Sogiita Gunha

Sogiita Gunha (削板 軍覇) is the 7th ranked Level 5 esper and the most powerful in Academy City. He is the most powerful Gemstone esper. Despite being a Level 5, the underlying nature of his ability is unknown and defies the understanding of Academy City. His rank as the 7th may not be reflective of his true capabilities since no one truly understands his powers.

Etymology
His full name can be translated as "Supremacy of the Military Court".

Appearance
Gunha can easily be recognized by his modified white uniform. He wears his jacket over his shoulders as a make-shift cape similar to Musujime Awaki. He also wears a white headband on his forehead to match his overall style. But the most noticeable part of his ensemble is his Rising Sun shirt, which aptly matches his personality. His hair is black and is somewhat windswept and spiky.

Background
Currently very little is known about Gunha's background, though it is confirmed that he is one of the few pure Gemstones in the world and is also the greatest among them so far. He was also trained by the Kihara Research Institute.

Personality
His personality is not unlike Kamijou Touma, though he is considered hot-blooded and dives into problems headfirst without considering the consequences, as shown through the encounter between Gunha and Ollerus or Gunha and Mikoto, where he misunderstood the intentions and situation.

He is also somewhat dense in certain situations, as shown in Toaru Jihanki no Fanfare. The first thing he says after catching Mikoto's Railgun (Shot with 1/3 of Mikoto's actual power) with his bare teeth is commenting that gaming tokens aren't supposed to be taken outside arcades, and that he'll go back with her to return it and apologize.

He also appears to have a habit of giving completely impossible explanations for the nature of his abilities. For example, his explanation for what he does when he executes Attack Crash is that he creates an unstable field of psychokinesis in front of him and destroys it by providing a stimulus from his fist, thus causing an explosive aftereffect for some distance, something which Haratani Yabumi, a student in the Power Development Curriculum's psychokinetics, says is impossible. Also, he explains his Aurora Guard as him gathering the Earth's magnetic field in his hand through telekinesis and using it to defend against electricity-based attacks, another impossible phenomenon.

The Third Friday of March
On March 15, 8:10 PM, the day after White Day, on the current year of the timeline, Sogiita Gunha comes upon Skill-Outs mugging Harata Yabumi. Upon finding them, he suddenly shouts at the Skill-Out members. He tells them that they lack guts. The thugs turn around and one of them merely shoot at him, and he collapses to the ground. With even Yabumi thinking the queer turn of events has passed, the figure rises up, seemingly unharmed. He lectures them about shooting someone without warning and that the shooter lack guts, telling the shooter that he’s just a kid that throws a tantrum, easily. The shooter, confused, just continues shooting at him, though he only merely shakes and is not felled by the firing. Unsurprisingly, the shooter becomes angry, asking why he won’t die, to which the person says that it is because of guts again. The thug still unsatisfied, has Gunha finally reveal himself—SogiIta Gunha, the 7th-ranked Level 5 of Academy City. As he shouts this, he spread his arms wide, and then suddenly multi-color explosions appear behind him. As Yabumi is dumbfounded by this spectacle, the Skill-Out whisper among themselves on what to do, and stupidly concluded that since Gunha is the seventh of the seven, then he must be the weakest, therefore, Level 0s can handle him.

Gunha interjects, saying that the rankings are all a boring digression and that the important thing is guts. Before he can finish they try gang on him and try to attack him a variety of weapons. Despite the fact that none of their actions is working against him they keep on attacking. However, Gunha, finally irritated, retaliates against them, and an explosion is formed, throwing his attackers off their feet. He berates them for doing whatever they wanted the entire time, and says that he will now show them what true guts are. Despite getting all worked up, Gunha has already defeated the thugs already.

Suddenly, from out of the darkness comes Yokosuka the Organ Crusher, the leader of the men Gunha just defeated. Yokosuka threatens Gunha for sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong, and says that he is an anti-esper battle. Before he can finish, Gunha farts, much to Yokosuka’s irritation. After remembering what he was trying to say, Yokosuka continues to threaten Gunha. However, before he can finish, Gunha once again interrupts and shouts Amazing Punch at him. As he protests his rudeness, the punch connects despite being more than 10 meters away from him. Still conscious, Yokosuka asks what Gunah did, to which Gunha replies that what he did was the true worth of him being the 7th-ranked level 5. He explains to him that he can create an unstable wall of psychokinesis in from of him and destroy it with a stimulus provided by his own fist, which then causes it to send an explosive after-effect from a long distance. He then says that he calls his ability Attack Crash.

