Author Note:
I really got surprised by this series of one-shot stories when I wrote them in my native language, as I am not fond of most crossovers involving the Foundation universe due to the canon inaccuracies and major lack of sense.
But yeh...This is more of a yukkuri fanfiction than Foundation stories. The crossover elements from Foundation universe only included Church of the Broken God, a group of interest that worship metal-related anomalies and believed those are parts of their Broken God, with some Sarkicism in the later works.
I do not own the SCP Foundation and Church of the Broken God, this group of interest belongs to Dr. Gears. Yukkuri shiteitte ne! was based on the Touhou Project game created by ZUN, and I own neither the Yukkuri universe settings nor the game. Some additional headcanons belong to me, and I would state each on the author note after each chapter.
Under the dingy yellow light of the garbage disposal ground, a Sanae-type yukkuri stood near countless layers of scrap metals and colorful plastic bags, glancing silently at the sky.
One of its eyes was covered in a simple eyepatch, made up of some torn fabric. The scar under it was barely visible, but still abhorring nonetheless. No one would be surprised at such a thing in the city, as for gutter trash yukkuris, scars and missing body parts were already the norm of their lives.
It would definitely sound funny to most of us humans, but this Sanae was in a severe faith crisis.
Like the character it was based on, Sanae was devoted to its faith. The concept was simple, just believing in a God who would look after good yukkuris and punish the bad ones, a high-up deity who brought justice and easiness to all yukkuris.
As the Chosen One, the yukkuri of miracle that was deemed to spread words of the true Yu-god, Sanae believed that it was higher than other yukkuris in some ways from birth.
To be born from a Suwako-type and a Kanako-type, the incarnation of the Yu-god on this world! Wasn't it such a privilege, even compared to other Sanae yukkuris?
Sanae had one sibling, and the four of them lived joyfully on the hill in a forest.
Food was plenty, though it still took a moderate amount of efforts to find; the feared predator yukkuris were never a problem, as most of them perished easily under the fierce Onbashira attacks of mother Kanako, with a few lucky ones who escaped with serious wounds.
However, Sanae's easy life suddenly ended in one fateful morning.
It rained in the previous day, and despite some warnings from its older sister, Sanae still went down the hill to collect faith from a small yukkuri clan nearby.
Feeling relaxed and courageous, it decided to take another path instead of the smooth slope that descended gently downhill, and accidentally slipped on a wet rock, causing it to roll down the steep side of the hill.
Out of sheer luck, it did not die in the fall and become a splattered puddle of paste on the hard rock. Nevertheless, Sanae still lost one of its eyes as a result.
When it woke up, nothing nearby looked familiar. It screamed for its parents and siblings, even pleading for Mister Yu-god to lead it back to home, but to no avail.
With almost zero wild survival experience and all the wounds on its body, it was a miracle that Sanae actually made it to a nearby sub-urban town after a six-day walk.
Right upon its arrival, it had witnessed the massacre of a yukkuri clan, being scheduled for termination because of recent home invasion reports.
"YUWAHH! GO AWY EAJY—"
Four humans in black uniform poked a long metal rod with blades attached at the top into a nest, and they managed to get a blood-curdling scream with every stabs. When silence finally fell, the blades were already covered in paste and pieces of skin.
The heavy, sweet scents of dead yukkuris filled the air as they moved on to other nests. Sanae shivered at the smell as a tingling coldness spread through its body, but did not dare to make a single movement.
Some braver yukkuris actually tried to resist. Holding sticks and sharp stones in their mouths, they charged forward, yet got squashed like a bug as the Factory staffs dodged their slow attacks with ease, their chocolate and bean-paste fillings smeared into the soil.
"Mister human! Wait easy!"
A Marisa-type rushed out from the side, narrowly avoiding a slash from the long spear. The man grunted in displeasure, but still stopped to hear its word.
"Marisa's clan does not go into mister human's home, and every yukkuris here know that it is an uneasy act that only shitheads will do. There must be a mistake, please spare Marisa's clan!"
