The conversation is interrupted by the weather forecast, causing Mikoto to express her hate of the blimp giving forecast. Touma asks why, to which Mikoto replies that it's because humans are following a plan created by a machine. The chapter ends with Mikoto promising to destroy the project, so that it’ll never give another order again.

Major Events

 * Amai Ao angrily complains about the splitting of funds of the project.
 * Misaka Mikoto discovers that the experiments persist.

Characters
By order of appearance:
 * Keitz Nokleben
 * Misaka Mikoto
 * Shirai Kuroko
 * Accelerator (flashback)
 * Uiharu Kazari (cameo)
 * Saten Ruiko (cameo)
 * Kamijou Touma

New Characters

 * Index Librorum Prohibitorum (cameo)
 * Sphynx (cameo)
 * Himegami Aisa (cameo)
 * Misaka 10032 (cameo)
 * Amai Ao
 * Misaka Misuzu
 * Haruue Erii (cameo)

Abilities
No abilities were used in this chapter.

Locations

 * Academy City
 * School District 7
 * Tokiwadai Dormitory
 * Kamijou Residence

Referbacks

 * The cover of this chapter depicts a scene in the first chapter of Toaru Majutsu no Index Light Novel Volume 03: Misaka 10032 helps Touma to carry the beverages back to his residence, where they meet Index and Himegami Aisa. The two girls are pondering about problem of fleas on Sphynx the cat.
 * The picture on Mikoto's phone featuring Haruue Erii was taken in Episode 20 during the Poltergeist Arc.