anko4277

Stray Sanae

Sanae is awakened by Marisa for morning job. In exchange of being allowed to stay, the stray yukkuri of the park's herd have to do jobs, often from early morning.

Yukkuri have trouble with waking up early, and today is actually a day that Sanae can rest longer after doing many job yesterday. But Marisa had a job that only Sanae can do now.

In front of the station a rare type yukkuri is yelling. Marisa tried telling her to calm down, but that rare type look down on the common type Marisa.

Eirin is mending the sick while Meiling is doing another job, so only Sanae can negotiate with that yukkuri.

Said yukkuri is a Ran with her couple a Chen and their koyukkuri Chen. Ran is looking for her Mister.
Actually the yukkuri don't need to do much for those who are not part of the herd, but they want to help human as much as they can and keep the image of strays from getting even worse.

When Marisa and Sanae arrived, they saw Alice is injured. While Marisa went to call Sanae, Reimu tried talking to Ran again and Alice protected her when Ran attacked.

Sanae look at Ran, her body is clean, but there's a torn piece from her cap. Chen looks dirty like stray would be. Sanae predicted that Ran used to be a pet, but her arrogant personality and her refreshing with a stray made her owner to throw her away.

Luckily, Ran would normally replied Sanae's greeting.

Sanae explained that soon many human will come. It will be dangerous and Ran's little one might got crushed.

Ran told Sanae that it's been three days since Mister left them. Ran thought she might meet Mister if she came to this place they have came together before.
Behind them, Chen cried. She thought she can have human as slave if she's with Ran.

Hearing that, Sanae and her friends are shocked. Making human as slave ? How could this Chen stay alive for so long anyway ?

Before human came, Sanae invited them to somewhere else, her home. At least there the little one can eat. Hearing that, Chen and her daughter quickly agrees.

When Sanae leaves, Marisa and her friends starts their real job. This station is close to place where university students gathers. They party until late night and left many trash on the road. It's the yukkuri's job to clean this up.

While they're picking up the trash, a woman lost her ring. The ring falls into the sewer. Seeing troubled Miss, Reimu offered to look for it after telling Marisa and Alice. Reimu will feel sad if she lost her accessories, so she doesn't want Miss to feel the same.

While Reimu is looking for the ring, Miss look around. She always see yukkuri around the station, but only thinking that they're looking for food.
Yukkurinpeace had campaign poster about the agreement with strays, but most peoples just let it pass and only read the yukkuri trouble campaign poster from Factory. The fact that many think Yukkurinpeace is a suspicious organization doesn't help.

But now Miss see it. Marisa is picking up beer cans while Alice used a branch to take off chewing gum from the street. Inside Reimu's bag is a half rotten bento box that she personally wouldn't touch even with gloves, but Reimu picked it up with her mouth.

Miss also has a pet, and she remembered teaching her pet to avoid strays because they're dirty and scum.

When Reimu came back up, her accessories are damaged. Reimu told Miss that it's alright, having injured accessories are normal for strays.

Before leaving, Miss took Reimu's photo and promised to return he favour.

After that, a sleepy man accidentally kicked the bag Reimu is carrying. Some of the liquid from the trash spoiled his trousers and he's really angry, blaming the yukkuri for making mess of the city. Even when Reimu said sorry, he said yukkuri's sorry is just voice they're making without any meaning.
He kicked Reimu to the trash she's carrying, smearing her body with strange coloured liquid from the rotten trash.

He's still mad, but had no interest in making further contact after seeing Reimu covered in disgusting trash.

The strays here understand the difference of strength with human. Even if they have their reason, they must never talk back against human because it might cause not only them, but their whole clan to be purged.

Today many things happened so they finished their job late. unable to return to the park with many human and cars on the road, Marisa take Alice and Reimu to their hiding place in the sewer while waiting for the street to be safe enough.

After things calmed down, Marisa took out the medicine from Eirin (Eirin's aloe gel poo poo mixed with other medicine) and rub it to Alice and Reimu's injury.

They then waits while bearing against the uneasy vibration from passing cars.

=========

Sanae brought Ran to her house in the park. Knowing Ran's personality, Sanae avoided letting them meet the other members and gave them the emergency ration she got from human, yukkuri food so-so taste.

Ran used to have better food as pet, so she doesn't have much appetite. Chen and their daughter ate messily and demand for more.

