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| “ | My Offense Armor won't break to mere guns. | „ |
| ~ Saiai Kinuhata |
Saiai Kinuhata is a major character in the A Certain Magical Index franchise.
She is a Level 4 esper and the second in command of ITEM, a mercenary organization from the dark side of Academy City. She is also a former test subject of the Dark May Project and the arch-rival of Umidori Kuroyoru. She's serves as one of Shiage Hamazura's closest allies.
She is voiced by Chinatsu Akasaki in Japanese and Apphia Yu in English.
Appearance[]
Saiai Kinuhata is a young girl around the age of 12 with short brown hair styled in a bobcut. She wears a white sweater knit dress and and a pair of striped socks. The short length of her sweater exposes her thighs and legs but not to the point that her butt and panties will be exposed even if she were to bend over.
In Railgun, Saiai wears an orange hoodie and hot pants.
Personality[]
Despite being a powerful esper who takes her assignments seriously, Saiai isn't as deranged or sadistic as her teammates Mugino and Frenda, and when outside of work, she's a perfectly easygoing person who enjoys watching C and B movies and teasing others, with her usual target being Shiage Hamazura. Saiai is also quite eccentric and has a hobby of collecting used tickets to films she's already seen.
However, in spite of her playful personality, Saiai still proves to be very ruthless and dangerous during missions, being completely unfazed by the idea of killing or torturing people. She is also professional and would rather not try and pick unnecessary fights, as shown when she recognizes Mikoto Misaka and knows that she fought Shizuri in the past, but doesn't bother to antagonize her, because she's not on the clock. She even avoids taking her back to ITEM's hideout to avoid another confrontation between Mikoto and Shizuri.
Notably, Saiai has the tendency to add "super" ("ultra" in the dub) into her speech. This is likely due to her brain being inserted with Accelerator's thought patterns, who has a penchant for swearing, so the expletives are replaced with the word "super". Moreover, despite her mostly easygoing demeanor, Saiai can become rather violent towards people who upset her, best seen when she tries to beat up Hamazura for seeing her panties, even though she teased him earlier by playfully pulling her sweater up but accidentally flipped it up.
Additionally, while Saiai takes pride in her figure, she has a complex regarding her chest size when compared to the other members of ITEM and when she misinterprets Shiage's reason for buying Musashino Milk for her, she even attempts to kill him. Furthermore, Saiai is shown to genuinely care about her teammates, as seen when visited Takitsubo in the hospital and even planned to throw her celebration for when she was discharged. She also has a close bond with Hamazura and cares about him enough to help him escape from his pursuers.
Biography[]
Kinuhata's full background isn't known, however, what is known is that she was a test subject of the Dark May Project, an experiment that, in an effort to replicate the #1 esper's powers, forcibly altered young espers' minds by inserting Accelerator's thought patterns to try to steer their powers towards his vector manipulation abilities. Saiai was considered to be the "honor student" of the project, as her esper power became an automatic defense that also increased her offensive capabilities like Accelerator's and her personality was still stable, unlike her fellow test subject Umidori Kuroyoru.
At some point in time, Saiai was rescued by Item and joined them as the second in command.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
- Offense Armor: Saiai's Level 4 esper power which allows her to allows her to control the nitrogen of the surrounding air to automatically create a thin barrier around herself. The thin super-compressed barrier of nitrogen has the primary function of working as a 360 degrees defensive barrier, easily stopping bullets and other powerful attacks. She is also somewhat capable of manipulating air currents around her via displacing nitrogen. Despite her armor, any sufficiently powerful blows can still knock her down due to her small body, even if she doesn't receive any damage from the blow. In order to compensate for foes who prove to be able to eliminate naturally-occurring nitrogen in the air, Saiai carries around a small canister of liquid nitrogen for use at all times.
- Enhanced Strength: Saiai can control the compressed nitrogen around her to mimic superhuman levels of strength, allowing her to easily lift heavy objects like cars with one hand and to destroy walls with a single punch. She also managed to send St. Germain's plant monsters flying with a punch. However, her effective range is very small as it only extends a few centimeters from her palm.
Abilities[]
- Expert Combatant: Saiai is quite proficient in hand-to-hand combat and proves to be a skilled brawler. She is able to take on Stephanie Gorgeouspalace in battle.
- Marksmanship: While not part of her usual fighting style, Saiai is quite skilled using handguns, having used one and a special bullet to take down a Six Wings from a moving car. She's also capable of aiming her handheld missile launchers accurately at targets hundreds of meters away.
Equipment[]
- Handheld Anti-tank Missile Launchers: Saiai carries several of these devices. The handheld missile launchers look like a metal rod about 30 centimeters long with masses of metal about the size of a drink can at its end. Appearing like maracas or old stick grenades, the handheld anti-tank missile warheads are used by pulling the short string at the back ends of the rod, similar to have one uses a party cracker. When launched, they travel for about 10 meters and then ignite, capable of traveling 500 meters while scattering flames. Upon hitting something, it then explodes. A few of these used together are enough to nearly collapse an entire building.