The blonde yukkuri made a deep bow in front of the man...well, the closest imitation of a bow by pressing its forehead against the ground. It stayed in that position, seemly waiting for a response.
The man chuckled, and it looked up with hopes glistering in its eyes. For a second, even Sanae felt a little relieved from the horror it had witnessed.
"Mister hu—"
SPLAT!
The heavy black boot landed right on its face, popping out its left eyes in the process. Half of its body was flattened by the violent blow, and black paste was oozing out of every openings in its skin.
"W...w...hy?"
With one last twitch, the dough went still.
"Hey, this one was actually a nicehead, maybe wronged by some gutter trash or even some shitty members in its own clan." The man smiled towards his colleagues while wiping his boot clean on the ground.
"But jobs're jobs, ya' know? "
"Yeh, they might be innocent, but who knows? Another home invasion complaint in this community, and we would be criticized like hell for not killing those pests." He sighed lightly, but without a single sign of remorse on his face.
"We're almost done with this shit. Maybe the only good thing about this is that we're off to kill some real, disgusting gutter-trash manjuus tomorrow-"
The conversation was interrupted when a young Factory staff jogged towards them, still holding the spear in his hand.
"Look at this. Four ko-yukkuris in a row, just how likely is this?"
Sanae's eyes widened in horror as it saw the thing on that spear. On the blades were four young yukkuris, being impaled neatly through the middle, still twitching and moaning weakly, paste oozing out of their mouths.
"Wow, amazing man, amazing! Let's take a photo of that, and send it up to Factory's blog. "
"Well, not as good as the Resilient Manjuu that managed to survive for four weeks after being cut in half, but still a nice picture. It is hard poking around in those hives, ya'know? "
"Not that hard if you get the trick..."
The men walked away, their voices fading in the distance. Even after every single signs of those humans were gone, Sanae was still cowering in the bushes, burying its face in the dirt.
A few hours must have passed when Sanae finally summoned up all its courage and sprinted across the sickeningly-sweet ground soaked with death, only to grinded to a halt at the dead body of a yukkuri Reimu, with a couple of stalks still on its head.
Sanae could have done something, to bury the unfortunate mother or its offspring, dying before they could even experience life. It only managed to mutter a weak prayer in the end before dashing off into the wood, unable to control the tears as they flowed wildly down its cheek.
Sanae still went into the town after a few days, with the horrific memories engraved deep in its mind.
Mister humans were dangerous and strong. No yukkuris could stand against them. Mister humans needed to be avoided at all costs. As a yukkuri who had never seen a single human in its life until that very day, the traumatic incident had left those impressions deep in Sanae's paste core.
It spent a few months in the town and the surrounding urban areas, before settling down in this garbage disposal ground.
Human cities and towns. They were the dreamed heaven of all yukkuris with plenty of delicacies and sweet foods, but also the most painful and terrifying hell.
The nice, obedient pet yukkuris lived in mister human's big easy place, never had to worry about hunger or survival with all their delicious meals, daily cleanings, and a wide variety of toys.
They existed just to make mister human take it easy. They had to listen to every single commands of their owners, because when their owners were angry or suspecting them for being shitheads, they were going to be thrown right out of the house and into the bottom of hell.
Gutter trash yukkuris. They strayed around the cities and towns with unruly, sick appearances, bodies exhausted by miseries of life. They could be dead at the next moment, whether run over by a car, squashed by some disgusted passer-bys or suffered slowly at the hand of abusers.
They had also fallen to an unbelievable degree in the eyes of a wild yukkuri like Sanae. Every single uneasy and abhorring acts were already the norm of the stray yukkuris. Blackmailing, robbery, stealing and cannibalism were simply ways to survive, with every morals demolished in order to survive in this urban hell.
Sanae's faith started to fade away slowly as it silently observed the lives of yukkuris in the city.
If the Yu-god really exist, why would Him allow such uneasy things to happen?