Leaving them, Sanae go to the chief Patchouli to give the report. Patchouli told Sanae to call Eirin to talk because most likely Ran wouldn't listen to Patchouli's words. Patchouli herself will take over the hospital on Eirin's leave.

This clan have the very rare yukkuri Eirin among them. Eirin's paste is mixed with aloe extract and despite uneasy, is a yukkuri medicine more potent than orange juice. Of course there's also disease such as yukkuri-mold that Eirin can't heal, but the death rate in this clan is far lower than others place.

For that reason too, the clan have a very strict refreshing limitation. From the strict rule, they also learn a lot and smarter than most yukkuri.

Patchouli told the story to Eirin. Ran is the type that believed in rare type's superiority, so if it's Eirin who's talking, she would surely listen.

Eirin is still worried because Ran would likely not getting along with the other clan member.
Patchouli still believed there's chance that Ran just got separated from her owner, so they can't take action on their own.
Until human came to the clan next week, she will entrust Sanae and Meiling to keep eye on Ran's family. Work will be more difficult when both of them is unavailable, but better than having Ran causing trouble.

As part of the agreement, the yukkuri will have contact with the park management. As middleman are Yukkurinpeace.
Most peoples would have the image that Yukkurinpeace are organisation that will spoil the yukkuri rotten at all cost, but actually they're just group of volunteer and yes, some members are like that.

Every area had their own vision. The leader in this area seems to have passion for strays and he took responsibility for Patchouli's and several other yukkuri clan, giving them right for living and self governance.

It's well accepted in this town that doing extermination is of no use because yukkuri will keep showing up. Taking them as pet is also out of the question as it's impossible to do. The next logical choice for the lovers is of course how to live together with the strays.

Every three weeks a representative will come to get report and discuss about the clan. Patchouli has trusted the man who's taking care of their clan so the clan will keep Ran's family from making trouble until then.

At her home, Sanae told Ran about the plan and Ran complained because her owner used to treat her like common types even though she's a rare types.
When Sanae asked about Chen, Ran got angry and say Chen is special. KoChen called Reimu and Marisa as her slave.

Sanae doesn't think rare types are that special. At least, Sanae know there's things her friends do better than her.
Chief Patchouli is far smarter and more perceptive.
Marisa and Chen is really fast.
Myon can expertly use the swords.
Alice can make city sect household tools.
Reimu... what did Reimu excel in ? Well, leaving that aside, Reimu has been kind to Sanae. The whole clan members has been caring for Sanae who's abandoned by human.

Rare types and Common types are made by human. Originally only human who classify yukkuri as such, but as time passed, yukkuri starts discriminating each others with such words too.

Disregarding special abilities, many rare types look down on common types just because they're rare types. In the other side, common types see the rare types as reason of their uneasyness and hate them.
This sentiment is very strong among city yukkuri, but actually deep in the mountains, there are communities where common and rare type yukkuri would live along normally.

This Ran must be born from a bad pet shop. If she's a common type, she'd be disposed already. But because she's a rare types, she only got her price lowered. Her owner is probably someone who doesn't think much other than curiosity of gaving a rare type pet and that all rare types are smart. That's wrong.

Meiling has just came home with Myon and Reimu (the other Reimu) from picking up empty can. Meiling is strong so she can help with many hard works.

Usually, Meiling are hated because they can only say Jaoo, but in this clan, everyone accepted Meiling as friend.

Not so with Ran. Seeing Meiling with the other yukkuri, she quickly charged and about to punish Myon for bullying Meiling. All the other yukkuri freezes on that nonsense. They're not bullying Meiling, in fact everyone has been really easy until just now.

When Ran is about to kill Myon, Meiling charges in. Despite being calm, Meiling types are really strong and could win even against most predator types. Ran got thrown away by that charge.

Meiling can speak with those whose opening their heart to her. Usually yukkuri will see her as uneasy, but in this clan who see her as friend, the yukkuri can understand those Jaoo she's speaking.
It's Ran who can't understand, and yet think she does and interpret Meiling's words into what she believed Meiling is saying.

Sanae and Reimu tended Myon while Meiling is holding Ran back. In her mind, Sanae remembered that she saw many hurt yukkuri today and the Marisa from the station should be back already by now.

