Kiyama Harumi

Kiyama Harumi (木山 春生) (born August 9) is a character in the Toaru Kagaku no Railgun side-stories. She is the primary antagonist of the first storyline and becomes a supporting character in the second storyline of the anime adaptation. She is the creator of the Level Upper, a sound which, when used, allowed the user's abilities to become stronger.

Appearance
Most of her appearances depict her having long wavy brown hair (which was shorter a considerable amount of time before the start of the series) and her most striking feature: bags under her eyes (which is the result of intense research in trying to revive her students). She is often seen in a white long-sleeved shirt and a brown pencil skirt and always wears a long white coat which scientists usually wear inside the laboratory. Later appearances gave her a suit to wear instead.

Personality
Harumi acts too logically and lacks common sense, which is demonstrated when she stripped in front of others without thinking about it, a result of her years being a researcher. In Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, she is revealed to be the source of one of three urban legends popularized by different Web forums within Academy City, the urban legend of the "Stripping Woman". She is shown to have low self-esteem about her body, justifying stripping in public by saying that no man would care about seeing her body.

Originally, having difficulty with children, her experiences after becoming a teacher to Child Errors. Although she is kind and considerate in people in general, she is fiercely loyal to her students, willing to make Academy City her enemy, make use of weak espers, as well as willingly cause destructive Poltergeist phenomena for their sake. In the last story arc of Railgun, she is seen to be usually downcast, putting herself to blame for what happened to her own students. She manages to take refuge to Misaka Mikoto's dedication to help others (and once noted that they share similar ideals) and Uiharu Kazari's eagerness to help her student Edasaki Banri.

The bags under her eyes are a direct consequence of Harumi's intense dedication to her work as a researcher and the lack of sleep.

Background
As a researcher in the Advanced Education Department, under the supervision of Kihara Gensei, Harumi was part of a team that researched on abilities that surpasses its level limitations after exposure of certain conditions, or more precisely, to interpret the laws of berserk abilities. During her tenure with the project, Harumi was tasked by Gensei to become a teacher for Child Errors as she has a teaching license. During her time as an instructor to the children she first thought of them as a nuisance, however she eventually formed a bond with them, especially to a girl named Edasaki Banri. However, her students all fell into a coma after an experiment being conducted on them by Harumi's research group faced difficulty and Gensei neglected to provide the students with appropriate medical attention to instead focus on gathering data. This event shocked Harumi and she eventually resigned. The experiment was actually meant to the creation of another Ability Body Crystal.

Harumi eventually became a researcher of AIM diffusion fields in the AIM Analytic Research Center, even then she was already planning on trying to revive her students from their coma. In order to use its powerful calculation, she requested to use the Tree Diagram super computer twenty-three times but had these requests rejected by the authorities. She eventually resolved in developing her own "processor" in the form of human minds connected to a network to calculate for her, after being inspired by the prospects of Misaka Mikoto's clones. Seeing the tremendous calculating powers brought about by the use of a network, she created a sound of a very specific frequency that allowed the listeners to become part of a network with other listeners by altering their brain activity. Here, she uses the knowledge gained from Gensei on how to tune brainwaves. Taking advantage of the incentive of advancing their abilities, she distributed the file secretly to the students' brains. She had also created a cure for the sound as she had predicted that the side-effects of using the Level Upper could eventually cause the user to fall into a coma.

Level Upper Arc
After years of research, she was successful in creating Level Upper, an audio file which aims to connect the minds of those who hear through a network. Despite numerous attempts to gain permission for access to Tree Diagram to simulate test conditions, her requests were rejected. Because of this, she decided to transmit the file into the cyberspace, where the urban legend of the Level Upper grew and spread like wildfire across the Web and within the underground groups in Academy City.

She appears earlier in the anime where she meets Kamijou Touma after having forgotten the location where she parked her car, she also meets Mikoto as well and whilst she argues with Touma, Harumi begins to strip in public which embarrasses Touma and making him run away, Mikoto is then forced to deal with her antics which culminates in her concluding Mikoto is  for Touma. They eventually found her car after an entire afternoon of searching, exhausting Mikoto.

She officially debuts during the height of the Level Upper Incidents, as a researcher hired by the Mizuho Medical Institute who aids Judgment on uncovering the nature of the Level Upper. After even more stripping antics which embarrasses Mikoto and company she tells them that she was a teacher once. Even though she was the creator of the Level Upper, she often aided Judgment on the nature of Level Upper.

