Fanfic / A Certain Unknown Level 0

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A Certain Unknown Level 0 is a A Certain Magical Index fanfic written by MrQuestionMark that builds upon the Urban Legend of the certain unknown level 0 that defeated Accelerator and the Railgun.

The fanfiction explores almost all the characters of the ToAru universe and their interactions with the Level 0 in question, Kamijou Touma. All the while dealing with unconnected events on the Magic Side and the Science Side, and a new gang, MINUS, that has risen to "defend" the principles of the Unknown Level 0 who defeated the strongest, while not truly knowing the reason why he fights.

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Examples

• Action Survivor: A couple of characters are this, including Uiharu and Saten at one point.
• A Day in the Limelight: Every arc is based around a character and their interaction with Touma and learning more about what makes him, him, with those from the Science side helping or getting involved with the struggles against MINUS and those of the Magic side being more standalone. However, recent activities involve a magic organization called Harmonia's Cradle that isn't so different from MINUS even though they are against each other.
• Alternate Universe Fic: While Mr. Question Mark does try to incorporate most of the revelations revealed by retconning his story to fit, other elements came too late and had to be left out; such as Shokuhoku knowing Touma before the events of the series. Kamisato Kakeru and his faction along with the Anti-Art Attachment are deliberately ignored. With the introduction of the Elements attack from NT17 come the Uiharu Kazari arc however, it seems to be subverted at this point.
• Anti-Magic: Touma's Imagine Breaker in his right hand, which nullifies magic and esper powers on contact.
• An Arm and a Leg: Touma's left arm, which was already injured from his previous encounter with Kihara Kamui, is mutilated to the point that when he's tossed on the floor, it's enough to tear what remaining ligaments he had, amputating it.
• Arranged Marriage: In order to stop the pressure from three big corporations forcing their own arranged marriages on his daughter, Mitsuko Kongo's father arranges one with Touma the husband to be.
• The Atoner: What Kongou Mitsuko becomes after the mission to rescue Touma from the coalition against the FIVE_Object Project.
• Asshole Victim: Deconstructed. In spite of being a pretty unpleasant person to everyone, Hashiro Endo's death is too gruesome and heartbreaking to be considered cathartic.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: While not love per se, Faith has more care to Orion than she lets on. Aiding him when he's injured, and shows rage when Misaki shoots him using her body. Asking Orion who did it, implying she would have killed Misaki given the chance.
• Berserk Button:
  • After learning about Touma's beliefs about himself and any relationships he may have; anyone badmouthing him will immediately gain the near murderous rage of Misaka, Shokuhou, Itsuwa, Index, and Othinus as Kongou would've discovered if she had not been kidnapped. Later discovered she was not kidnapped, but Touma instead. Though Kongou still manages to gain their rage-Misaki especially-when she badmouths Touma's own luck that got himself kidnapped. It doesn't end well.
  • If your going against Hamazura, Accelerator, Misaka or god forbid all three, do not threaten, harm or kidnap their loved ones. As much as they respect Touma and his ideals, they will become the monsters they were or were about to become in order to rescue them as Orion Phoenix found out through their Cold-Blooded Torture.
• Beware the Nice Ones: When the bus that Touma was in explodes, the girls were horrified to see him and said bus get ripped apart by the explosion. It was at this point, however, that Mikoto snaps, and throws caution off the window, creating a massive iron sand monster and sets out (successfully) to destroy the command center which was inputting commands into the buses around Academy City. Touma gets an admittedly even more epic (and also terrifying) one: As he emerges from the wreckage of the bus, completely worse for wear, after hearing Uiharu being viciously attacked by Gakusha Bakin, he's not having any of it, and proceeds to crush Gakusha's ankle so much, he might have completely dismembered his foot in the process. Although it might be because of the Invisible Thing possessing him at that time.
• Blessed with Suck: Touma's right hand, in addition to negating all supernatural phenomenon, also negates his very luck, frequently landing him in a world of pain from the vengeful girls he frequently embarrasses.
  • Though his male classmates regard him as Cursed with Awesome due to his godly ability to (unintentionally) gain the affection of girls, a result of his right hand negating the red string of fate.
