Youko

Youko
Japanese Name	ヨウコ
Race	Beast
Nationality	Resistance

Youko
	[[File:Weapon_{{{Weapon}}}.png|25px]]

Special Steel Squad, happy to see you. I am Youko. Hexcastress from the Land of Nishiki. Always happy to see Youko.

Profile

Youko is a hexcastress hailing from Eris Grand, who later hijacked and controlled Iris Cloud's Resistance for her own objectives. Hexcast is an advanced, dark branch of Nishikese sorcery.

Main Story

Story Arc 3 - World Wall

Youko's first appearance (as a silhouette) is in The Steel Tree of St. Iris Episode, Separate Action scene, her presence was detected by Yoshino and Vivienne, though at the time she was not hostile to the Special Steel Squad but was still reported to the frontline army as an intruder. Much later, when the SSS is surrounded by Mist Monsters and is on the verge of wipeout, Youko unintentionally saved the SSS while she wanted to confront the Steel Seeker that perked her interest, and realised the puppeteer behind the Steel Seeker is the Mistism Leader, as they were both pursuing on obtaining the power of the Steel Tree of St. Iris. Youko is a hexcastress - While not directly stated, hexcast is a dark and highly advanced branch of Nishikese sorcery when Yoshino responded to Putra's question, noting that while it is possible that Shimoamazu I and Yuuzen may know it, it is not likely that they're willing to attempt. The Mistism cult leader noted that Youko's power is pure Poison from the otherworlds before leaving. She gleefully confessed her objectives to the SSS - to destroy this world. At the time she sees the SSS as "useful", as they both have the same enemies and objectives, though she was interested to meet Yuuzen, who was not present. After insulting Detroit's family and stating that St. Iris is finished, Youko conjured a Gate and left. It is worth noting that only top Resistance executives have the ability to cast Gate magic at this point. Seeing the beam from Steel Tree that instantly wiped out the St. Iris northern mountains and several villages along the way, Youko got immediately interested in the beam ray itself as well as the cultist's Iron Injection technique, and she wanted "toys" to experiment on. Much later, Youko met with the Special Steel Squad again inside an M. Eisengrad laboratory that conducts experiments on Mist-sucking monsters. She initially tried to agitate Mary, but to her slight surprise, she merely smiled and said whatever she mentioned does not affect her, and that she is aware of her clairvoyance ability. She changed her target of harassment to Vorkuta instead, which prompted Tayshet to defend her friend, and Bestyakh later politely asking her to stop after she gave Tayshet a backhanded compliment. Youko exclaimed that she's inside the laboratory to look for the largest demonic beast the researchers of this world have captured, drugged and experimented on. She tells the SSS that she knows where the primary nest of the beasts are, and wouldn't mind taking them. Once the SSS are at the nesting site, Youko activated a modified mist stone and have special Mist emitted from it, and with subtle anger, stating that she's amazed that people of this world are making devices like this, and all the personnel involved in this research deserves to be killed. The SSS cleared out all the demonic beasts, but the Mist still have not disappeared. Vorkuta was furious with what Youko has done and started cursing her, but Youko smiled, and it appears that she knows who Canaria is, stating that she sounds like "that other broken toy". Youko left using her Gate magic as she's looking for the biggest demonic beast. While in the underwater city, Youko experimented on a Mist Core with demonic beasts and humans-turned-machine-soldiers killing each other. She ambushed Yuuzen and Mary] but instead was thwarted. When Conductor's team arrived, they found out what Youko was doing, and slained the Mist Monster youkai in the mother room. Turns out Youko was never there in the first place and it was a trap when Putra tried to stab her, and nearly got killed. On Nishiki's Great Curse Magic episode, Youko started a large scale summoning circle in Nishiki. Her summoning ritual lured and trapped Yuuzen using a cursed spirit, while also threatened Conductor's team to not interfere with her plans. They attacked her, but Miyako's mistake caused Youko to drain almost all her magic for the art. Much later, after Yuuzen talked to the original Canaria while inside the Circle, Youko attacked and interrupted her Counting Curse to dispel the art. She was overpowered and captured by Yuuzen's skill, but as a battle between sorcerers are a battle of wits, Youko used Yuuzen's power to call forth Hone Ningyou, her original plan all along. She summoned Hone Ningyou, Yuuzen's dead mother turned demon, the most dangerous monster in Nishiki after Daiyaki. Hone Ningyou freed Youko, but attacked her. While Yuuzen was pursing Hone Ningyou in the Curse Forest later, Youko eavesdropped Canaria speaking to Conductor about her clone who died in Iris Cloud much earlier, but she was found out. Canaria interrogated her if she had a hand in disrupting her research team's transference magic, causing a split in egos. Canaria called her plans as childlish and futile, and wanting to control Hone Ningyou will get her killed. Youko was sealed by Canaria's binding sorceries, but unsealed herself just in time to interrupt Yuuzen's Curse Seven so that Hone Ningyou cannot be finished. In the end however, the Hone Ningyou that Conductor's team fought is merely one of her copies, Youko was trapped inside Hone Ningyou's world, Yuuzen noting that she did not sense her escaping out of it at all. Towards the end of the Arc 3, Youko appears to be alive, with her newly revealed right-hand man Alma, a highly-skilled assassin. She revealed that her, Alma and Canaria's homeworld is called Eris Grand, a nearly destroyed world, protected by the Noctilucent Goddess Eris, destroyed by the Iridescent Goddess Iris. Her motive of all her actions so far is to have the Giant Trees killed so the God Iris can die, saving her homeworld. She tried to trap Conductor's team with her hexcast illusions, but was saved by Goddess Iris who's inside Paddington. When Conductor's team arrived at the Guardian's Chamber, Youko then encouraged the Mistism cult leader to use her Dark Injection onto the Steel Throne and kill the other Giant Trees, but it was a deception, as she knew the Throne will reject the leader, and expects Iris Cloud itself to self destruct. When that did not happen, her backup plan was to have Alma stab Paddington with their Poison weapon and control her, making sure their plan will continue, but they were thwarted by reinforcements from Ooenomiya and Shimoamazu I, so the two retreated for good.

Trivia

• Youko, while being a possible name in real life (陽子), is most likely 妖狐, meaning "Youkai Fox", a name often possessed by kitsunes, kyuubis or other fox-like youkai in Japanese mythology. With the exception of Arisaka, there are no equivalent train station counterpart references for Youko, unlike other characters in Mist Train Girls.
• Youko has an obsession with Yuuzen, a rat beastkin. According to Hiroshi Moriyama, a professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture, foxes have come to be regarded as sacred by the Japanese because they are the natural enemies of rats that eat up rice or burrow into rice paddies. Because fox urine has a rat-repelling effect, Japanese people placed a stone with fox urine on a hokora of a Shinto shrine set up near a rice field. In this way, it is assumed that people in Japan acquired the culture of respecting kitsune as messengers of Inari Okami.
• In the story, whenever Youko reveals herself, she sarcastically introduces herself with a pun greeting as ごきげんヨウコ (Gokigen Youko, Happy to see Youko) instead of ごきげんよう (Gokigenyou, Happy to see you).
• As Youko joined the extremist subfaction of the Resistance after the split between the moderates (Mary and Yuuzen) and extremists (Canaria (Iris Cloud)), the Resistance X symbol isn't used by newly joined separatists (at least until Alma.

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