Hearing all this, Yabumi finally speaks up, saying that what Gunha said is impossible. He tells him that applying a stimulus to a field of psychokinetic power shouldn’t have that kind of reaction. He tells Gunha that his chosen field of study is psychokinesis and backs up his claim by saying that he is chosen field of study is in psychokinesis. Both Gunha and Yokosuka are silenced by Yabumi’s claims. However, Gunha then lowers his gaze and clenched his fist, asking what he did and how he did it. Yokosuka says that what he is currently doing is a half-assed way of treating his special move, and that he should think about the people who were taken out by it feels. Yokosuka then complains but is silenced by Gunha using Amazing punch on him again, making him fly into the air.

Seeing this, Yabumi cannot feel happy about being saved. Yokosuka tries to stand up again to Gunha but his legs were shaking, though impressed by Gunha. Although Yokusukua doesn’t have the strength left to fight or even run away, he looks up to Gunha’s face and asks him, with a smile, that Gunha should at least finish the fight with some extraordinary attack unlike the boring sounding Amazing Punch, something that can be worth losing to. Despite this, Gunha just uses Amazing Punch on him again.

Later events
Later, he fought against a very powerful magician known as Ollerus due to a misunderstanding and the fact that the Sister clones had been protecting him without his knowledge. Without trying, Ollerus beats Gunha, prompting the latter to marvel at the amazing people in the world and to train his guts all over again.

Agitate Halation Arc
Gunha makes a brief appearance during the riot of "heroes" in the Learning Core. Seemingly unaffected by Agitate Halation, Gunha is more concerned for the trees burning due to their riots and is apparently oblivious of Fremea Seivelun or the reason the "heroes" are rioting in the first place. He literally punches out the fires that is burning the trees with enough power to knock out other people. He is the one responsible for knocking out Fusou Ayame before Mugino Shizuri could attack her in earnest. He later warns the "heroes" that his method of saving lives is not something that they can withstand without any guts, warning them that if they want to run away they better do so now.

Magic God Othinus Arc
Later, as one of the seven Level 5s of Academy City, he is one of the recipients of the email giving an order to kill both magic god Othinus and Kamijou Touma. Here, he merely cracks his neck and states that the message has no guts, wondering if it had come from an intellectual with no common sense. He doesn't follow the kill order however.

Level Upper Arc
Gunha himself does not appear early in the manga but is seen in one of the collections of memories that formed the AIM Burst, where he was referred by a man who used the Level Upper, with Gunha being the catalyst for the man to use the Level Upper after witnessing Gunha using his Amazing Punch on a bunch of thugs. The man later dresses-up like Gunha after recovering from the coma-induced by the Level Upper, but is told that he doesn't look good in it.

Daihasei Festival Arc
The Daihasei Festival committee is looking for Level 5s for a demonstration. They go to Gunha's school, but he has been absent for a while. However, a teacher accepts the proposition, saying that he's the type of person that when asked something won't turn it down.

Gunha makes his official debut during the opening of the Daihasei Festival, he speaks along with Shokuhou Misaki, but quickly overshadows her with his fiery speech. Since he didn't memorize the real speech and was going on guts alone, there was no coordination and he made things as he went on. He gives a show and shouts passionately about guts, prompting teachers to say he goofed it.

After seeing the lighting strikes caused by Mikoto's power boost, he decides to investigates the situation. He arrives just in time to save Kamijou Touma from being crushed by a large pile of magnetic controlled rubble, which he easily destroys. He then ignores Touma's explanation of the situation, as they continue to argue about what to do when Misaka fires a lighting blast at each of them. Both teens not bothered by the incoming attacks and stop them in their own ways, they then decide to stop their argument and work together to stop her. As their fight against Mikoto continues she is becoming stronger due to her ongoing transformation. When Touma mentions that he wanted to come near Mikoto to check if he can negate her transformation, Sogiita says to leave it to him and uses Amazing Punch to create a path for him. He then procides to throw Touma at Mikoto and catching him in midair, Touma explains he can't fully negate her transformation because the source of power constantly sent her power and they can only held Mikoto back as an another person tries to stop her transformation. As she further transforms, Gunha asks what she is trying to do. As he ponders this he is stuck full on in the face by one of her attacks and is shot into a building. When Touma wants to check if he is okay, he jumps up and lands near Touma saying he is pathetic for letting his guard down and needs more guts or he will be in trouble while ignoring his bleeding head wound before resuming their fight against her.

As the battle continues, Gunha is later knocked out in the battle, pinned down by the strange ribbon things that Mikoto produces. Moreover, Mikoto's powers continue to increase. Later, after Kuroko is able to defeat Mitori, likewise Misaki defeating Gensei, here is now no one to control Mikoto's psyche and that Exterior is no longer able to connect her to the Misaka Network, Mikoto's subconsciousness wakes up, but she has no control over her transformed body, as the great black sphere of energy continues to grow, and energy exudes from the ground. After she wakes, her surroundings that have been black before slowly crumble, however, at the same time, tendril like objects coming from the darkness form a hand and try to grab her, likely coercing her to continue to destroy Academy City. This likely represents that part of her that wants to destroy Academy City. Moreover, Mikoto describes it as not her power.

