Kanzaki Kaori

Kanzaki Kaori (神裂 火織) is an eighteen-year old character introduced in Toaru Majutsu no Index. Originally a magician affiliated with the Amakusa Catholics, she rejected them and eventually joined Necessarius where she met Index and Stiyl Magnus and became friends with them. She is also a 'saint' and is currently one of the most formidable magicians in the series.

Though she rejected the Amakusa Catholics, she still feels a sort of longing for them, and eventually returns to them (they are now a part of Necessarius) to become their leader once again.

Background
She was tremendously blessed as a child, being a saint, she was chosen to be the top of the Amakusa Catholics since birth. Not only is Kaori a skilled swordsman, but she is a Catholic Saint possessing the "Stigma", the ability to call upon God's power and the former leader of the Amakusa Catholics; however, Kaori left the group as she resented that she had been fated since birth to become its leader, which led her to despise the concept of luck and fortune as her fortune in turn only bring misery to those around her from what she can see, as it has been mentioned in the novels she no longer wants to see innocent people rushing to protect her, dying in the process, and saying with their last breath that it's alright as long as she's fine. She later defects from the Amakusa Catholics to Necessarius and meets Index and Stiyl, where they become friends and knows fully that Index is the holder of the 103,000 grimoires.

She is later told by the church that Index needed her memories erased once a year, since her mind has been overloaded by too much information since she only has 15% of the brain left for the rest of it's functions. Having found no way to have Index preserve her memories, she opted to take pictures of them together one last time.

Both Kaori and Stiyl is later forced to erase Index's memories, weeping by her side and giving her the pictures that they took in memory of the time they spent together. Even then, both of them tried to create new memories with Index, but later grew weary of the process of trying to make new memories with her and the fact that Index was often pained when she realized that she would forget them again, because of this they gave up, and allowed Index to believe that they were enemies of hers and was after the grimoires.

They are later on Index's trail when she came to Academy City.

Appearance
She's a rather tall woman with long black hair tied up in a ponytail with a length that reaches her hips and has a nicely shaped body. One can easily associate her white skin with that of a princess. She wears a short T-shirt with a knot-tied at the bottom, revealing her navel; a pair of jeans below with one side sawed off, revealing her thigh. Because the T-shirt is tied down, her breasts are much more noticeable. One can see her snowy white leg, from the thigh all the way down. She uses a two-meter-long nodachi called "Seven Heavens Seven Swords" as her weapon.

She sports a denim jacket over her usual attire in later novels.

Personality
When she was young she was destined to be the High Priestess and leader of the Amakusa Catholics and was to be protected at all cost. Due to this she believed they were suffering because of her. Later she travels to England where she befriends a young Index and Stiyl. She grew attached to Index and loved her as a sister. But when it came to the memory wiping Index did not see her as the friend she was, which made her into a cold and silent woman. But after finding out the truth about the memory wiping Kaori and Stiyl decide to leave her alone. Her personality gradually changes showing a kinder side to herself and others after Tōma saves Index and helps to confront her past with the Amakusa Catholics, feeling more comfortable and grateful to Touma becoming more prone to showing emotion and sometimes showing a little embarrassment if she is with him, having awkward interactions from her trying to thank Touma for saving the members of the Amakusa Church on various occasions and Tsuchimikado Motoharu's attempts to encourage Kaori into various cosplay gear.

It is an alternate interpretations if whether Kaori getting nervous when she's around Touma is due to a crush or just being nervous due to being indebted to him for saving the Amakusa people many times.

Index and the Church of the Necessary Evil
She is referred by Stiyl to Touma, that Kaori was the one who slashed Index in attempt to stop to her, though she believed Index would be unharmed by her attack because she was wearing the Walking Church - which was destroyed by Touma earlier. She realizes her mistake too late, and severely injures Index.

She first appears alongside Stiyl, observing Index and Touma's condition. Here, it is revealed that she has investigated Touma, and confirmed to Stiyl that he is a level 0 esper - someone with no powers. She later comments on how the Board of Directors are currently alright with people disappearing (indicating that they have permission to kill Touma), and later replies to Stiyl on how he was in the same position as Touma right now with Index, as he bemoaned the fate of erasing her memories. They later prepare a trap for Touma, and successfully catch him in it.