• Born Lucky: Batya Sitara of Harmonia's Cradle has not once ever experienced misfortune as a complete antithesis to Touma. However, if her one comment is to be believed, she is Blessed with Suck when it comes to this as she feels that she has lived an incomplete life without misfortune. It's to the point that she starts showing a budding obsession with Touma with the ability to negate that.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Aaron Gracestone and his security team had been abducted, tortured and brainwashed by Kihara Kamui shortly after the arranged marriage was made between Touma and Mitsuko.
• Break the Cutie: The Science Side of Touma's harem is emotionally beaten as much as Touma is physically wrecked, the worst of it during the Uiharu Kazari arc where the girls suffer from multiple Heroic BSODs and their Fire-Forged Friendship almost gets torn to pieces. Do note that the entirety of the Uiharu Kazari arc is 40+ chapters in 74.5 hours.
• The Bus Came Back: After painstaking 40 chapters, and only appearing as The Ghost for quite some time, Touma finally comes back to Academy City.
• Cassandra Truth: No one in MINUS believes that Touma is the Unknown Level 0 they revere when he tells them upfront because they can't believe he didn't fight Accelerator to prove his strength.
• Cerebus Syndrome: While previous arcs have had their dark moments, they would often end in Mood Whiplash due to Touma unintentionally breaking tension either because of his luck, Skewed Priorities, or his comical conversations with other characters. Following the Uiharu Kazari Arc, things get grimmer and grimmer, and the story begins to deconstruct Touma as a character.
• Character Title: The fic is named after the "Certain Unknown Level 0".
• The Chew Toy: Touma is certainly this to the author, who is a self-confessed "Touma sadist".
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Guess who?
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: Why, Touma of course, and it's mentioned in-series that multiple girls, not just the ones shown in the main series, have crushes on him. During his actions against MINUS, he adds Saten, Konori Mii, hell, even Fukiyose and Kuroko! It's implied that Uiharu has developed feelings for him throughout her own arc, and it's later confirmed at the end.
• Cold-Blooded Torture:
  • The things done to Touma by Kihara Kamui in Aaron Gracestone's body are enough to sicken even the author and only serve to show how much of a monster Kamui is even among the Kiharas.
  • Hamazura, Accelerator and Misaka do this to Orion after they found out he is responsible for kidnapping their respective loved ones. The brutality of this moment actually causes Touma to finally land an actual punch on Misaka followed by a Disappointed in You speech.
• Cosmic Plaything: The reason why Touma ends up in all these situations.
• Dark and Troubled Past: While some of the canon characters retain theirs from the main series, Touma's is actually worse than already is presented. When he was a child, Touma was nearly stabbed to death by a CEO whose business went under from interacting with Touma. Touya also mentioned that Touma never had a childhood friend at all when his classmates ask the older man about Touma having any Childhood Marriage Promises.
• Darker and Edgier: The Uiharu Kazari Arc might just be the darkest story arc to date. And as the arcs get longer and longer, the tone becomes far much gritty and somber than in the beginning.
• Dented Iron: Touma may be Made of Iron, but all the trauma he has endured throughout both the story and canon series is starting to show. Especially when he is diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
• Determinator: Touma of course, who ramps it up to eleven in Kongo Mitsuko 2 by overcoming his inability to remember Shokuhou Misaki through sheer willpower, and a little help from Regon.
• Disney Death: Touma, against all odds, survives an antimatter explosion at point blank range.
• Door Stopper: A truly massive story at over 2 million words in 132 chapters.
  • The story arcs have been getting longer as well. The latest arc featuring Uiharu is a Door Stopper in its own right, consisting of more than ONE MILLION words spread over 47 chapters.
• Dramatic Irony: Kuroko feels contempt for groups like MINUS due to how they act out on the belief that Academy City discriminates against them for not having any esper abilities or having weak ones, seeing how Academy City never guaranteed that they would develop such. Considering the Parameter List that is vital to the Power Curriculum Program...