As the sphere continues to grow, Touma notices the change, and later explains it to Gunha who has become conscious again this and that Mikoto cannot suppress her power. Gunha tries to convince Touma, saying that the thing that hit him before was compressed energy, but the sphere now is made of something not of their world and cannot be understood. Gunha says that he should be able to stop it with a self-destruction technique, sacrificing himself. However, Touma convinces him that he will deal with it himself and that Gunha should cover him. Impressed by his “guts”, Gunha uses his power to “part” the black mass of energy that covers the ground where Mikoto is floating on, allowing for Touma to move.

Meanwhile, Mikoto seeing that there is no way to stop the sphere, which she says that can now destroy more than the city, formulates a plan to compress it enough so that her body can cover the ensuing explosion. Then Mikoto notices Touma coming towards the sphere, Mikoto screams towards him, saying that what he sees before him is not an esper power, and since it was called in by her desire to destroy the parts of the city she doesn’t like she should be the one to stop it. It is implied that Touma heard all that Mikoto says to him. Touma then touches the sphere with his right hand, but the power is too great for his arm to bear and it is ripped from his body intact.

At that moment, a dragon appears from where the right arm was ripped off, and then bites the sphere. It bites the black sphere and allows the seven other dragons to emerge from Touma's severed arm. The dragons viciously rip apart the black sphere and make Mikoto’s transformation crumbles away. The halo cracks as well as the “starry sky” form of her head and chest as if it was dried paint chipping away. Touma then taps her head with his left fist. He says that, although he knows that there is a side of Academy City that is bad and is being controlled by important people that they can’t touch, even if she eliminated it by force he doubts that it would bring about the kind of world she wants. He says that he is sure that there are people other than him who are working to help her, and that they will help her change things bit by bit, including him. And Mikoto agrees with tears in her eyes. With that Touma gives her his jacket, as the dark skies part away to make for the blue sky.

Touma’s arm later regenerates, much to Mikoto’s surprise. Gunha bears witness to Touma's feat and says that he would like to battle Touma someday, amazed about the dragon that has appeared. He and the others then notice the metal that has appeared on the ground.

Toaru Jihanki no Fanfare
He appears in the Railgun Sidestory where Shirai Kuroko thinks he's bullying students--which isn't the case--and has a brief skirmish with her. They stop when they see Kihara Nayuta and Misaka Mikoto fighting near Vending Machine 7116, and both rush to the scene. Gunha steps in and ruins the fight, and prompts Mikoto's anger after saying a few dumb things. They test each other's mettle, where Gunha demonstrates that he is able to catch her Railgun at 30% power in between his teeth. He also managed to withstand various attacks like twin chainsaw-like swords of iron sand and a lightning strike from the sky Mikoto used to attack him. In the end, the Tokiwadai Dorm Supervisor arrives and snaps Mikoto's neck, and warns Gunha to move along, sending shivers up his spine.

Abilities
His ability displays a variety of effects, which may be the reason why Academy City cannot fully comprehend it. Even the renowned Kihara Family was said to be unable to analyze it and even to understand if there were valuable AIM diffusion fields to be made use of. Ollerus has said that if Gunha were to understand his own ability, he could beat him, hinting that Gunha's true potential has not been unlocked yet. There are parallels between his incomprehensible powers and the way a Majin's powers work. Kihara Nayuta, which can see AIM fields, has said the AIM around Gunha bends and twists. Haratani said to Kuroko, regarding Gunha's powers: "What you saw was all just an illusion. It would be better for your mental health if you think of it like that. Maybe..."

The abilities he has demonstrated are:


 * Enhanced durability and Indifference to pain - Not wholly, but he feels prickly pain when hurt and does not receive any serious damage when he is shot in the heart or stabbed with an ice pick. He also is able to endure a powerful electric strike from Mikoto, feeling only a bit numb, and to catch her 30% Railgun shot with the teeth, stating that it was painful, though nonchalantly. He could also take an attack from Mikoto while her powers were rising to Level 6 with only slight head wound and recovered almost instantly. Furthermore, he can withstand two attacks of Ollerus' Hliðskjálf without losing consciousness.


 * Explosion creation - He can create various type of explosions: explosions of colorful red, blue, and yellow smoke behind him, which resemble those used in a tokusatsu series, an explosion around him that throws people away , a barrage of spherical explosions.