Here, Kaori introduces herself to him, and explains to Touma that they set up a rune to remove people in an area, allowing only Kaori and Touma to be in that area. During this time, Kaori asks Touma to hand over Index and attacks him every time he shows defiance, however, Touma refuses to give-up regardless and questions her on why she hadn't killed him yet even with so much power. Touma confronts Kaori on what she is using that power for, which forces Kaori to reveal her past with Index and why she thinks of them as enemies. Touma, defiantly tells her on how they were selfish and chose the current misunderstanding with Index as it was convenient for them, and never thought about Index at all. He continues that they should have assured her that even if the memories of her friends were being erased, she will always have new memories of them in the next. Eventually, Touma succumbs to the attacks he sustained after being overwhelmed by Kaori and collapses. She stops her attacks, though it is quite apparent that Touma's rebuttal to her explanations has affected her.

Three days later, they arrive at Tsukuyomi Residence to pick-up Index, but is repelled by the pleadings of Index to leave Touma alone. Because of this, they allowed Index to stay with Touma for a while, and waited to arrive at midnight to erase her memories and collect her. She later becomes sympathetic to Touma's despair over not being capable of saving Index, and allows Touma some time alone with Index to say his farewells to Index. They later return however, after hearing an explosion from the apartment and discovers that Index can actually do magic. This contradicts the information given to them by the church.

Touma explains to them – while blocking Index's attack - that the church was lying to them all along about Index's condition, that she will die if her memories are not erased once a year. Kaori is then forced to aid Touma in returning Index to normal, and recites her Magic Name for the first time. This allowed Index to lose balance and cause her attack to be sent to space - destroying a sattelite in the process. With the help of Stiyl and his Innocentius, this gave Touma an opening and allowed him to cancel the effects of Necklace on her, restoring Index to normal from being Johann's Pen Mode. Kaori and Stiyl however, realize that one of the feathers of the after-effects of Index's attack hit Touma in the head causing him to collapse.

Kaori is later seen with Stiyl outside the hospital where Touma is staying. It is revealed by the Heaven Canceler that, they were the ones that gave the explanation to him on why Touma is currently in this condition – though apparently they were unaware, that Touma has lost his memories at the cost of preserving Index's.

Light Novel Version
Convinced that Touma is the culprit behind Angel Fall, Kaori arrives where Touma is and proceeds to shake some answers out of him. However, Touma tells her that he’s an esper and has no knowledge of magic; as such he cannot possibly cast any sort magic. Tsuchimikado Motoharu – who arrived earlier – however states that Touma has the Index Librorum Prohibitorum with him, which doesn’t clear Touma of Kaori’s suspicions just yet. Touma glared at Motoharu for this, and hastily brought up the notion that espers will be injured if they use magic. This force Kaori to strip search Touma for any injuries related to magic use, touching him in various places and making Touma react badly to it (since Kaori – an attractive woman – is the one searching him) which Kaori mistakes as Touma hiding his injuries from her. Kaori backs down from searching Touma ‘completely’ after noticing Touma was on the verge of tears. Touma later crouches down on the sand and starts writing 'I'll sue you people' due to his embarassment.

Touma is then conscripted into handling this incident by Tsuchimikado, saying he'll be protected by him and Kaori from other magicians thinking Touma is the real culprit, in exchange for helping them finding the real culprit behind the grand magic.

Since the beginning of the Angel Fall, Kaori’s form has been that of Stiyl Magnus, which consequently gives an air towards people. Because of this, people call the authorities whenever she tries to go to the girl’s bathroom or when she gets on a train, which causes her a large amount grief. Touma’s family is no exception, as they have remarked Kaori as someone who speaks fluent Japanese surpisingly well, but with ‘a bit’ of a feminine tone to it and her movements. This shocks Kaori, feeling a blow to her self-esteem as a woman after hearing that she was only feminine ‘a bit’. Touma tries to intervene, thinking that they may notice that something is off with her, but didn’t chose his words carefully, saying that she is not at all feminine at the least. Hearing this, Kaori drags him away, where he fears that he will be subjected to waterboarding torture similar to what prisoners of the United States have been said to be subjected to. Kaori later asks Touma to stand guard while she takes a bath; however, he is accidentally pushed into the baths by his mother and cousin, just when Kaori is coming out of her bath. Because of this, Kaori attacks Touma with her sword sheath after giving him time to explain himself, which he fails on doing.

Kaori is later seen talking with Motoharu, where she rules out Touma as the mastermind behind Angel Fall. Motoharu later taunts Kaori about how she’s considering not to repay Touma for saving Index after he saw her naked, much to her chagrin. Touma later gets attacked by an escaped prisoner, but is rescued by Sasha Kruezhev of Annihilatus who plans to torture Touma for information, but is saved by Kaori and Motoharu. They later assume that the escaped prisoner as a suspect for the Angel Fall, as ordinary people – in this case a shop employee with Misaka 10032’s form – see the prisoner see the same way they do.

