Amano Ayane

Amano Ayane (天乃綾音) is a student of Tokiwadai Middle School who appears in Toaru Kagaku no Railgun. She was a member of the Hasekura Clique, one year before the main story.

Appearance
She has dark colored short length hair, which slightly covers her right eye and with a noticeable tuft on the top-right of her head. She wears the Tokiwadai Middle School uniform.

Personality
Unlike other Hasekura clique members, Amano stayed calm and imperturbable behavior when facing Urui Aika, a member of Mikagami clique. She is also sharp-sighted to figure out the esper ability user by seeing only a part of the ability. She is brave enough to confront a Level 5 and willing to risk her life to find out that how strong Level 5 is.

Background
When seeing Misaka Mikoto for the first time in a hallway, after Mikoto had achieved Level 5, she wanted to know how strong Level 5 is.

First Year Arc
Amano was part of a group from the Hasekura Clique who accidentally ran into Urui Aika of the Mikagami Clique late at night, in the middle of the conflict between the two cliques. With tensions high, a clash of abilities occurred, with an intervention by a nearby and out-of-sight Misaka Mikoto to move Urui out of the way of an incoming blow.

When Mikoto used her iron sand to block another attack, Amano identified who was interfering, forcing Mikoto to reveal herself. With the chance to learn what a Level 5 was capable of and an excuse to do so, Amano then challenged her to a one-on-one battle, telling the other girls she didn't need help. After announcing her own power to make things fair, Amano proceeded to attack Mikoto, who merely evaded, with the two jumping between building surfaces.

Frustrated that she couldn't draw out Mikoto's full power despite her resolve, Amano put all of her strength into a vacuum blade attack while on a wind turbine, which Mikoto redirected with joule heating and little effort, with Amano losing strength and falling, recognizing that her opponent wasn't even fighting her and stronger than she could have imagined, but feeling something different. As Amano was falling, the spinning propeller blade hit by her vacuum blade broke off and fell towards the watching Hasekura girls. Grabbing and cushioning Amano as she was doing so, Mikoto destroyed the propeller blade with her Railgun. Afterwards, a blushing Amano approached Mikoto again and thanked her for the opportunity (even if it might not have been all of her power) before leaving with the others.

After Montgolfier was identified as the culprit behind the attacks that instigated and aggravated the clique conflict, Amano joined the rest of the Hasekura clique, with later reinforcements from the Mikagami and Sha cliques, for a raid on the company's headquarters, and was involved in the subsequent battle with Montgolfier's operatives and their prototype weapons.

During her art appreciation elective in October, Amano visited a theatre in School District 9 with a group of Tokiwadai students including members of the Hasekura and Mikagami cliques, and together with Asato Kisa, helped to rescue trapped staff when a fire started during the visit.

Abilities
Amano's Level 4 ability is called Air Pressure, which allows her to cut distant foes with vacuum waves. These vacuum waves can travel in non-straight paths. At full power, the launch of a vacuum wave attack can cut and exhaust Amano herself. During her clash with Misaka Mikoto, a regular vacuum wave could cut through a manhole cover, while a redirected full power shot made a cut in a wind turbine propeller, which when coupled with the acceleration due to Mikoto's presence caused the propeller to tear off a few seconds later. She can also use her ability to intercept attacks, and can walk on vertical surfaces like walls.

Trivia

 * Ayane shares her last name (天乃) with Amano Kaguya, although the latter's is spelled with different kanji (天埜), implying the two are unrelated.