Meiling and Ran's disconnected talk is stopped by Eirin. Upon seeing the very rare yukkuri, Ran quickly bow down in submission.

Eirin has heard about it from Patchouli, but this Ran is even worse. For now, Eirin settled with Ran believing the clan members are Eirin's slave so she wouldn't hurt them. Ran even scold her family when they asked why Ran is not doing the punishment. The presence of ultra rare yukkuri is more important than her own family.

Eirin take Ran's family with Sanae and Eirin to the deepest part of the clan where they're most likely not meeting any human. There, three cardboard box has been prepared. Ran's family is to stay here for a week. Sanae and Meiling is entrusted to keep eye on them.

A week later, human will come. Until then, make sure Ran's family never make any contact with human or pet yukkuri.

While waiting, Sanae and Meiling is feeling uneasy. They usually work on the day, but now they're entrusted with job like keeping watch. Thinking of how their friends are shedding sweats and working hard made them feel guilty.

=========

As soon as she returned, Eirin quickly take care of the patients.

Yukkuri are weak and would die easily in case of sickness or injury. Actually, as long as human or Eirin is nearby, they can be saved as long as it's not instant death, but most strays believed their life to be meaningless anyway. No matter if they struggle in life or not, they will die.

For that reason, Eirin's presence is very important in this clan. She gave proof to the yukkuri that they're alive, and that boosted their morality.

To Patchouli, Eirin voiced her worries. It's too risky to put that Ran in the clan for a week. Maybe they should just dispose that family.

Patchouli directly reject that idea. The reason is a worst case scenario she will tell to Eirin now. Most likely Ran is abandoned, but there's small risk that Ran's owner is an abyuser who's looking for excuse to attack Yukkurinpeace who has been protecting the clan from extermination.
Eirin also thought, even most abandoned yukkuri without training is not at the level of that Ran.

Myon and the koyukkuri in the hospital can't understand what Patchouli is talking about with Eirin, so next, Patchouli will tell them a story.

Long time ago, there is a Yuuka. This Yuuka have a flower field that she watered everyday.
One day, Dosu came with her clan and claimed the flowers to grow on its own. The children protested the uneasy Dosu, they know Yuuka planted the flowers.

Eirin walks out. She has heard the story so many times by now. Eirin wondered, how come a yukkuri like Patchouli could become a stray.

Yuuka runaway from Dosu. She can't win against the whole clan, so at least now she must choose to survive.

In the end, Dosu understand her mistake and say sorry to Yuuka.
Yuuka invited the clan to take care of the field together. Now, they will plant strawberry and if the clan can hold back from eating the flowers, they would be able to eat strawberries together.

Actually, Patchouli wanted to save Ran's family.

=========

While eating, Sanae had to lie to Ran, saying Eirin told her to not be picky with food.

Sanae then remembered her talk with Patchouli regarding herself as rare type. Patchouli told her it's something human made and not to be worried by Sanae. In fact, there's talk that because the number of Sanae and Ran types are increasing lately, they will probably be demoted to common type. That idea is left though.

Sanae doesn't feel any problem with that. But what about Ran whose identity is for being a rare type ? What will she feel if she heard that Ran type will become common type ?

Meiling told Sanae to take a rest first while she watches Ran's family.

Sanae dreamed her past. She was a pet shop yukkuri from good lineage. She had yukkuri's cuteness and would listen to human's words. From her education, she loved human even more.

Unfortunately, the shop manager had to meet target so rather than trying to sell several common yukkuri, he want to get big profit from the rare type Sanae.
Problem is, like one of the staff insisted to his boss, Sanae hasn't finished her education yet. It will be more profitable if Sanae finished her education and get gold badge, but the time is just not enough. Sanae got only silver badge.

By the last day, Sanae is bought by a man who just won pachinko game. He had no knowledge about yukkuri and simply bought Sanae to impress his girl.
To say it straight, this man is not someone who shouldn't be allowed to have any kind of pet.

When the girl saw Sanae, she realized that Sanae is a silver badge. Usually rare types are gold badge. They registered Sanae, but instead of giving her proper education, the man just give Sanae the pet owner manual, which is useless because Sanae can't read.

After failing again, the girlfriend has lost interest on yukkuri. Their relationship also grow worse after in a fight, the woman called the man a good-for-nothing who only go to pachinko instead of working. The man called back and said that the woman is a whore who open her leg to different guys everyday.