• Eldritch Abomination: The "Invisible Thing" that resides in Touma's right hand. Those who are unlucky enough to damage his right hand face pure incomprehensible terror and would be lucky to escape with their sanity.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Despite the trope name, this fits as it does not need to be played for laughs in A Certain Unknown Level 0. After Touma defeats Accelerator, several Level 0s and low-level espers hear about this and are inspired. Unfortunately, they think that the Unknown Level 0 who beat Accelerator was sending a message to rise up and destroy the high-level espers and those who associate with them, forming a highly-organized and murderous gang called "MINUS" in the process. When in fact, Touma beat Accelerator because he is a hero who helps and protects people. When Touma explains this, the MINUS members refuse to listen to him and accuse him of being an impostor, as he is completely different from the image they created in their minds of the Unknown Level 0.
• Extra-ore-dinary: One of the MINUS members Touma fought possesses the Metal Twist power, which can reshape metals.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Accelerator. No one knows his birth name anymore.
• Everyone Has Standards: Although Shirai Koroko doesn’t like Touma for being so close to Mikasa, she is willing defend him as part of her duty to Judgement. She doesn’t even hesitate to come to his rescue alongside Mikasa when the “Pure” try to kill him.
• Evil Brit: Aaron Gracestone of Circuits and Chips, even more so after his brainwashing at the hands of Kihara Kamui.
• Evil Versus Evil: As of the Mugino Arc, there is an underground war between the remnants of MINUS (science side) and Harmonia's Cradle (magic side). At this point, MINUS is at its last grasp but it isn't out of the fight just yet.
• Failed a Spot Check: The trio of Misakaists calling themselves the "Pure" took upon themselves to punish anyone who dared to harm Mikoto Misaka within the school grounds of Tokiwadai Middle School, but they failed to notice Shirai Koroko's blatant sexual harrasment against Mikoto.
• Family Title: The Sisters Arc, which is about the Sisters, who are actual sisters.
• For the Evulz: Kihara Kamui does things in a unethical manner not because he feels it limits science, but simply because he can, showing that unlike the apathetic sociopathy of the rest of the Kiharas, Kamui is instead a sadistic psychotic monster who does things just because he can.
• Gatling Good: Stephanie Gorgeouspalace uses an array of Gatling guns against the hacked Anti-skill Weaponry in Chapter 129.
• The Ghost The leader, also known as the general, of MINUS is only mentioned by his title with not even his name being known to anyone. In Chapter 174. his name is finally revealed: Owari Taisho that is to say General of the End.
• Gossip Evolution: It turns out that due to the decentralized nature of MINUS and extremely hands off nature of its founder and general, the original reason for the groups creation was lost. In truth, unlike other members who revere Touma as the Certain Unknown Level 0, the general loathes him.
• Grand Theft Me: Inverted and discussed. Because Touma lost all his memories before July 28th, he feels that he has done this to the original Kamijou Touma and because of that has decided never to enter into a relationship because it would be another thing taken from the previous Kamijou Touma. Shokuhou, Misaka, and Index are in disagreement of course, but Touma stands firm in this belief.
• Groin Attack: True to his misfortune, Touma's bad luck causes the normally well-behaved Ekataraine, Kongou's pet python, not only coil around him trying to eat him but when Mitsuko finally coaxes the snake off of him, she bites him where even Index hasn't. To add insult to injury, Ekatarine attacked Touma in the toilet meaning she had direct access to the organ in question.
• Heroic BSoD: A comedic example, but when Kuroko finds herself attracted to Touma after helping her out in her arc, she takes it rather poorly, to say the least.
  • Later played straight during the Uiharu Kazari arc, and multiple times.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Accelerator, basically. No one knows his birth name.
• Hope Bringer: Touma has this effect on most of the characters in the story. So much that when he leaves Academy City for London (unintentionally, of course), things took a dark turn for those living in Academy City.
• I Reject Your Reality: The “Pure” try to to kill Touma for “violating” Mikasa, but when their idol fights them to protect him and calls him a friend, they are unable to comprehend why Mikasa would oppose them and come to the conclusion that she’s an imposter.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Well, more accurately, Idiosyncratic Arc Naming. Every Arc is named after the character who has A Day in the Limelight.
