Episode 11 - The Vending Machine
Touma Kamijou, an ordinary high school student, feeds a 2,000 yen note into the vending machine, only to find that it refuses to either give him a drink or refund his money. Mikoto walks up to him and cheerfully tries to push him aside. After he explains his situation, which she finds hilarious, she decides to help him by using her well-honed technical skills to persuade the machine to disgorge its wares.
Not far away, Kuroko is at an outdoor cafe with Saten and Uiharu, talking about Mikoto's mysterious absences. Saten once again suggests it might be a secret romance, a thought which captivates Uiharu and horrifies Kuroko. Their conversation is interrupted by the sound of a vending machine's security alarm coming from the nearby park. Kuroko heads over to investigate, leaving the other two behind.
Mikoto offers a reluctant Touma with a pile of drinks she's purloined from the machine, as compensation for the money he lost. He hastens away from the scene of the crime and ends up on a nearby bench; Mikoto joins him and accuses him of being wishy-washy. A moment later, Kuroko appears and is aghast to see Mikoto sitting on a park bench next to a boy. After a moment's shock, however, she puts on an exaggeratedly pleasant demeanor and introduces herself to Touma while internally appraising him. She soon decides he's not much of a threat, and figures it might be better to let Mikoto hang around him for a while in order to disillusion her with men. She politely takes her leave and departs, leaving Touma baffled and Mikoto exasperated.
Touma is still trying to figure out what just happened when another voice addresses Mikoto as "Big Sister". Turning around, they see a Misaka Sister approaching. Touma takes her for Mikoto's twin; Mikoto, however, is not happy to see her, and asks what she's doing. When the Sister replies "training", Mikoto grabs her and pulls her away to talk in private.
Once they're alone, Mikoto demands to know why she's "training" if the Level 6 Shift Project has been shut down. The Sister, Misaka 10031, says that, on the contrary, the project is continuing unabated. On hearing this, Mikoto almost collapses, overcome by nausea and unable to speak. Misaka 10031 watches her with concern, then notices a cat poking its head out of the bushes nearby. Recalling the memories of Misaka 9982, the Sister tries to snap Mikoto out of her daze by indicating the cat, but Mikoto suddenly shouts, "Stop appearing in front of me with that voice, with that face!". Misaka 10031's face falls slightly, then she quietly says, "Understood. Please excuse me", and walks away. Mikoto briefly makes to reach after her, then changes her mind and slams her fist into a nearby lamppost instead.
Meanwhile, Touma is slowly walking home, somewhat hindered by the large number of drink cans he is carrying. He trips and falls, scattering the cans; a moment later, someone comes up and offers to help him — a Misaka Sister, whom he mistakes (again) for Mikoto's twin. She helps him pick up the cans and asks where he wants them carried.
Keitz Nokleben is in his office when a scientist, Ao Amai, barges in and complains that he's sharing their work with too many other people. Nokleben reassures him, saying that there will still be enough profits to go around. With the experiment's data now subcontracted out to 183 different facilities, Railgun won't be able to shut them all down.
Elsewhere, Accelerator has just finished another 'experiment', and mutters that there are 9,970 still left to go. Walking away, he briefly reminsces about how he was first recruited into this project. Offered the chance to evolve to Level 6, he initially scoffed at it, since he was already the strongest esper alive. But the man representing the project caught his interest by saying he couldn't expect his life to change at all if he just stayed at the level he is now.
Mikoto, meanwhile, has hacked into the city's network again and learned of all the new facilities. Stunned, she realizes she's been naive: there's no way a single organization could have the resources for this — meaning Academy City itself must be backing them. She wonders what on Earth she can do now.
Back at the dorm, Mikoto thinks through various options until it occurs to her that the project may still have a single point of failure. Turning to her roommate, she asks what Kuroko would do if she were to commit a major crime against Academy City. Kuroko, taking it for a hypothetical question, replies that she'd have to do her duty, whatever their relationship.
After Kuroko goes to sleep, Mikoto says to herself that being arrested by Kuroko wouldn't be so bad, given the alternatives...
Tropes
- Call-Back: Mikoto has another Flash Back to her first encounter with Touma, and briefly references their riverside duel while berating him. Needless to say, he doesn't remember either incident.
- Continuity Nod: Aoi Amai, one of the senior Level 6 Shift researchers from A Certain Magical Index, makes a brief appearance, apparently upset at the prospect of sharing the project's profits. As we find out in volume 5 of the Index novels, he is massively in debt over his investment in Project Radio Noise, and needs the profits from Level 6 Shift to pay off his creditors.
- Heroic BSoD: Mikoto's reaction to hearing the experiments are continuing.
- Perspective Flip: The first half of the episode retells several scenes from episode 10 of the Index anime, only this time from Mikoto and Kuroko's perspectives.
- Variations on a Theme Song: Instead of the normal ending song, Grow Slowly, this episode ends with a different song, Stand Still (also by Smile Company). Also counts as a Special Edition Title, as the usual animation is absent: most of the credits play over the final scene, but there is a brief animation sequence with Touma and Mikoto together.
