anko3788
anko3788: The Worst Possible Choice
最悪の選択
A story set not long after yukkuris have first appeared in this world.
A Marisa becomes a Dosu and becomes leader of her clan. With her reasonable nature, she strikes an accord with the nearby human village, and the humans help the yukkuris gather out-of-reach wild mushrooms and persimmons in return for a share of the food. Although the yukkuris have more food than ever, they also make more babies than ever, and they find themselves running out of food in midwinter. The Dosu asks the humans for help, and since the humans rather like the yukkuris, they give them food to survive.
To prevent this from happening again, a human suggests to the Dosu that the yukkuris learn how to farm. Once the yukkuris learn farming, they are successful at it (and feel ashamed of their previously-held notion that vegetables grew on their own and humans were just selfishly hoarding them). In fact, the low-to-the-ground yukkuris are so good at removing (and eating) weeds and bugs from the field, the humans make arrangements with the clan to let some yukkuris live in the village and weed their fields in exchange for food.
The Dosu's clan grows and thrives. Some Marisas become Dosus and go off to start their own sub-clans, so the mountain becomes like a yukkuri kingdom with Dosu (now called Big Dosu) as its king. Eventually, Big Dosu's life comes to an easy end, surrounded by clan members and sub-Dosus who have come back to say goodbye. Her last wish is for them all to continue to get along with the humans. Her dying words, "Take it easy," are repeated by the yukkuris and reverberate down to the village, where the humans repeat it in tribute.
The End.
"...and that was my prediction of your future, if you had made the best possible choices," says Anon to the burned, shaved, crying Dosu Marisa with her footsies slashed to bits and her mouth sewn shut.
Actually, the story was only true up until the part where the yukkuris ran out of food. Instead of asking for food, the Dosu led the clan on a raid on the village's farms. When the humans objected, the Dosu body-slammed one man, breaking some of his bones, and emitted a Dosu Spark that half-destroyed a farmhouse. Now fully turned against the yukkuris, the humans captured the Dosu and squashed all the other yukkuris. Since the captured Dosu had wailed, "What could [we] have done?", Anon told her that story, complete with hand-drawn illustrations.
Anon tells Dosu that because of her decisions, her clan was killed, and soon she will be killed too.
The End.
"Well, it would have been better if it had ended there," says Anon.
However, the story has hit the mass media. With one house destroyed and one man badly injured, this is the worst yukkuri incident ever reported. Reporters have come to the village and a cameraman got footage of the Dosu yelling about what she and the yukkuris did (this was before her mouth was sewn shut).
Anon tells the Dosu that now all of Japan knows what she did. Now humans know that Dosus break their promises and try to kill humans and damage houses. Now that humans know of the danger, they will kill yukkuris. They'll kill them whether or not they have accords with them. They'll kill them on sight, and if they don't see them, they'll search them out and kill them. They'll kill yukkuris whether or not they have Dosus. All because of this Dosu.
The Dosu squirms and cries.
Anon asks (rhetorically) why she did it, but he already has some idea. The Dosu didn't see humans as equals, as friends, when she made the accord. Rather, the yukkuris saw the humans as beneath them, so they had no compunctions about breaking the accord. Or perhaps they couldn't lower their pride to ask for help.
Anon tells the Dosu that soon, lots of Dosus and yukkuris will follow her, so wait for them in Yukkuri Hell.
The Dosu is burned to death on a bonfire. The stitches on her mouth are burned away, and she dies screaming. The humans watch grimly. For the time the accord held, they had trusted and befriended the yukkuris, but they had been betrayed.
To vent his anger at the betrayal, Anon had told the Dosu the best possible story of what could have been, and then told her the worst possible story of what is to come. In actuality, not all humans will mistrust and kill yukkuris--some will probably trust and protect them. Probably, most people will be neutral, or not care enough to take action. But one thing is certain--by damaging the reputation of yukkuris, the Dosu made the worst possible choice.
The End.
--Nope, not yet. A year later, yukkuris have gotten worse and worse reputations. Part of it is due to the incident with that Dosu, but many other Scum Dosus have been reported, and humans are growing annoyed by dirty stray yukkuris in their towns. There are now special anti-Dosu teams and yukkuri extermination services, and aerosol yukkuricide has recently been put on the market. However, things have not yet reached the worst-case scenario that Anon described to the Dosu.
Well, except for one place. Anon's village. They kill every yukkuri they see, young or old, good or bad. They haven't yet had another Dosu appear in the mountains, but when one does, they'll band together and kill it. No matter how many yukkuris they kill, more always appear, so they'll probably go on hating and killing yukkuris until all the yukkuris are dead, or until no more people live in the village.
Anon and his neighbors have also made the "worst possible choice," to go on embracing anger and hate.