Editing Mushi Uta:Volume 7 Chapter 2 (section)

== 2.00 Youko Part 1 ==
There was a thing known as miniature garden therapy.

It was a kind of a psychological analysis method.

You create a small world inside a wooden box filled with white sand. From this one can surmise the components lacked by the creator's psychological state and mentality, meaning their wishes and desires.

A certain girl assembled many dolls, flowers and animals. The fact that the most prominent materials were spiritual—things like castles and angels that weren't part of reality, it was a proof of her abundant imagination. She was curious and heavily emotional, but on the other hand, she was idealistic and selfish.

A certain boy who lived in the capital created a miniature world with forests and mountains and he set a ship to sail, while only one doll represented himself. The shabby nature and lone doll was due to him having poor communication with his surroundings, symbolizing his wish to escape to some vague other world.

There was also a woman who gathered dolls of men and women dolls facing each other, surrounding them with vehicles and large buildings, bridges and tetrapod structures. Asking her about it, she was apparently having a fight with her boyfriend. She probably wanted to make up, so she set up their memories, but since her present feelings for him were weaker than they were before, she felt confused.

Youko's father was a therapist counselor.

He would usually open his clinic in a rented office near home, but if requested he would also come to schools, workplaces or personal homes.

Youko had no particular interest in her father's job.

When she started elementary school her parents divorced and she was taken in by her father. Since he was also fervent about research he tended to be absent most of the time, so she didn't really have the opportunity to know what her father was doing.

Apart from the fact she had no mother, Youko lived a perfectly normal youth. She started becoming interested in her father's work since the second summer of her middle school. Her father began going out more, and came back home less and less.

Forgetting her English workbook at school, Youko searched among her father's belonging for a replacement. It was then she'd dropped a file from one of his shelves.

It was data about her father's previous subjects. Aside from cards he also left notes probably regarding his own research. He wrote the details of what was known as the miniature garden therapy, and recorded what sorts of gardens were built by what kinds of people. Youko found it all fascinating to read.

But the more she read, the more she felt some déjà vu.

Asking the housemaid who worked for them ever since she was young, she was told that she'd once been brought along by her mother—who was her father's assistant back then—to view his therapy sessions. True, she really could remember these sorts of boxes from the past.

The most curious thing was about a certain girl.

The miniature garden created by the girl, who was in her teens at the time, had no sense of unity. There were the dolls of one woman and two men in the center, and she simply placed the materials wherever she saw fit.

When she read this record, for some reason Youko trembled.

—Youko remembered that girl. 

She wasn't even in elementary school back then. Yet she had the feeling she could remember that girl's face and the miniature garden she'd created.

She had apparently attended counseling many times.

Youko could see from her father's writing that he merely became more confused with every session. Even her professional father wasn't able to fully analyze that girl's heart. The journey to the depths of her mind was written in details.

During the second, third and so on session of miniature garden therapy the girl apparently placed dolls and buildings haphazardly. But the fact that there were one woman and two men in the center never changed.

When her father asked the girl what she was thinking while creating that world, the girl shot a question back at him.

''—What do you think are people's minds?''

In a physical sense it would be the heart or the brain, and in a mental sense it would be instincts, her father had said. A serious answer, as expected of him.

Yet the girl said, "Unfortunately that's a bit wrong" as if it was somebody else's problem.

''—What about cases where people receive horrible injuries but still survive? I've also heard of a case where a mother being crushed underneath a burning house was able to shield her baby and crawl outside with it. Physically, these wounds should have incapacitated her, and instinctively, she should have run by herself without worrying about her baby. In the case of parents and children there are also reverse examples, so there should be another reason rather than preserving the next generation…''

Reading the records, she felt as if the pair had switched the roles of doctor and patient.

''—You could say she surpassed the boundary of life at that point. But what caused that…? There is a theory that the true core of a human lies within the armor of their flesh and instincts.''

Listening to the patient seriously was the counselor's duty. So her father listened to that girl.

''—If we take that "thing", which is already so strong, and amplify it even further, what's going to happen? If it's destroyed, what does that mean for the person? What about fixing it afterward? And what if it was devoured by something? Nobody knows that. …Yet, at least.''

The more sessions the girl came to, the less items she gathered around the three figures in the center of the miniature garden.

Youko recalled that scenery that looked as if the very world itself was being scraped off.

Since she was young, she couldn't recall it until she'd stumbled on her father's records. Yet these memories were engraved into her young heart.

—Youko felt as if the girl in her memories turned toward her.

Thinking about it, this might have been the first time in Youko's peaceful life ever since she was born that she'd felt "fear".

Feeling her breathing stop. Cold sweat all over her body.

Even the girl's face was vague in her memories, but she could vividly recall just the smile she had worn at the time.

It was a smile that made Youko's mind numb just by facing her. As if her whole body and emotions were seen through, with something in the center of her heart caught and restrained. It made her unable to run, neutralizing her preservation instincts. And if she had to describe it, it would be a—

"Chaining smile".

That was the only expression she could think of.

If she hadn't recalled it, she wouldn't have been scared.

But she did.

The girl's chaining smile she'd seen at the time crossed over time and space, capturing Satou Youko.