The following day, they discover that they prisoner has barricaded himself in one of the houses in the nearby suburbs – which coincidentally turns out to be the residence of Touma’s parents. They sneak into the neighbourhood, while Kaori setup a magical spell where the police to mistake someone else’s house instead of the intended house. While going through, Touma says a few times on how unlucky he is, which forces Motoharu to talk about Kaori’s background.

Touma and company successfully brake into the house and finds that the prisoner has released a gas that would cause an explosion if a spark where to occur. The prisoner uses this to his advantage, as so other people will not use any metallic weapons when they confront him. After being subdued, they discover that the prisoner isn’t the culprit, and Angel Fall is still affecting him; they only seem him as the same person because Angel Fall simply swapped a split personality within him. It is later revealed that Touya was the cause of the Angel Fall, which makes Sasha pursue him and everybody else to get into a taxi to get to the hotel where Kamijou Touya is.

It is later revealed that Sasha holds within her the angel that has fallen from due to Angel Fall. Kaori the fights the 'Power of God' in order to buy time for Touma and Motoharu to stop Angel Fall before Archangel Gabriel unleash ‘The Sweep’ that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Kaori took this role since there’s a 99% chance for Touma to be killed – where the remaining 1% is Gabriel being utterly destroyed by Imagine Breaker – and she refuse to let anyone unable to be saved. It's revealed here she chose her sorcery name as she wants to save everyone – even those who are not chosen by God to be saved when the end of days come. Later, Motoharu visits Touma in his hospital room and tells him that Kaori is tired but unharmed as a whole, then left to allow Index to bite Touma’s head intensively for ignoring her throughout their trip.

Anime Version
In the Toaru Majutsu no Index anime, Kaori has already determined that Touma is not the culprit behind Angel Fall. She and Motoharu arrive just in time to stop Misha Kruezhev of Annihilatus from attacking Touma who thought that he was the culprit behind Angel Fall. During their meeting, Kaori is completely oblivious to the fact that Touma has already lost his memories, due in part to Touma playing dumb.

Kaori explains that someone has activated a spell that switches appearances around the world, though more importantly the spell forced an angel into the same class like those humans, a literal Angel Fall. Motoharu goes on to say that the centre of this distortion is Touma, and Kaori adds that he is the number one suspect Angel Fall incident, indicating that he escaped the effects of the magic. Because of this, magicians – like Misha – who are trying to stop the spell are targeting him. However, Kaori states that there is no reason for Misha to suspect Touma as the culprit, as he has no knowledge of magic and that he also does not have the injuries obtained by espers using magic. Misha rebuts her statement saying that Touma is not affected by the spell, which prompts Motoharu to say that Touma has the Imagine Breaker with him, as such he is unaffected by it. Misha proves his claim by attacking Touma with a spell which he promptly negates with his right hand. Motoharu goes on to say that the spell is still centred on Touma, though he postulates that the culprit behind it might be someone near him.

Later during the evening, Touma and Motoharu discuss Kaori’s history as a member of the Amakusa Catholics, while Kaori is with Touma’s family and Index – probably investigating them – where she is irritated at their amusement on how Touma has such an unusual friend (since she took the form of Stiyl Magnus).

After much frustration, Kaori asks Touma to guard the men’s bathing room while she takes a bath, however, due to complications with his father they enter the bathroom just as Kaori is finishing up, she attacks them with her Seven Flashes, which prompts them to leave quickly. Motoharu later shows up outside to remind her to treat the one who saved Index better.

The next day Touma gathers the two of them to investigate Misha, whom he suspects to be a culprit as the other night she refused to touch his right hand in the least, when he offered a piece of candy to her. Kaori agrees with this and is left behind the resort, while Touma and Motoharu go to Touma’s parent’s house.

Meanwhile, Kaori discovers that there is no Misha Kruezhev in the ranks of the Annihilatus, only Sasha Kruezhev. When Touma returns to ask where his father is, Kaori directs him to the beach. Kaori later follows after him after finding Misha, and states that Misha is just a form taken by the angel that fell from the heavens, Gabriel, who has taken the form of Sasha Kruezhev.

Kaori protects Touma and Touya from Misha, and states that they need to find a way to break the spell quickly, as Misha has prepared 'The Sweep' – a world destroying spell; she as a saint is the only one that can stand against the Power of God, however, she will be unable do it for a prolonged period, even then, she does battle against Misha.

After Motoharu destroys Touma’s parent’s house – as it was the temple for the Angel Fall spell, Misha’s form crumbles and the fighting ends, Kaori tells herself that she owes another one to Touma.

