Accelerator and Touma get caught up in an attempt at Misuzu Misaka's life. An 8-foot-tall giant with superhuman speed and strength... does he really count as a non-abilities user? Summary: Awaki faces Skill-Out leader Ritoku in the alley. Despite having no esper abilities, Ritoku proves to a formidable opponent because he is wearing a secret military suit that gives him superhuman speed and strength. After tossing a bunch of stuff to no avail, Awaki chucks a garbage bin at Ritoku but Ritoku kicks it right back at Awaki and Awaki appears to be crushed by the garbage bin. I can't believe that I'm getting owned by fairy dust! Meanwhile, Accelerator has beaten up a bunch of Skill Outs in another part of the ghetto. Soon after Accelerator is confronted by Ritoku who's standing on some scaffolding. Accelerator jumps up but Ritoku breaks open a can to spread metal dust which interferes with the transmitter on Accelerator's neck. Unable to use Redirection, Accelerator pulls out his pistol but Ritoku kicks it away. Ritoku pulls out his gun and Accelerator ends up falling hard on to the ground. Accelerator recovers his pistol and uses it to shoot loose one of the tarps covering the alley. Ritoku tries to shoot Accelerator but ends up being shot instead. Accelerator shot open the tarp so air can blow away the interfering particles, giving him back his Redirection ability. Ritoku tries to blow up another can but Accelerator stops him and throws him into a wall. Accelerator tells Ritoku that Skill-Out's destructive activities led to his downfall, but Ritoku argues that there is a need to fight against espers who pick on non-espers and reveals that he had lost a loved one in the mess. Accelerator realizes that Ritoku is in a similar situation he's in, but in the end Ritoku dies. Don't mess with Drunken Mom example I. Don't mess with Drunken Mom example II. After the mission, Accelerator is approached by Awaki who was watching the fight and also teleported Accelerator's pistol back to Accelerator. Accelerator is no mood to chat with Awaki and instead walks away while checking the contacts list on Ritoku's cellphone. Later at night, Accelerator is walking home when he spots a drunk Misuzu. Misuzu states she wants to go the database center of a certain university and annoys Accelerator into call a cab for her. A little later, Touma and Index finds Misuzu who is still drunk and falling out the parked cab. Misuzu accosts Touma and forces him into exchanging phone numbers before riding off in the cab towards the university database center. Meanwhile, Accelerator tries to find out more about Misuzu because she reminds him of Last Order. Accelerator tries to call a number but the call is intercepted by a higher-up from GROUP. The higher-up explains that Misuzu is at the city to bring Mikoto back home due to recent attacks against the city. The city doesn't want its students to leave, so it made a deal to have the Skill-Outs kill Misuzu. The higher-up asks if Accelerator wants in on the hunt, and when Accelerator says no the higher-up disables Accelerator's Redirection ability for a time period. Despite this, Accelerator still plans to interfere and stop the Skill-Outs from killing Misuzu. Who the heck carries around a pane of bulletproof glass? Suddenly Accelerator spots Touma running across the street. Touma had received a call for help from Misuzu who is trapped in the database center with armed Skill-Outs looking for her. Touma gets to the database center and finds that the Skill-Outs have captured Misuzu. With a pane of bullet-proof glass he found somewhere, Touma knocks out one of the Skill-Outs and tries to charge towards Misuzu, but the plan doesn't work very well. Thankfully, Accelerator shows up and starts shooting at the Skill-Outs, allowing Touma and Misuzu to get away. Touma and Misuzu run out a back door and are then confronted by Shiage (the guy Touma knocked out with the glass before). Shiage states that the Skill-Outs only agreed to take this job because their leader Ritoku is dead and they don't want the city to come after them anymore, but of course Touma doesn't understand nor care. Shiage takes out a baton and hits Touma with it, but Touma headbutts and knocks Shiage down with his right hand. Touma and Shiage then start arguing about how tough it is to be a level 0 and Touma basically tells Shiage to be a better person. Shiage charges and hits Touma in the head with the baton, but at the same time Touma connects with the right hand and Shiage is knocked out. Another long-winded speech. Another win by KO. Another job well done...and another trip to the hospital. After the incident, Misuzu changes her mind and decides not to take Mikoto back home, and Touma is taken to the hospital once again. Meanwhile, Accelerator meets up with his GROUP mates Awaki, Motoharu and "Mitsuki Unabara", all of whom are planning to rebel against their GROUP bosses. At the hospital, Touma is visited by Index and Hyoka. That's the spirit, Kaori. Never give up. Touma ended up worse off compared to the first season finale. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This episode actually had more substance than I thought it would. From the previews, it looked like Awaki and Accelerator would finish the random Skill-Outs leader and Misuzu will just show up for some comedic effect, but there was a bit more than that. The part about Ritoku was still the best part of the episode though just for the action alone. Despite being a non-esper, Ritoku happens to be more powerful than many espers due to some special suit that he is wearing, and that made the fights a bit more interesting. The action was fast paced with good animation. I didn't quite understand what Accelerator was doing with Ritoku's cellphone afterwards though. The second part of the episode was better than I expected, although I wasn't expecting much to begin with. The plot to assassinate Misuzu came out of nowhere, and Touma managed to get in another one of his long-winded speeches, but seeing Touma punch another person out is better than having this episode end on some slapstick comedy or other random insignificant event. Misuzu was also funny as the drunk mom who molests younger boys. Again, this finale episode was better than expected, but the end to the Vento arc would still have been a much suitable finale to the season. Looking at the season as whole, Index II wasn't much better than the first season. All of the arcs were tolerable, but none of them really impressed, and a number of them (the Oriana arc and the Vento arc) took too long to build up. On the plus side, there were some decent fights, and it looks the overall story of Index is actually headed in a focused direction which will be subject in the later seasons. Overall, I'd rate this season as average. It's not bad, but not that good either. With Vento's attack of Academy City, it looks like the conflicts will grow in intensity and importance, and so lets hope that the third season will actually show some improvements. From the feed of A Product of Wasted Time
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