In fit of anger, he told Sanae to go out and not say another word or else he will crush her.

Outside, Sanae don't know what to do. First she met a Kanako and asked what she must do. The gold badged Kanako made an exception and talk to the stray because she's Sanae. For her, Sanae is a disgrace to the rare types.

On the street, there's a mother Reimu who begged for sweets sweets for her dying KoReimu. If that daughter died, she'd be no longer a single mother.

Reimu demanded from Sanae, whose of course doesn't have any sweets sweets.
When KoReimu died, Reimu quickly attacked Sanae.

Fortunately, a man kicked Reimu for being noisy. Reimu got ran over by a car and died.

The fainted Sanae is found by Marisa's group and brought to Eirin's hospital. When awakened, Sanae said she deserved to die because she's uneasy.

Patchouli told Sanae that at least Marisa doesn't think Sanae is bad. Now if Sanae doesn't have anywhere to go then Sanae can be part of this clan.

Because Sanae said she can't do anything, Eirin offered Sanae to work here to pay for her medical care cost. For now, Sanae is to rest and recover her strength.

Marisa made a house from cardboard box and put towel inside for Sanae. She's worried that the pet yukkuri Sanae wouldn't feel satisfied, but Sanae is very grateful.

After Marisa left, Alice came and gave Sanae more things to fill her home. A city sect table and dish. Vinyl bag and aromatic leaves to keep the bugs away.

Reimu helped Sanae to get used to eating like stray. She offered Sanae flowers first before getting used to the bitter grass.

After paying for her debt, Sanae is free and she asked Patchouli to be allowed to join the clan.

Sanae is interviewed by the human representative and allowed to join.

When awakened, Sanae thought, what's the difference about rare types ?
In society, rare types rarely spent their life without realizing the fact. In early stage of their training the yukkuri has been taught about that fact. Then, it's difficult for yukkuri to stay humble when knowing they're special, so they're thought to at least not look down on other pets or getting big headed. If they can do that then they can pass the test.

For Sanae, the only difference is that the rare types are uncommon. The rest, they're not that different from common types.

Sanae saw Ran and her family is sleeping. Meiling is also sleeping.

=========

Marisa came home in panic.
Reimu is sick and has vomitted 1/5 of her paste. From the short explanation by Marisa and Alice, Eirin can get a grasp of the situation.

When Reimu got attacked by human, her wound contacted the dirty trash. Usually, yukkuri's immune system can handle this, but other than injured, Reimu's life pattern is unhealthy for yukkuri who's not fit for waking up early. Everyday she worked hard and she also got that incident with Ran. That stress lowered her immunity.
The sewer they hide in today is also humid and increased the infection speed.

Eirin took out alcohol and told Marisa and Alice to wipe themselves clean and then stay out of contact with the other yukkuri.

Eirin herself starts her surgery. First, after feeding Reimu with Ramune, Eirin cut and remove the damaged paste that's already beyond repair. She then applied orange powder to Reimu.

Orange powder is a dried form of orange juice, as potent and yet easier to store for long time. Only Eirin and Patchouli know about its existence because they worried the clan would abuse it like drugs.

Eirin chewed on dried grass and spit it into Reimu's body. This grass is not tasty but easily converted to paste, so it's the clan's staple food. After being chewed, the grass will turn into paste even faster. This is the way to replenish Reimu's paste.

But even after working to the night under lamp, Eirin met a sad fact. The rotting has reached Reimu's paste core. Unlike other parts, paste core is not replaceable. Now they can only hope for Reimu's immunity to win.

After the treatment, Reimu got better and everyone is happy except Eirin.

It's two days before human came that Reimu finally gave up. She has lost the fight and her paste core reached the critical limit. Reimu uncontrollably vomitted her paste.

When Reimu stabilized, Eirin gave her orange powder, the sweetest thing she had ever tasted. But Reimu is not happy. She asked why this must happen to her. All this time she had done her best to clean the city and help others, and yet human still hurt her. Is all that she had done meaningless ?

Reimu then look at Sanae and said Sanae always look down on her, after all Sanae is a rare type. Sanae must be happy with Reimu's death.

In the end, Reimu gone mad again.