 * Attack Crash (念動砲弾 (アタッククラッシュ) ) - Gunha's special move. A blow powerful enough to destroy a giant mass of rubble which can hit the target even if more than ten metres away. Gunha yells 'Amazing Punch' (すごいパーンチ) when executing it, but it can be preceded by some prefixes and adjectives like 'Hyper', 'Eccentric', 'Ultra', 'Great', 'Giga', 'Extreme'. He can even deliver a seemingly stronger version, while yelling 'Super Amazing Punch' (スーパーすごいパーンチ). To fire it, Gunha stomps his right feet, breaths out deeply with closed eyes, takes a karate-like stance, widely open is eyes and throw his right fist. Gunha thinks that, when he uses the Attack Crash, he creates an unstable wall of psychokinesis in front of him and destroys it with a stimulus provided by his own fist, causing it to send an explosive after-effect at long distance. However, Haratani, being psychokinesis in his chosen field of study, stated that it is impossible by physics and that cannot possibly be the real explanation, so the exact mechanics of this attack are unknown.


 * Enhanced locomotor skills - He can move at twice the speed of sound, grab a person thrown at high speed before they touch the ground with ease and perform a leap so high to cover several meters with it. A jump of him can create air pressure so strong that no one could breathe in the surroundings.


 * Voice amplification - He can let out a powerful shout that allows him to stop falling down, like he did when he was teleported upside down by Kuroko, provoking a strong impact. The vibration caused by the roar echoes throughout the surroundings, and possible bystanders would have to cover their ears.


 * Aurora Guard (磁力戦線 (オーロラガード) ) - A defensive move that knocks electricity down to the ground, even Mikoto's electric attacks while her powers were rising to Level 6. Gunha generally yells 'Amazing Punch Guard' (すごいパーンチガード) when executing it. He can strenghten it, seemingly with the creation of red, blue, and yellow explosions while yelling 'Super Ultra—Defense', allowing him to block electrical attacks such as Mikoto's most powerful lighting strike. The prolonged use of the Aurora Guard seems to tire Gunha enough to make him pant. Gunha thinks that, when he uses the Aurora Guard, he gathers the Earth’s magnetic field into his hand through telekinesis, and uses that electromagnetic field to divert the electric flow. However, Haratani stated that it is impossible by physics and that cannot possibly be the real explanation, so its exact mechanics are unknown.


 * Enhanced strength - He can lift and throw a person at great distance with one arm and can pack a punch so powerful that it provokes a blast of wind that blows out a large amount of flames.


 * Recovery - He can stop bleeding and reconnect bones with, in his own words, "guts".


 * Pressure creation - He can create a large "wall of pressure". It is so powerful that it can hold back Mikoto while her powers were rising to Level 6 and open a large path between the black lightnings created by her. Seemingly, when the "wall" is hit by a strong enough attack this affects Gunha's body, damaging it from the inside. To use it, he takes a martial art-like stance, takes a breath, then waves his arms down and keep that position.

Design evolution
Preliminary design for him had Gunha look completely different from his final design, noted by Haimura as his poor grasp of his character. His design was finalized after asking Kamachi. Here, Haimura had designed him with an overall concept of a (mistaken) Showa era banchou.

Quotes

 * (To Ollerus in SS2)" "I’ll show you what true guts are!! You don’t need some great reason. A man who isn’t twisted or rotten, even if he’s a complete stranger, can stand up for some injured girls!!"
 * (To Mikoto in Toaru Jihanki no Fanfare): "Fufu, I can imagine what you're going to do now. Either way, it'll be really painful if I take one of these. Then, I have to bet all my guts and defend with all I got."
 * (To Mikoto in Toaru Jihanki no Fanfare): "Arcade game coins are not to be brought out. [...] I feel that it's better that you return this to the arcade before the shopkeeper gets angry. Well, I can go apologize with you if you want."
 * (To Mikoto, after she calls him an idiot): "I see, so I'm an idiot. [...] But, well, SUCH TRIVIAL STUFF LIKE WHETHER I'M SMART OR DUMB IS UNNECESSARY! I DON'T HAVE TO MIND!!"
 * (To Kuroko in Toaru Jihanki no Fanfare): "Owww... What was that? ...Super speed or time stop? No, wait, you can teleport yourself, right? That's some guts you have there! But I won't accept ambushes. A man has to teleport his opponent right in front of him! Oh, but you're a girl, so that's fine... I guess."
 * (Gunha's derailing speech in the Daihasei Festival's opening): "...And the unbreaking bonds will... The bonds will... Ah, what was it? Ah, well. There was a bunch of stuff about the unbreakable bonds that you'll have to deal with while your guts overflow! Show the results of your everyday training and guts! Show off that splendor and guts to those weaklings without it! To make this tournament the best memory ever! By overcoming all sorts of obstacles through trial and hardship and getting up every time we fall down! OVERCOME EVERYTHING WITH GUTS!!!"