• Idiot Ball: Despite being told to leave any classified information about Touma alone, with a sniper aiming right at her with a laser for emphasis, Uiharu still tries to investigate Touma. This leads to her kidnapping by Seria Kumokawa and Tsuchimikado Motoharu, the latter being the sniper in question.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: What the Mugino Shizuri arc boils down too. After getting her more stable personality wiped by a Kihara, Mugino reverts to her pre-defeat by Hamazura self, prompting Touma to slug it out with her in order to wake her up and bring her out of the Darkness.
• Invincible Villain: Thor. Especially during his appearance in the Uiharu Kazari arc.
• It's Not You, It's Me: Discussed, Touma notes that his misfortune would be a contributing factor in relationship problems between him and whoever he did decide to get into a relationship with, this matter being more problematic due to Touma's Grand Theft Me beliefs. Misaka tries to say that anyone who loved Touma would be able to up with it but is taken aback when she realizes that a brief argument makes her realize that no matter how much one loves someone, their patience does have limits and those would be pulled to their extreme with Touma's supernatural bad luck.
• I've Come Too Far: Damian F. Slivka, one of Kongou's so-called fiances, has this when he realizes that what he is doing is wrong, but must continue to do so in order to stop Kongou Airlines deal from going through.
• The Jinx: Something always happens when Touma Kamijou is around.
  • He caused so much mayhem at an Academy City detention facility he was sent to at the conclusion of the Kuroko arc that Antiskill has banned him from all their detention facilities since.
  • This takes a darker turn when exploring Touma's past. His status as a walking Doom Magnet led others to avoid him, culminating in a knife attack by a man who lost his company after interacting with Touma that left him scarred on his back..
  • In London, this goes into Destructive Savior levels in just three days: Buckingham Palace (twice), The Tower of London, Big Ben, etc.
• Laughing Mad: Misaka becomes this in chapter 131 when she can't take the fact that Touma might be dead from the explosion, it transitions to an even scarier Dissonant Serenity complete with The Unsmile and Dull Eyes of Unhappiness that unnerves the rest of the Railgang.
• Made of Iron: As always, Touma. Trying to stop him from saving you by brutally beating him up? Nah, he still saves you. Debris stuck in the back of his skull? Won't stop him. Having his entire side ruptured open? You're gonna have to do better than that. Surviving an antimatter explosion at point blank range? Now that's pretty hardcore .
  • He has survived so much it gets to the point that it is near-impossible to keep track of them.
  • Kamui Kihara also admits that despite all he did to Touma, he's amazed that he didn't even seem close to snapping. And that's when he was torturing him.
• Marry Them All: Deconstructed by Uiharu, who actually considered it until she realized that humans and love are inherently selfish by nature and all this trope would do is cause the girls to jealously wait their turn for Touma, all the while Touma would be passed around like some shared object with no one truly being cemented as his true love.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Touma gets hit by this during the Konori Mii arc, when Touma helps a little girl, a possible tourist, find her mother. In true fashion for Touma's misfortune, Konori got an earful of Touma's easily misunderstood monologue.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Misaka is driven to near despair when she sees that no matter how much good Touma does for a peaceful life for all, life just craps all over him and is followed only by more torment.
• Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: lampshaded by Kihara Kamui, who is impressed by just how much blood Touma had lost during his torture of the latter and is still alive despite of that.
• Past-Life Memories: Of sorts, the medicine Regon was so effective at restoring Touma, that it actually is restoring memories that Touma should have no right to access anymore, including memories of Shokuhou Misaki, who accidentally made it so that Touma's brain could no longer store memories of her,At the cost of remembering his trauma during the events of NT9. The memories lost to Index's John's Pen Mode however were completely destroyed and have no chance of ever being recovered.
• Protagonist Title: Each Arc is named after its protagonist who is having A Day in the Limelight (except Thor, who eventually becomes the main antagonist of his arc).
