Accelerator

"I strive for something beyond the strongest, that challenging me would be the most ridiculous thought ever, that fighting me would be a sin!"

- Accelerator

Accelerator ( 一方通行 (アクセラレータ, Ippou Tsuukou (Akuserarēta), lit."One-Way Road") is the name used to refer to the strongest esper currently residing in Academy City. He is the second protagonist of the Science Side in the Toaru Majutsu no Index series. First appearing chronologically in Toaru Majutsu no Index as an antagonist, he later becomes the primary male protagonist of the Science Side after being defeated by Kamijou Touma. His journey to a more "heroic" role in the story progresses after meeting and saving Last Order, and is forced into an ironic twist of fate where his life now depends on the Sisters, clones he previously killed by the thousands. He is also a major antagonistic character in Toaru Kagaku no Railgun and the protagonist of Toaru Kagaku no Accelerator.

Appearance
Accelerator appears as a skinny teenager and has pale skin, moppy white hair and red eyes. This is caused by his ability, as it blocks ultraviolet rays, thereby preventing his body from producing melanin. His ability also has an affect on his hormones, as he stated in both the novel and manga series that it was because of his power he has "...this genderless body," although there is definite evidence stated throughout the series whether he is a boy. In the novel/manga, when Last Order asked him "Then are you male or female?" he gave the equivocal answer, "Can't you tell?" While in the novel he is shown to have a slim, adrogynous body, a bathing scene he is depicted him bare-chested and obviously male. He also seems to have an affinity for black and white-themed clothing, which is a famous brand.When he is enraged or excited (such as when fighting a strong or amusing opponent e.g Kamijou Touma in the Sisters Arc) he breaks into a wide grin and laughs, giving him a maniacal and sadistic appearance.

Personality
Due to the potential of his ability, Accelerator has been targeted by assassins and researchers throughout his life. As a result, he believes only in power and trusts no one. While fighting, he invokes fear and has a sadistic tone. He willingly joins the SISTER experiment to gain a reputation as the most powerful and feared psychic so that no one would dare be foolish enough to challenge him and won't hesitate to kill any who get in his way. The Sisters' memories of his behavior during the experiment may suggest that he is, in a way, a pacifist; because his power won't disappear, the only way he sees an end to the fighting is to be so strong and sadistic that no one would dare to raise a finger against him. He even seems to attempt to frighten the Sisters out of fighting or otherwise encourage them to refuse their battles.

After meeting Last Order, he strives to protect her (although he states he does not like her company, he tolerates her). He saved her from Amai Ao's plot and from being pursued from the Hound Dogs. He treats Index in a similar fashion, such as when he buys her lunch while searching for Last Order and by protecting her from the Hound Dogs. By Vol. 19, he has mellowed out to the point that he actually lectures a child in order to prevent him from getting himself killed after a hostage situation.

His attitude towards Touma was hinted at throughout the novels after Vol. 5, when it is shown that he both idolizes and is slightly jealous of Touma's heroic personality, and is outright shown when he and Touma finally come to blows in Vol. 20. By comparison according to Heaven Canceler, Touma and Accelerator are very similar, but their methods are like opposite sides of a coin; Touma is able to protect his loved ones without killing and is able to stand by their side, while Accelerator protects his loved ones through violent methods and even admits that he is unable to stand by Last Order and Yomikawa's side. Deep down, he is someone that aches for the light, as shown when Yomikawa was able to walk up to him and slowly take a gun from his hands before he tried to finish off Kakine after their fight, and later when he refused to hurt a Misaka WORST clone and tried to heal her wounds after she tried to kill herself.

Aiwass has also commented on the differences between Touma and Accelerator – stating how Accelerator craves for the wholesomeness of being a 'hero' like Touma, even to the point that he declared himself evil because he believes he cannot reach that level. He is someone that tries hard to redeem himself.

Accelerator was shown to often underestimate his enemies earlier in the series, which led to his loss against Touma. However, after nearly being killed by Kihara Amata and fighting Komaba Ritoku, he no longer underestimates his enemies. This fact is noted by one of the terrorists in Hula Hoop in Vol. 19 as possibly being the most terrifying thing about him: he always uses exactly how much force he needs to in order to defeat his enemy: no more and no less. If he ever underestimated his enemies, it would have given them an opening they could have exploited, but since he didn't, he simply wiped them out.

In Vol. 22 After-word the author states that what Accelerator wants most is not a lover but a family, and states Last Order is like his child he has to take care of. Also in Vol. 22, Misaka Worst said half-jokingly she wants the same fatherly treatment he gives to the other Misaka clones.

History
Accelerator was alone in Academy City until he met Last Order. In the Hound Dogs Invasion Accelerator has a change of heart so to speak and becomes less of a villain and more of an anti-hero. Accelerator ends up fighting Kihara Amata in order to save Last Order during the invasion. Accelerator later joins GROUP and fights against the dark side of Academy City. He eventually leaves GROUP and tries to become more like Kamijou Touma but, soon realizes that he can never be a hero like him and stand in the spotlight. So he decides to do things from behind the scenes.

