Mut Thebes

**Mut Thebes** (ムト・テーベ, *Muto Tēbe*?) is a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal, introduced in *Souyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index*.

## Etymology

Mut (meaning "mother" in ancient Egyptian) is a mother goddess and primal deity associated with the primordial waters of Nu, often said to have been the husband of the solar creator god Amun-Ra and mother of the lunar god Khonsu. She was a patron deity of Thebes, Egypt's capital city and site of the Temple of Karnak, where the three were worshipped as the Theban Triad.

## Appearance

Mut Thebes looks to be a skinny young girl who appears around the age of 15, with blue eyes, long wavy blonde hair and brown skin. She wears a revealing outfit consisting of thin belts and pure gold ornaments, exposing her skin to support her magic.

## Personality

Matching the symbolism of a mother protecting her children or a queen protecting her people, Mut Thebes will apparently do whatever it takes to protect her decided territory, currently the Bridge Builders Cabal.

## Background

Mut Thebes's exact background before and after joining the Bridge Builders Cabal is currently unknown.

## Chronology

### Souyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index

#### New Year's Arc

*Main article: New Year's Arc*

On January 2nd, Mut Thebes was present when Alice brought Kamijou Touma's group to the cabal's newly established consulate in School District 12, as Trismegistus told the boy of their intent to execute Anna Sprengel for her betrayal.

Mut Thebes was also present when Touma's group had dinner with Alice and other Transcendents. When Touma left to see the Bologna Succubus, she assured him that she would make sure that Trismegistus would not try anything with his friends while he was away, emphasizing that she simply did not want anything to ruin her meal time and that she happen to like sharing her meals with people who were enjoying themselves.

On January 3rd, having completed her own role in the cabal's ceremony beforehand, Mut Thebes was unleashed against Anna Sprengel, pursuing her, as well as Kamijou Touma and Aradia who were with her throughout January 3rd and 4th.

## Abilities

As a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal, Mut Thebes is said to be powerful enough to rival the regular magic side on her own. Besides her roots in Egyptian Mythology, she apparently specializes in punishment and execution, and has been called an expert in executing Transcendents. Like other fellow Transcendents, she presumably uses common tone creation to translate and synthesize her speech into unfamiliar languages.

Mut Thebes has the power to procure various methods of punishment from targets and use them for herself, including those of offensive weapons (e.g. bullets, cannon shells, tanks, fighter planes, fleets etc). In order to acquire a weapon, she must make contact between her own shadow and the target's shadow, absorbing the target's shadow into her body. Once acquired, she can freely manifest the weapon from her body (be it from her arms, legs, back or head), controlling and discharging it at will. The stock of shadows which she can store in her body is almost unlimited, and she can manifest multiple copies of a singularly acquired weapon at once. Being products of magic, the shadow weapons are susceptible to the Imagine Breaker and cannot intercept it. By gathering weapons, making their strength and firepower her own, Mut Thebes's power can snowball. Besides her primary use of weapons, it can also be possible to use them indirectly to manipulate things such as water, electricity, air etc for other forms of attack, like depleting oxygen from an enemy's surroundings.

Although Mut Thebes specializes in using to it to acquire weapons and means of attack, her contact absorption magic is also effective as a shield to protect her from physical and chemical attacks. Furthermore, Mut Thebes is also capable of levitation and seems to be able to sense when one of her weapons takes a life.

Like other Transcendents in the Bridge Builders Cabal, Mut Thebes can release a seal in order to draw on power transcending that of regular humans, with an incantation involving the declaration of **"Risk 4"** (リスク4, *Risuku 4*?) and **"departing human territory"** (人域離脱, *Jin'iki Ridatsu*?). In her case, its nature is that of a **Dead Phoenix** (デッドフェニックス, *Deddofenikkusu*?) and the nature of her seal is a **dual seal** (二種の封印, *Futakusa no Fūin*?).

One tool for executing Transcendents, which she was lent for dealing with Anna Sprengel, is the Shrink Drink, a spiritual item derived from Alice in Wonderland. It takes the form of 150cm long spears, probably javelins given their length and likely reach, with glass spearheads containing a fluorescent pink liquid and the words "Drink Me" engraved on the shafts. In the story, the drink physically shrank the imbiber, and the Shrink Drink is intended to similarly diminish a Transcendent by weakening them and taking away their power, in a similar manner to the Fairy spell used on Othinus. Given its nature, Alice Anotherbible likely had a hand in its creation.

## Character Art Designs

### Gallery

Mut Thebes as she appears in the contents of *Souyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index Volume 8* by Haimura Kiyotaka.Mut Thebes's character design by Haimura Kiyotaka.
## Trivia

* Similarities have been noted between Mut Thebes and her fellow Transcendent Aradia, given their use of shadows and the snowball effect that can occur with their magic.
* Fitting Mut's symbolic association with the vulture as well as her own association with the vulture and the phoenix, some of Mut Thebes's movements and mannerisms have been compared to those of a bird, with her weapon deployments being likened to a bird's wings, and her shadow ship formation being compared to a giant bird.
* In the afterword of *Souyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index Volume 8*, Kamachi Kazuma mentioned how he chose the phoenix as he wanted an image from Egyptian mythology directly tied to life and death for Mut Thebes as the punishment expert and wanted to give her a spell which emphasized how to kill her target rather than the simple act of taking a life.
	+ He also mentioned that Mut was meant to have the vulture as a symbol and hoped he did a good job of fusing the vulture, which lives off dead flesh, with the phoenix, which burns itself away and is reborn in the flames. However, he also added that there were theories that the phoenix was actually never a part of Egyptian mythology, perhaps all the more fitting for a Transcendent.