• Put on a Bus: Not quite but Touma's sudden departure to London has this effect for most of the Science Side characters, both heroes and villains. Most of the time, he gets mentioned by other characters, appears only a few times through viral videos, news footage, or photos of him, taken from his time in London. When he does appear, he's always The Ghost, never seen, only heard through phone calls.
• "Reason You Suck" Speech: Touma is both a giver and receiver on this, especially if he and his opponent are on opposite sides of the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: After surviving a freaking anti-matter explosion, Touma comes out of the wreckage with one eye normal, the other red with a golden glow implying that the Invisible Thing may have temporarily taken control of Touma.
• Remember the New Guy?: As this fic is to take place sometime after the series, this becomes unavoidable with Othinus in chapters posted after NT9's release. Kamisato and the Anti-Art Attachment, however, will not be used according to Word of God (although it does seem to be subverted at this point).
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Aaron Gracestone, Kisaragi Maeda and Damian F. Slivka were able to march into the female-only School Garden with an army of bodyguards unimpeded as part of their campaign against Kongou Airlines thanks to their respective companies' influence in Academy City.
• Serial Escalation: Meta-example. The Uiharu Kazari arc is over three times as long as any of the arcs before it.
• Shock and Awe: Electromasters, like Misaka Mikoto, have the power to control electricity and magnetism.
• Shrouded in Myth: As expected, Touma's reasons for defeating Accelerator and Mikoto are not known to general public, and MINUS uses this fact to create the propaganda needed for their followers.
• Sins of the Father: Turns out, all the suffering that Kongou has had to go through is due to her father making deals with Kamui Kihara for weapon parts. For a FIVE_Object.
• Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter: While not religious in any way, Mikoto gives a pretty good one towards the unfairness that is Touma's luck.
  Mikoto: "He's doing what he thinks is right each and every time, to get more and more smiles on other's faces. And this is his reward?! Hunted because of his kindness?! Hunted because he wants to save others?! Hunted to have the peace that he wants so much to protect destroyed? H-How is that fair?! HOW IS THAT HIS REWARD?!"
• Spanner in the Works: Touma is this, as usual. A good example would be the Shirai Kuroko arc. Kuroko was set up by Crowley to be assassinated by MINUS because she was close to learning about the Magic side. However, as soon as Touma enters the picture, Aleister is forced to do nothing but let things run their course, which of course means that Touma saves Kuroko. He tries to get Kuroko expelled for the collateral damage from the fight, but Touma still manages to save her by using his connections to take the punishment instead, and again, Aleister is forced to just let things run their course.
• Special Odd Hand: Touma's right hand has Imagine Breaker, the ability to negate any supernatural power (psychic, magic, and even divine).
• Superhero Paradox: Some of the characters in the story blame Touma because of how many bad things are happening in Academy City because of him. He, of course is aware of this.
• Supreme Chef: Touma's cooking is apparently so godly that when he was visited by Mitsuko Kongo and her entourage, Misaka, Kuroko, and Shokuhou Misaki; the girls all had a near orgasmic experience.
  • It should be noted that Index, Otohime and Othinus who regularly eat his food do not have the same reaction, suggesting there is an acclimation period.
• Supporting Protagonist: Downplayed. Kamijou Touma remains an important character (he is the titular character after all), plays a key role in the main story, is also the protagonist, and each action he makes, big or small, influences future major story arcs and drives the plot forward. That said, he is not the sole focus of the series, as each individual arc focuses on the supporting/minor characters of the series, their personal struggles, and interactions (established or newly-formed) with him, with Kamijou only being relevant at the midpoint of that particular character's arc.
  • Taken up to eleven in the Uiharu Kazari Arc; as he was in England facing off against another magic cabal, he remains absent in the arc until the end. Despite this his absence is felt not only by his allies, but also by his enemies, and his influence in the Railgang's lives is a major source of occasional humor and conflict for the arc.
• Taking the Heat: To prevent Kuroko from being expelled for collateral damage, Touma opted to take the blame and punishment in her stead.
• Take a Moment to Catch Your Death: Kazari Uiharu nearly became a victim of this at the hands of Bakin Gakusha. Moments later Bakin himself became subject to a heroic version of this trope.