Assaulted by fear, Youko kept reading the materials about the girl.

Reading about her last appointment, she was stunned.

Her father probably hadn't noticed at the time. He'd probably forgotten it by now.

But Youko, who now recalled the world the girl had created, did notice. She was that scary of a being.

What was the thing inside the human spirit?

After scraping off the world for a bit, what miniature garden would be created?

Recalling the final counseling where the answer became apparent, it was only Youko that noticed the fearful truth of the conspiracy.

After all, it hadn't existed at the time, yet now it threatened the entire country—she realized that these were the seeds for the monsters known as Mushi.

She realized that during this last session, the connection of the girl with the chaining smile to Mushi became apparent.

It meant that her miniature garden play continued even today.

Commanding her armies of darkness made of Mushi like a Demon Lord, the girl was molding this country into the final form of her miniature garden.

Youko had had fear and anxiousness planted into her heart.

Even now that she was a high school senior, her days of fearing the Demon Lord's shadows were unchanged—

Satou Youko seemed like a completely normal girl.

Her classmates thought she was completely unremarkable. She wasn't jumpy and lively, but also not gloomy enough to be hated. If spoken to she replied normally, and she hadn't had any personality quirks. She had a plain appearance and didn't bear any complex toward others.

Looking back at her life, there was no big event to speak of. She couldn't meet her two parents freely, but since she felt as peace when she was alone it didn't affect her much. She didn't get into any accident or get some huge illness. She didn't experience any big romance. Her achievements were the average of average, not the sort of student the teachers would talk about. 

She hadn't led such a boring life out of her own will.

The person known as Satou Youko was probably just built that way. She had the average desire for a thrill, but she didn't know what to do about it. Despite having interest in fashion or love, she couldn't imagine herself joining her peers over that.

Incidentally, there were two other Satous in Youko's class. One served as the basketball club captain, and the other was the vice-president of the school council. Since Youko had nothing to differentiate her, she was called "the third Satou".

Since she was so normal, Youko also experienced a normal love.

"Youko-senpai… why don't you wear contacts?"

One day, she was told this by the boy who had suddenly appeared in school.

The moment she met him, she thought he was cool.

He was one year her junior but seemed nice and was reliable. The name Ogata Akatsuki was slightly strange, but since Youko had a normal name she admired him.

"Eh?"

She emitted a stupid voice without thinking. Since she inadvertently locked gazes with him, she was late to notice the phone in her pockets was buzzing.

It wasn't the phone itself that buzzed. It was the strap attached to it.

She quickly slapped her pocket so it wouldn't be noticed.

''—Loci-chan, you're not allowed to use your powers on your own!''

She scolded her strap in her heart.

"I-I'm sorry! Saying your name all of a sudden, it's… it's nothing, don't mind it!"

"Ah, uh… No, it's completely fine! I'm the one who should apologize! Umm, sorry for saying strange things all of a sudden!"

There was no way that someone like Akatsuki who seemed to be popular with girls would call a girl like Youko by her name. There was probably some external factor that led to it.

While blushing, she rubbed her pocket.

''—Loci-chan… you've used your power, right? So that means that Akatsuki-kun would look at me like this even without it?''

She ended up having expectations. But soon she denied it within her heart.

''—No, it's not possible right? I'm just plain, boring girl…''

"Club member Akatsuki. I was sure you were following me. What are you scheming with Satou-senpai?"

Haemori Ako, her junior as well, cut between the two of them. She was the president of the journalism club and edited the publication known as Monthly AKO, which was indispensible to Youko. Just like Youko, Ako was one of the few who understood the Demon Lord's army of darkness.

Parting from her two underclassmen, Youko touched her own glasses in front of the class.

"Did he mean I should use contacts rather than glasses? There's no way he was being… serious about that, right?"

She mumbled to herself. Some of her friends had said similar things, but since they'd change the subject after a moment she didn't pay them any heed. Was she so conscious about this just because someone from the opposite sex told her that?

"B-but if I were to wear contacts… he'll think that I took him seriously."

She soon gave up. The pounding of her chest would settle down before long.

In the end, Youko would never change.

And that was fine, she thought. If she did wear contacts and Akatsuki laughed at her it would hurt.

Right now Youko had enough stimulation. She didn't need any more risk to make her heart pound.

"B-but if it's only for a bit… maybe I should try wearing contacts. I also feel like my glasses don't really fit me."

But Youko didn't want to give up so easily for once.

Oh no. Perhaps she was a bit serious this time.

"Ogata Akatsuki-kun, eh… hehe."

She felt a bit happier than the usual.

While feeling a small happiness, she returned to her classroom.

Satou Youko had no special features and spent a completely normal school life.

No one knew of the actions she had resolved upon in order to resist the seed of fear planted within her.

But Youko thought that was fine.

"Let's do our best today as well, Loci-chan."

She mumbled, rubbing her pocket.

The "Third Satou-san" acted to put a stop to the Demon Lord's evil plans.

Obviously, it would be embarrassing for people to refer to her as such, but she would often use a certain title to refer to herself in a hushed voice. For Youko was…

—The "Hero".