anko2697
Crosswalk of Hell
Summary:
Patchouli, the schoolteacher of an urban yukkuri clan, takes all 100 of her students out on a field trip to a local park. However, to get there, they need to cross a four-lane street.
Patchouli knows how to use a crosswalk and traffic signal, but the baby yukkuris get scared of the traffic while they’re waiting for the light to change. The older koyukkuris comfort them. Finally, the light changes, and Patchouli tells them to hurry and leads them across.
However, it is not until Patchouli has reached the other side that it dawns on her that the children can’t move as fast as she can. In fact, since the babies are scared of the drop from the sidewalk to the street, it took them a long time just to be coaxed down by the older kids, and by the time the walk signal starts counting down to red, they’ve barely made it to the second lane of traffic.
Patchouli tells everyone to hurry or they won’t be able to take it easy, and that sends the children into a panic. The older koyukkuris try to coax the petrified babies onward. Some Marisas and Chens with an instinct for self-preservation abandon the others and make a run for it.
The light changes, and disaster ensues.
First to die are the little Reimus who are angrily puffing at the cars. Next, a car making a turn takes out the scum Marisas and Chens, who failed to reach the curb in time. A little Alice has pooped in terror and is stuck in her own poop. Her older sister Alice is trying to free her, but both are run over. Most of the young Patchoulis, shocked by the carnage, throw up their own paste cores and die. A run-over Myon is only partially crushed and dies a slow, agonizing death.
When the traffic lights change again, only eight wounded, traumatized koyukkuris are still alive.
The adult yukkuris from the clan have had second thoughts about sending a hundred children off under the supervision of a single Patchouli, and just then, they show up with their leader, a one-meter-tall half-grown Dosu Marisa.
Seeing the carnage, some go mad with shock. On the other side of the street, Teacher Patchouli tries to run away to escape punishment and is promptly run over by a bicycle. Some yukkuris yell abuse and puff at the cars, but at the Dosu’s urging, the capable adults go to rescue the remaining children and gather the accessories of the dead.
When the signal starts counting down, the Dosu stands in the crosswalk and puffs up to keep the cars from going. However, she can only block one lane of traffic, so the cars in the other lanes move forward and run over more yukkuris.
The Dosu goes into a rage and starts "punishing" the car in front of her. The driver had been holding back, not wanting to get bean paste on his car, but faced with the attack, he advances and hits the Dosu. The Dosu hops around in pain, crushing some of the yukkuris and sending the rest fleeing into the path of oncoming traffic. The car runs over the Dosu, and she dies.
The yukkuris who remained home--tiny babies, mentally-deficient koyukkuris, and the very old and near death--wait for everyone to come home, not knowing that their families are all dead and they themselves are doomed to starve to death before long.