• These Hands Have Killed: Mugino Shizuri's greatest desire is for penance for all the things she's done for the Dark Side of Academy City, not to mention her core characterization is dependant on that past. So much so, that Word of God is that she is one of the few, if not the only person, who is immune to the "Kami-yan Disease."
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • After the events of the Orsola Aquinas arc, Index gains new knowledge from another grimoire, allowing her to control ley lines (basically this amounts to having the power of a god). When she tries to use the knowledge from the grimoire however, it starts to take control of her, threatening to destroy the world.
  • Otohime Tatsugami also gets this treatment, after gaining the ability to use magic. This of course causes interest in Lola Stuart, who then sends a Saint after the poor girl.
  • This is what the eponymous character of the Uiharu Kazari arc goes through. It's Deconstructed, as we see a young 12-13 year-old girl go through the worst three days of her life.
• Trauma Conga Line: Seeing what Touma has to go through again and again culminates in Mikoto giving a Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter rant on Touma's behalf. Then only a few minutes later, the Railgun team are at each other's throats whether or not to warn Touma about an impending attack on him and then a day later MINUS launches what could be their last ditch effort against Academy City.

• Unluckily Lucky: With every misfortunate situation Touma faces a semblance of good fortune will swoop in and assures Touma's ultimate safety in the end, after him going through so much violence and brutality.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Touma still has his prodigious strength, and a lack of formal training to go with it. At one point, he gathered enough strength to crush one of MINUS' lackeys' ankles in order to save someone. And in the Mugino Shizuri arc, he gets handily defeated by a normal mercenary, and would have been killed had a nearby car missed into colliding with the car he and the unnamed mercenary were on.
• Unwanted Healing: It turns out that the way Orion Phoenix survived a lot of his missions is by being healed by what he calls his "guardian angel", whether he wants it or not.
• Unwinnable by Design: A non-video game example in chapter 152 lies in the Magic Name system used by Western magicians. Unlike what Styl says, a magician's Magic Name is not just some fancy words like Let's Get Dangerous!, but rather is in fact a way of life carved into their very souls making it almost a like a Geas. The problem is that most of them are lofty goals that can never be accomplished, even by Saints, unless one is a Magic God. By declaring herself Salvare001 "Be the Salvation of Those who Cannot be Saved", Otohime has basically condemned herself to the same Chronic Hero Syndrome as her cousin.
• Villain Teleportation: Thor still has his ability to 'move the earth around to help him fight better' from the time he fought Touma during the events of NT 9.
• Weapon of Mass Destruction: Taken to the extreme with the Five_Object which combines the power of two different weapons of mass destruction already present in both the Raildexverse and Kamachi's other work Heavy Object, the Five_Overs and the titular Objects.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The entirety of the campaign waged by Aaron and his counterparts against Kongou Airlines is to prevent the company from helping Kihara Kamui develop a superweapon capable of threatening global security.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 132 finally ends the infamous Uiharu Kazari arc, but while it is somewhat light-hearted and has the emotional roller as one would expect from a long-running arc such as this, the last section brings some devastating news. First, Lola Stuart, or rather Coronzon acting through her, sends a Saint after Tatsugami. And second, Touma is understandably suffering from PTSD.
• Wham Line: Chapter 129 gives one shows just how far MINUS is about to go to promote their beliefs.
  The proper makeup of the items involved in this device have yet to be properly researched. However, the annihilation will only be on a small scale. Care is requested in handling the few nanograms of antimatter that is the centre of this device because of its fragile nature.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: MINUS is a mixture of Skill-Out and, then unknown to the creator, Deadlock. Similar to Skill-Out, they were a group created by Level 0s who felt they were being oppressed by the higher level espers and Academy City as a whole for not having any abilities, and latched on to the legend of the Unknown Level 0 as a symbol of being able to defeat the Level 5s, along with Shiage. Like Deadlock, they are not just made up Level 0s, even Level 4s are a part of the group. It should be noted that they are treated a serious threat to Academy City, with Anti-Skill and Judgement performing multiple raids on their hideouts.