Orsola Aquinas and The Book of Law
She appears in this volume to try to help her friends of the Amakusa church, but since she is no longer their leader she decides to defeat the English knights who was sent as backup and stayed out of the fight to see how her old followers would turn out to be. Tscuchimikado Motoharu asked her just what is she trying to achieve coming to Japan, and she replies she doesn't really know.

In the hospital after Touma fought Anieze she tells Touma that Orsola is now working with Necessarius along with the Amakusa sect now as branch of Necessarius. She tries to thank Touma but is interrupted by Tsuchimikado Motoharu, trying to twist her sincerity into fanservice for Touma. Touma loudly denies he has such indecent thoughts about Kanzaki, but Kanzaki didn't understand what exactly Motoharu was trying to tell her to do. In the end she got her message of 'thank you for helping, when you're not even a magician and just a normal civilian' across, to which Touma replies all he did was helped people on 'his' side - ie his friends who was in trouble, and those that needed help. And if the next time Anieze was the one in trouble he would help her out as well, she's just unluckily the villain for this time. Kanzaki's amazed by this outlook that completely disregards the intricate politicking between the many factions on both the Science side and the Magic side.

Oriana Thompson and the Daihasei Sports Festival
Kaori does not appear during this arc but her name is used by Motaharu during his battle with Oriana Thompson. Here, he bluffs that he used a spell to call Kaori – a saint – to aid him. Oriana knowing full well that she could not take a saint head on, and the knowledge that Kaori operated in Academy City a few days, and the fact that she really doesn't have the Stab Sword with her to ward off saints (and the fact that Koari will come to do battle with her even if she had the Stab Sword with her), chose to flee the grounds where she and Motoharu fought instead of taking any chances.

Volume SS1
Sasha Kruezhev came to the Necessarius girl's dormitory to scout out where would the people here support if war breaks out, and Orsola replies they will take no sides and help any that is in danger from the warfare, giving Sasha no definite answer. Just about every resident in this dormitory have been saved by Kamijou Touma, and wish to emulate him in what's seen as his 'selfless deeds'.

After Sasha left Kanzaki sighed and thought about her own hubris that her power gives her, not thinking of Orsola's idea until she brought it up. Orsola joked Kanzaki is thinking about her crush, Touma, quoting Tatemiya's reply to the Knight Leader's invitation to a ball. Kanzaki fell off her chair in exasperation and fervently denied that is the truth, annoyed that the Amakusa have been reduced to playing pranks like these.

Aqcua of the Back's Attack
She arrives on Amakusas fight against Acqua of the back takes their places ordering them to get away of the place. In her fight against Acqua of the Back, she realized was as arrogant as Acqua. She brushed off Amakusas thinking they're weaker than her, that they need to be under her care at all time so for the first time she asks Amakusas to help her fight Acqua. When Aqua scoffs at Kanzaki saying if she values her life that much, but to this she replies she's only hurt them by leaving them because she was looking down on them as well. Now she will gain her place back and believe in them instead of blaming them and at the end of light novel, she confused how she thank Touma, Tsuchimikado says to her that this is the only way to pay her debt back to Touma is by wearing a fallen-angel maid costume (Erotic version). Kanzaki in state of confusion told Tsuchimikado to bring the costume and ten minutes later she enters Touma's room and then the "fallen angel accident" happened.

Toaru Majutsu no Index: Kanzaki SS
Bundled with the Toaru Kagaku no Railgun DVDs, this story takes place after the events of the Angel Fall arc.

The first part revolves around a man called Ellason. He's a person who creates magical restraining and containment devices for the Necessarius. One day, he suddenly disappeared, and if his knowledge leaks out, it could potentially lead to magicians escaping from the London Tower. It's unknown whether he was brought away be some else, or disappeared on his own. Kanzaki was sent to find and bring him back.

At the start of the chapter, Kanzaki and Ellason fought, but Ellason escaped.

The next day, a messenger (the tour guide) came to the jeans shop where Kanzaki was, and asked Kanzaki and the jeans shop owner to help with the investigation. The jeans shop owner is actually kind of like Kanzaki's "partner" and has knowledge about magic, although he's more like a volunteer. So tour guide, jeans shop owner and Kanzaki went to Ellason's house.

There, they found a bunch of "devices" which were not sold to anyone, and the jeans shop owner was asked to analyze them.

Also, they met a girl called Sachiel, the one who noticed Ellason's disappearance and reported it. Sachiel was abandoned by her parents when she was 10 and also became a victim of child trafficking. She was saved and sent to an orphanage by Ellason. Sachiel wanted to pursue Ellason in search of her purpose in life, and kept on escaping from the orphanage because of that. Eventually, Ellason knew about it, brought her out of the orphanage, and let one of his neighbors take care of her.