Powers and Abilities
Accelerator's ability creates a thin field of AIM around him, which allows him to modify the vector values of anything he touches. After the events of Vol. 5, his brain gets damaged, and he has to rely on a choker-type electrode that connects him to the Misaka network. The brainwave network allows him to use language, as well as making up for his lost ability to make calculations, although it is stated that it's less than half of what he once had. Furthermore the network enable Accelerator to reflect ultraviolet rays even when he isn't in esper mode. When using the network in esper mode, the battery of the electrode only lasts fifteen minutes. That changes in when he joins GROUP and its technical team cranks his time up to thirty minutes. He does not need the Misaka Network to use his abilities when in his awakened state.

He is shown to be far stronger than any other Level 5 in Academy City, being able to easily defeat the "Awakened" #2 Level 5 esper Kakine Teitoku without awakening himself. It should be noted that this fight took place after Accelerator's brain was damaged and he was forced to start relying on the Misaka Network to do his calculations, which reduced him to having less than half of his former calculation abilities. The nature of Accelerator's power belonged to the Aeon of Osiris until Vol. 22 when he passed it onto the Aeon of Horus.


 * Redirection: He can change the vector values of anything he touchs; for example, he killed a Sister clone by reversing the flow of blood inside her body after putting his finger inside her wound. Furthermore, this ability is automatic, so projectiles like bullets or explosives have no effect on him, as they will be redirected, even if he is unaware of their presence. He must consciously allow things like gravity and light to affect him. It is because of his ability that he has an albino appearance, as his "reflection" blocks all unnecessary ultraviolet radiation, thereby preventing the skin from manufacturing melanin. However, if one can find their way "around" his redirection ability(as demonstrated by Touma and Kihara Amata), it is shown to be rather useless, marking Accelerator as a Glass Cannon due to having a strong ability but a somewhat weak body(as Touma/Kihara managed to bring him down to his feet in only around 10-7 blows). Thus far, he has shown the following ways to use his powers:
 * 1) Earth Stomp: By altering the vector of force applied to the ground by his feet, he causes a little explosion made of earth and rocks to attack his opponents. At the beginning of the series this was his most common method of attack. He can also use this to propel himself forward, as seen in the Sisters Arc, or cause massive destruction to the ground and surrounding buildings due to shockwaves created by the impact, as seen during his scuffle with Awaki in the Tree Diagram Remnant Arc.
 * 2) Vector Shooting: By touching an object, he can use his ability to change the magnitude of vectors he comes in contact with, such as seen during his fight with Kamijou Touma in the Sisters Arc. This allows him to change the vectors of objects in such a way that he can turn them to projectiles. An example of the use of this ability is in his fight with Touma, when he lightly kicked a rock to make it shoot like a bullet, or when he stomped on train rails to push them out of their sockets, and lightly knocked on them to make those rails rain upon Touma. This ability also allows him to mimick superhuman strength, as he once used it to pick up and throw a building.
 * 3) Wind Control: He can re-vector the surrounding winds and force them to congregate at a single point creating an extremely high velocity wind, but it had flaws like when the wind is moving in an abnormal direction or when his vector calculations are disturbed by sound as showed as with Kihara in the Vol. 13.
 * 4) Plasma Storm: He can even create plasma by further compressing the wind at high speeds in a single point.
 * 5) Kinetic Blast: Shown in Vol. 13, he takes control of the planet's rotational vectors and transfers an enormous amount of that energy into one attack. This attack used up so much of the planets rotational energy that it slowed down the the earth's rotation by about 5 minutes.
 * 6) Brain Hacking: In accord to him by redirecting the electrical signals of the human body he can take 'control' over them and rewrite the memories and personality of the people as showed with Last Order in the Vol. 5.
 * 7) Flight: By controlling the wind around him he creates about 4 high-powered tornadoes behind him to allow him to fly. Showed in Vol. 8 and 15. He is also able to redirect the vectors of gravity upon him.
 * 8) Reverse Engineering: Shown in Vol. 22, chapter 11; The Accelerator has stated that as long as he has experienced it, he can analyze forces unknown to him as long as his body has been in contact with it, by following the vectors that have been applied(almost similar to a vaccine shot's case). He used this ability to understand Aiwass' "inexplicable laws".
 * 9) Bullet Redirection: Shown in Vol. 15 in his fight against Saraku. When his gun sight is thrown off in this fight, Accelerator simply pointed the gun at himself then fired, redirecting the bullet to hit his enemy, stating that his ability was far more precise than any gun sight.