Soon, with the involvement of Saten Ruiko and later Judgment members Shirai Kuroko and Uiharu Kazari into the Level Upper incident, Harumi's identity as the programmer of the Level Upper was revealed. She used the powers of the 10,000 minds affected by Level Upper and became a Multi-Skill user when she prepared to fight back the Anti-Skills who responded to her kidnapping Kazari. She faced Misaka Mikoto and was defeated, only to produce an AIM Burst, an artificial entity created from the AIM diffusion fields gathered by Harumi's network. This too was defeated by Mikoto, and after those events, she was arrested.

Poltergeist Arc
After serving a short time under Academy City's detention facility, she was bailed by Heaven Canceler, who agrees to help her in her research to revive the children who are now apparently under his custody. It was revealed that the earthquakes now known as the Poltergeist Incidents occurring in Academy City were the side effects of the AIMs of her students trying to wake up from their comas; these side effects manifest as RSPK phenomena. Also, Heaven Canceler's eagerness to help her was a result of the former disapproving the inhumane methods of scientist Kihara Gensei, who leads the experiment Harumi worked with little knowledge about it.

Later Therestina Kihara Lifeline, in attempt to stop another Poltergeist Incident, decides to take custody of her students much to Harumi unwillingness. Harumi is about to interfere, but Misaka Mikoto's decision to side with the supervisor of Multi-Active Rescue gave her no options but to stop. Harumi later discovers that Therestina was in fact Kihara Gensei's granddaughter and was going to finish her grandfather's experiment and was eager in stopping her in her attempts to revive the children.

Harumi decides to go alone and follows her trail. However it is a trap, although she is saved by Mikoto and company and is guided by Kazari to the true location of her students. Later, Therestina herself attacks them while en route to their destination using a large mechanical suit and Mikoto, with Harumi's assistance, defeats her. Mikoto apologizes to Harumi of her decision but she simply says that she would've done the same thing.

Harumi later finds her students but is once again attacked by Therestina. She is however powerless as Mikoto and the other espers, except Ruiko, have been incapacitated by Therestina using her Capacity Down. Despite this she tries to attack her but is severely beaten down, all seemed lost until Ruiko manages to destroy the sound system that produced Capacity Down, enabling Mikoto to defeat Therestina. Harumi decides to use the Ability Body Crystal to revive the children, and after much fear of recreating the events that brought them to their fates is told that the children trusts her and allows to Harumi to finish having her story come full circle.

Harumi joins a tearful reunion with her students and is asked by Banri why she has bags under her eyes, which she replies that she was busy. She then finally thanks Mikoto for all that she has done for her.

Harumi is recuperating in a hospital and receives a birthday gift from her students, a blimp featuring her students saying happy birthday to her, which prompts tears of joy from her.

Abilities
Harumi has shown herself to be a gifted neurologist by creating the Level Upper file that could change a person's brainwaves to match hers. She is also a deceptive manipulator as she was hired to help research the effects and creation of Level Upper and still managed to stay innocent. She was also described as being an AIM specialist. It is presumed she must be highly intelligent to have worked for Kihara Gensei in his research on Child Errors.

Other abilities

 * Multi-Skill: Despite not being an esper herself, she gained multiple powers under the control of the Level Upper system. While in control of the Level Upper system, she, using borrowed abilities, displayed the abilities for manipulating wind and water (possibly 'creating' water as there were no visible sources during its use), teleportation, Synchrotron, ice creation, Telekinesis (or possibly magnetism), shock wave creation, a slicing beam, and the ability to cut through concrete from a distance.

Design Evolution
Haimura designed her for the Toaru Kagaku no Railgun manga, staying his hand from unnecessary details for the character (unless specifically ordered to) that would burden the artist drawing the manga. Haimura states that Kiyama Harumi is similar to L of , most specifically, the bags under their eyes, which are retained in the manga.

Trivia

 * In the manga, Harumi remains in custody while her students all remain in a coma; however, since the manga has confirmed the existence of Haruue Erii as canon, it can be assumed that the entire Poltergeist Incident as canon and that her students have been revived, just like in the anime.
 * She has an apparent distaste for carrots.
 * Harumi's birthday is apparently August 9, her birthday timeline-wise is a day before the events of the Sisters Arc in the manga.
 * Harumi seems to be driving a blue, an expensive car by all standards, which hints that her salary as a scientist is considerably high.
 * She also has many striking similarities with Yakumi Hisako. They wear similar clothes, have similar hair and have both been the main antagonists of their respective debut arcs, as well as them both being influenced by Kihara family members in some way.

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木山春生