Kuroko Shirai

Kuroko Shirai is a character from the Toaru Majutsu no Index and one of the main characters from the Toaru Kagaku no Railgun anime and light novels.

Kuroko is a Level 4 esper and a student of Tokiwadai Middle School, as well as a member of Judgment. She can usually be found accompanying the third-ranked Level 5 esper Misaka Mikoto — her best friend, partner, and roommate.

Appearance
Kuroko is a girl with tawny hair tied into two curly pigtails; the rest of her hair is left to hang as two rows of fringes divided in the middle. Her pigtails are tied in place by a red bow each. Her hair is naturally curly and as such needs to get a straight perm for it.

With 152 cm she isn't very big and with a flat chest her appearance is the usual appearance of an average girl at her age.

As per ruling of both Academy City and Judgment, she wears the uniform of Tokiwadai Middle School and the Judgment armband though the latter only during on duty. On her thighs, she secures a pair of black straps where she stores the metal spikes used to secure criminals.

Personality
Kuroko can be described as a "girl living in the future". She is used to the world 30 years from now portrayed by Academy City and is ignorant to the customs that present-day Japan still practices, like the "love umbrella", which students usually use to link their names to the name of their crush, and the conventional technology outside Academy City.

Aside from being a girl with a modernistic outlook, she can also be blunt when giving her opinions, and this has caused her to be at odds with Uiharu once. Another distinguishing characteristic of Kuroko is her feelings of romantic love towards Mikoto. In the ongoing Railgun manga her affections appear to be genuine and that she is truly in love with Mikoto. She even allows herself to get severely hurt in order to do what she can to help Mikoto.[2]She is regarded as Mikoto's best friend.

Although usually laid-back and friendly, Kuroko portrays determination and confidence in her own abilities when she encounters enemies, even to those whom she knows is more powerful than herself.[2] To her credit, she is an honorable girl who keeps her word, is kind to children, and shares with Mikoto and Touma the same ironclad sense of justice that makes neither of them ever back down in the face of adversity. According to a particular rumor concerning her and Mikoto: "There's this horrifying teleporter in Judgment who'll tear apart your body and soul if she catches you...and there's another that rules over even that teleporter's body and soul - the strongest Electromaster," although Kuroko had no knowledge of this rumor until a robber she took down told her about it.

Kuroko can be close-minded at times refusing to believe in urban legends without any concrete evidence and even then it will still take some time for Kuroko to accept it. Examples include the boy with the power to make other powers stop working, despite knowing him personally and it was not until when she saw the effects of the Level Upper that she began to suspect it and even than it was only after seeing it a considerable amount of times. Kuroko doesn't seem to like the idea of Gemstones, believing that such a phenomenon couldn't be possible without the Power Curriculum Program.

In her Japanese conversations, Kuroko has the habit of ending the determinative sentences with the auxiliary word (desu-no), instead in standard Japanese language. This can be seen as her unique label in Toaru franchise. For example, Kuroko's catchphrase: (pronunciation: Jajjimento desu-no! meaning: I am Judgement! or This is Judgement!). This is also shown in her character song Desu no! White & Black.

Teleport
Her ability is Teleport (Kūkan Idō (Terepōto) Nōryokusha, lit. "Space Manipulation User") because of this. Such an ability allows her to teleport herself and anything in her possession a certain distance in the blink of an eye. In volume 8 it is stated that her powers do have limits, being able to transport a total weight of 130.7 kilograms, to a distance of 81.5 meters from herself. It was revealed in Volume 3 of the Toaru Kagaku no Railgun Manga that before she went to Tokiwadai Middle School, she could teleport objects and other people, but not herself. She was eventually able to teleport herself sometime after enrolling in Tokiwadai.

Not only is she able to teleport objects inside designated targets, allowing her to "throw" the darts she carries on her thighs with perfect accuracy, but she can also change their resulting orientation, shown when she teleported a standing Uiharu above a standing Mikoto such that their heads would collide. One disadvantage of her power is that she has to concentrate on where she, the object(s), and/or person she holds will be teleported to, while working out the spatial co-ordinates of jumping between 3-dimensional and 11-dimensional space, so any disturbance in her concentration will render her powers useless, as demonstrated in her fight against Sherry Cromwell. According to Kouzaku Mitorithere is a one second lag when consecutively using her power in fights leaving her vulnerable in that one second interval before teleporting again.

Other Abilities
Aside from her esper ability, Kuroko mainly relies on the skills she learned from training, which emphasizes throws and take-downs that compensate for her small size. Kuroko specifically focuses on drop kicks. Although usually displayed and used as comedy relief, Kuroko even displays a strong constitution, surviving constantly shocks from Mikoto, having her neck dislocated by the Dorm Supervisor, repeatedly pounding her head on solid objects in fits of either rage or terror or stupidity.

Kuroko can use a handgun, as part of her Judgment training. However, she has difficulty with other kinds of guns, and may waste a shot on something harmless if it catches her by surprise.

Equipment
In addition to her darts, Kuroko carries small ball-shaped handheld devices made to interfere with listening devices for security purposes. She uses these to deafen the echolocation of Mitori's Liquid Shadow puppet.

Trivia

 * In episode 15 of the Index anime adaption, during the Angel Fall arc, Shirai Kuroko is depicted to have apparently switched with the US President Barack Obama, using his catchphrase "Yes. We. Can". This was not in the light novels and could be seen as an in-joke for the anime producers, considering Kuroko can also mean "black child" literally in kanji and also because the episode was aired during the US presidential elections.
 * Satomi Arai's comedic yet thoughtfully mature performance as Kuroko won her the Best Supporting Actress trophy during the Annual Voice Actor Awards in 2010.
 * Kuroko also has a collection of Misaka Mikoto's pictures that she keeps in an album named "Onee-sama's secret" as shown in Toaru Kagaku no Railgun anime episode 2.
 * Her spikes are labeled with "Kuroko".
 * When Kuroko's memories of Misaka Mikoto are erased during the Daihaseisai, Kuroko reacts to Mikoto's close contact, exclaiming, "I'm straight, I swear~!!". This implies that she believed she was straight before she met Mikoto and became infatuated with her.