 * Awakening: He awakens towards the end of Vol. 13 when he had a epiphany right before he was nearly killed by Kihara, and fully awakened in his fight with the other "Awakened" level 5, Kakine Teitoku in Vol. 15, during which he displayed a massive difference in power between them. When he Awakens, Accelerator usually loses almost all conscious control of himself and begins to speak in the language of the Angels. He gains the ability to control and create "imaginary vectors", and no longer needs to be touching vectors to control them. When Awakened, he manifests massive black wings, stated to be made of the same "Dark Matter" that the #2 Level 5 Kakine Teitoku creates with his ability. These wings do all the vector-related calculations for him, implied to be a much faster rate than his original calculating abilities- perhaps infinitely so, and as a result he does not need the Misaka Network to manipulate vectors and "imaginary vectors" in his awakened form. In Vol. 22, due to his pillar of support being changed by an epiphany after being defeated by Touma again, he manifests white wings and a halo and is able to block a massive amount of Telesma that Fiamma of the Right launched from the Star of Bethlehem. The Angelic nature of his ability is described as "The One Who Wields the Power of God".


 * Machine Ingenuity: Accelerator is also quite competent with machinery and technology, evident in when he modified his cane with various gravity sensors, and small motors to help better support himself.


 * Magic: Accelerator has demonstrated the ability to use magic. In Vol. 22, he used his vector ability to interpret the song used by Index to save Last Order and repeated the breathing method, casting the spell. As this was a pure magic spell, he suffered serious harm but saved Last Order. This is a possible factor that lead to Accelerator gaining White Wings, replacing his Black ones. After an explanation on the theory of magic provided by Leivinia Birdway, Accelerator displays his extreme delicate control over magic to having a side effect of using magic as unnaturally sweating rather than rupture of blood vessels and organ damage.


 * Magical Knowledge: By having a rough idea what Feng Shui was he is able to use a limited magic detection and then combining his knowledge of group psychology it becomes accurate.


 * Firearms: After his fight with Kihara Amata, Accelerator realizes that he can no longer depend on his ability all the time. As such, he gets training with firearms and is shown to be extremely proficient in their use. Using his left, weaker hand he was able to finish off a round of practice in 70 seconds. He has commented that reloading a pistol in two seconds with just one hand and his teeth is too slow, even though he was just testing the guns.

Trivia

 * Accelerator is the first known character who has managed to fill Index's stomach. Even when Maika cooks for Index, she only manages to fill 1/3 of Index's stomach according to Motoharu.
 * Although Tree Diagram predicted that in a fight between him and Misaka Mikoto, she would die in 185 moves, the version of the SISTERS Arc in the Railgun manga shows that she would have been killed just by reflecting her strongest move, the Railgun, in 4 moves. Of course, this prediction is probably based on Accelerator's tendency to play with his opponents.
 * The artist in charge of the illustration of the light novels, Kiyotaka Haimura, made a genderswap version of Accelerator wearing a sailor school uniform in the extra pages of the Volume 8, based on Accelerator's thin figure which makes him look like a girl due to his esper ability that upsets the balance of hormones in his body. Due to Touma once speculated Accelerator's real name to be Suzushina Yuriko the fandom who have read the novels in Chinese and Japanese have been joking whether this is really his real name and Accelerator is actually a girl. In addition, the jokes include if Accelerator turns out as a girl would (s)he end up falling for Touma as well.
 * His voice actor, Nobuhiko Okamoto, won twice in the Annual Seiyuu awards for his role as Accelerator. He first won Best Male Rookie in 2008 for his role in Index, and he also won Best Supporting Actor in 2010 for Index II. These achievements were both pointed out in the Index-tan specials.
 * When spoilers on Volume 20 was first released, there was the misconception that Accelerator had somehow managed split the country Russia into two halves. Later this is found to be false, stemming from a mistranslation in the narration at the part where Accelerator has just defeated Misaka Worst.
 * He is shown to have a liking of coffee as there is references in the light novel of him buying / wanting to buy coffee. He enjoys the same brand of coffee that Touma likes(black coffee without sugar), and at least in one opportunity (Volume 5 light novel, before encountering Last Order and after his defeat from Touma) he actually bought every coffee can left in the store, "foiling" Touma's attempt to buy coffee the next day. (Another possible joking nod to Touma's "misfortune.") It could be seen as a slight irony via Accelerator's character development.
 * Due to his unusual introduction to Last Order and his equally unusual reaction to seeing her naked, not to mention their close relationship and the way he attracted Index's attention in Volume 12-13, fans have been joking that Accelerator might secretly be a lolicon. Misaka Worst lampshades this in New Testament Volume 1, because Accelerator is looking to help Fremea Seivelun.
 * Although Accelerator has an automatic deflection to every vector that comes into contact with him, it is not explained how his (noticeably) well-fitting clothes stay on him, although they may be included in the small exceptions his redirection makes for necessities, such as oxygen and food.
 * It is not explained how limited Accelerator's auto-reflection is, since all attacks that make contact with even his clothes are deflected. Although Accelerator has shown his ability to use vectors to accelerate his own movements by pushing off the earth with his legs, there remains a fan speculation that brings up a flaw in his powers using net force. If Accelerator automatically deflects all forces, one step could cause massive destruction, as when his foot applies pressure to the ground, the earth in turn "pushes up" on him, attempting to create a net force of zero, thus causing the force to be deflected against the ground again, and so on.