Sanae and Meiling then bring food to Ran's family. It's after eating that Ran finally noticed Sanae is gloomy and asked if Sanae is bullied by the inferior type. Chen added that they're to be punished.

Finally, Sanae is angry for the first time in her life. If it's not because of Ran's family, Reimu and the clan members wouldn't have...

Just for a moment, Sanae then remembered there's no use in blaming Ran now.

Night falls and Reimu most likely won't survive until morning.
Just when Sanae is about to visit Reimu again, Marisa came to pick her up to the hospital under Reimu's request.

There in the hospital, Reimu is surrounded by her family. Reimu had last message to Sanae, that she's sorry for what she said and she loved Sanae.
Sanae feels the same too.
After that, Reimu finally let out her last breath.

=========

When the peoples from Yukkurinpeace came, it's not the usual man. He had sudden business so an old woman and a young man with yukkuri Cirno came. Both seems to be uninterested at all to this job.

They took Ran in a carry case and go away.

Patchouli ordered Marisa, Myon and Meiling to follow those two silently.

After relieved from the duty to watch Ran, finally Sanae got a physical work again. She's watering the plant now.

A Tenko came to praise the flower. Sanae is happy, but she stopped talking when seeing Tenko had a gold badge. Strays are not supposed to talk to pets.

After Tenko disappeared, a gold badged Alice came. Sanae stay silent, but Alice talks to her first. Her owner said that the clan in this park are nice, so Alice is allowed to speak to them.

Meanwhile, back to the two peoples from Yukkurinpeace, the pet Cirno wanted soft cream. Tenkon also want the soft cream so they went to buy it while leaving Ran who also asked.

The case is not locked properly so the family escaped.
Unable to find the Mister Human, Ran went to the pet Alice and asked.

For Ran, Alice is an inferior type, slave to the rare type.
For Alice, Ran is a stray and her attitude said she's not from the clan, so Alice ignored her.

Angered Ran attacked Alice, but is hold back by the three yukkuri. Marisa told Alice to escape quickly.
Meanwhile, the Yukkurinpeace peoples are not interested. They look down on Ran without feeling they had part in the blame.

They finally put Ran back in the case while complaining after their pets finished their snack.

=========

A week after, the usual Yukkurinpeace man came to meet Patchouli, faster than the usual schedule. He wanted to talk about last week's case.

Apparently, those two peoples who came last week are problematic. They don't like stray and never make a proper report about the situation.

It's only after the owner of that pet Alice contacted the office that they first heard of the incident. Marisa made the right decision to defend Alice.

Patchouli is still worried though. She feels like she need to have plans for the worst case.

The man then told Patchouli that Ran is really just a thrown away yukkuri. They use the hidden tag in Ran's cap to track the shop and owner, but the owner said he had enough and refused further contact.
For attacking a pet, Ran is executed with injection.

Patchouli never thought of torturing Ran like the man suggested, even if Ran had part in Reimu's death. If someone would spend time, Ran might be able to get along with the other clan members. But sad fact is, nobody had the time. Being executed peacefully like this is probably better than for her to die while cursing everything.

The man handed more alchohol and orange powder to Eirin. He know Eirin used a lot in Reimu's case, so this is to replenish the stock.

He also bring news for both.
A laboratory that researched human and yukkuri's coexisting is interested to adopt Patchouli.
Eirin is also asked by a yukkuri hospital to help for her experience in treating stray yukkuri. They're researching a new epidemic among city yukkuri.

Both refused the offer.

A woman came and greeted them. She's the owner of the gold badge Alice. Not only to thank Marisa and her friends for protecting Alice, she also want to look for a yukkuri from this clan.
The picture she shown is that Reimu.

Patchouli told her about Reimu's death and she's feeling guilty; after all, Reimu's job is late because of looking for her ring.

Eirin then suggested them to visit Reimu's grave.

There, Sanae and Marisa is visiting. Sanae offered Reimu a flower from outside the flower pot. It's the flower that Reimu offered her when Sanae is still not used to life as stray.

Miss greeted them, then give flower offering to Reimu's grave.
After the prayer, Marisa took Miss to meet with Myon and Meiling too, while leaving Sanae who still want to stay.

Sanae look to the sky at the cloud that for a moment looks like Reimu. She told Reimu, what Reimu has been doing all this time is not a waste.