After that, Sachiel offered to help with Ellason's work, but he refused. However, Ellason eventually noticed Sachiel's abilities to escape. Naturally, as a person who creates restraining and containment devices, this interests Ellason. He also found out that Sachiel escaped to search for her purpose in life. Eventually, Ellason decided that the only way to keep Sachiel safe is to give her a purpose in life and let her help with testing his creations. Since then, Sachiel sees this job as something that she needs.

When Kanzaki and jeans shop owner left Ellason's house, they took a bunch of the devices away to analyze. The tour guide went to St. Julian's Cathedral to meet with the bishop there, since the bishop seems to be concerned about Ellason's disappearance.

On the way back to the jeans shop, Kanzaki received a call regarding a Magical Organization that was in contact with Ellason before his disappearance. Kanzaki went and fought them, but the organization didn't know anything.

Back in the jeans shop, they started analyzing the devices. The owner used a magic which allows him to see the "magical blueprint" of a device, and asked Kanzaki and the tour guide to do the same and split the work so that they could speed up the analyzation process. They noticed that each of those devices have Cathedral-level strength. Kanzaki then realized that those devices were actually miniatures of the St. Julian's Cathedral, and were made to mimic the security systems in that cathedral so that Ellason could analyze them. They deduced that Ellason's plan is to attack St. Julian's Cathedral.

Ellason easily infiltrated St. Julian's Cathedral, and was able to reverse trap the guards, since he already analyzed the security systems through the devices he created. He went straight to the bishop's room.

Meanwhile, Kanzaki came to the Cathedral. There, she encountered one of the tools created by Ellason, in the form of the Gleipnir.

In the bishop's room, Ellason restrained the bishop and interrogated him. The bishop is actually the one behind that child trafficking project. The purpose is to give a steady supply of magicians to the Necessarius. However, the child trafficking project is not supported by either the Necessarius or the Church of England. The bishop of St. Julian's Cathedral started the project himself so that he could become a good supplier and get more merit for himself. As Ellason was killing the bishop, Kanzaki came into the room. Then, it was revealed that Ellason knew about the bishop's project all along, even before he saved Sachiel. He had planned to kill the bishop all along, but also hated himself for being a hypocrite and getting joy from being a hero and the "purpose of life" for one of the victims of the project. Because of that, he intended to kill himself to completely free Sachiel.

In the end, Ellason lost to Kanzaki, and was handed over to the Church for punishment.

Later Kanzaki is seem investigating the roots of the massive traffic of children leading her to discover a northern organization involved with another saint.

Abilities
Her sorcery name is Salvare000, "The one being saved becomes the hand that saves" (救われぬ者に救いの手を). Unlike her partner Stiyl, she uses magic to magically strengthen her body, and is proficient in non-magical combat.
 * Stigma, the ability to call upon God's power as a saint who has a body which resembles the Son of God, she is also endowed with super-human capabilities. Kaori uses this in combination with the Amakusa Style to perform magic that can stand up to Christian Angels.
 * Amakusa's Style Combat, as result of merging Shintoism and Budhism, which she performs using her nodachi for combat she the next form of attacks:
 * 1) Seven Flashes (七閃), is her main attack uses seven steel wires. The wires then can 'split' into thousands and surround or cut the enemy, though only Kanzaki can go that far due to her attributes as a Saint.
 * 2) Single Flash (唯閃), is an attack which permeates magic to her sword which is capable of harming christian angels.
 * 3) First Flash, is the real attack executed before the execution of the Seven Flashes (From chapter 6 of the Manga, not mentioned in the novels)
 * 4) Multiple spell casting, by using Nanasen she is also be able to cast spells by constructing various 3-dimensional magic circles.
 * Basically, in a fight with her, she can overwhelms the enemy from 360 degrees. The wires, the magic from the wires and then herself. Other skills in the Amakusa Style include excluding civilians from being involved from magician's combat like Stiyl's 'Opila' runes and enchant water to heal all external wounds and scars.

Trivia

 * Some of the 'cosplays' Motoharu suggested are maids, angels, fallen angels and/or ero versions of one or mixes of them, which later on making "fallen angel accident" at the end of the Volume 16.
 * From the SS light novel(also known as volume 13.5), from what Tatemiya Saiji said to decline the Captain of the Knights of England invitation to a ball "You can go home. Our priestess likes to lead a young man rather than being led by an older gentleman", it's now became a rumour that spread across half of London that Kaori has a crush on Kamijou Touma, which from their various interactions between the two leads to many people thinking Kanzaki have a crush on Touma. Even people like Laura Stuart and the Grand Master makes fun of Kaori using this rumour on many occasions.