Why mister humans never got any punishments, despite making so many yukkuris unable to take it easy and taking away their lives in a whim?
Why bad, cunning yukkuris can survive better than the good, pure ones in mister humans' cities and towns?
The faith towards Yu-god was not the only challenged belief.
Mother Kanako was once the strongest creature in Sanae's life, and it admired the huge shrine ropes with pride. It was the daughter of the incarnation of Yu-god that could kill bad yukkuris so easily!
However, mister humans are much more stronger than any existing yukkuris in the world. They were physically powerful, but they had even greater abilities—to build up huge machineries and buildings, and create complicated tools to aid them.
The Onbashira rods of Kanako-types, despite having the power of killing a Flandre in the blink of an eye, were nothing compared to mister humans'creations. Surely, they could do some harm to mister humans, but when more of them arrived with weapons and protection gears, even mother Kanako would be defeated with ease.
If Sanae's old home was invaded by mister humans, none of its family members would stand a chance. They were all rare yukkuris that mister humans loved, and they would be separated and sold to different places, never had a chance of meeting each other again.
Even the incarnations of mister Yu-god...were so weak in front of mister humans.
Or maybe there was never a god to look after yukkuris, for they were so weak and miserable?
The harsh reality in front of Sanae had mercilessly crushed all of its hope.
Sanae could not bring itself to do any other things after the sudden realization, apart from those necessary for its survival. It slept near a small burrow out of the garbage disposal ground, sneaking into it to search for food through a secret tunnel in the soil, possibly dug by some yukkuri Nazrins on a treasure hunt.
Such life was not easy at all. Sanae knew that, but it was just too tired to live properly.
Sometime Sanae wondered why it had not killed itself yet. It should be simple, just drowning itself in some abandoned containers after a heavy rain, rolling down the slope with the sharpest metal scraps or simply refusing to eat and drink.
This evening, it had a sudden urge to end itself again, to drive a piece of pointy metal into its paste core. Sanae picked one up with its braid, but stopped when the cold, smooth tip touched its cheek, and just held it there for hours.
"How pathetic."
Sanae murmured, looking up at the sky and stars. It used to stare at them in clear summer nights, imagining a big yukkuri who took care of everyone up there, smiling like mother Kanako.
But the big strong yukkuri never came. It never saved those innocent yukkuris from mister humans, it gave mister humans so many advantages over other creatures, and it never punished the bad, uneasy yukkuris that only thought about themselves.
Sanae wanted to cry, but no tears came out of its dry, sleepy eye. It was so hopeless, and so scared that it could not even end its own misery. What else could it possibly do?
A shimmering reflection caught its eye. It turned to the side, and found a brass gear lying nearby. Under the few dim lamps of the campus, its surface still looked clean and shiny in stark contrast to the dilapidated, filthy surroundings.
"Ah, a mister treasure."
Sanae wrapped its braid around the gear, and lifted it into the air, adoring its simple yet beautiful outline, with small, sharp tooths on the round shape.
It used to compete with its sister during their ko-yukkuri age, searching the whole hill for round, shiny stones just to show off to everyone in the family. Sanae was no longer interested in such a childish act, but maybe bringing it back to the nest would be nice.
Treasures could take it easy. Maybe Sanae could also make life a little easier with this little gear of its own, in the middle of this harsh, cold world.
Something was different.
Sanae noticed such anomalies when continuing its daily routine in the following week since it brought the gear back into its nest.
Something seemed to be moving in its body. It was not painful, just a weird, tingling sensation, as if a clockwork of metals was running. It hurt quite badly when the movements sped up, but apart from that, nothing had been drastically different so far.
Its sight sometimes appeared blurry, and the movements got a little stiff and sluggish during its locomotion. Like a stuck machinery, it fell to the ground for a few times when its body just froze in the middle of an action.
None-stop ticking and tackings, similar to the noise made by a watch, could be heard whenever those things started to move, and Sanae started to doze off more and more often in the day.
Its own body was different from before.
Maybe it was just imagining things. Everything would be alright after another day.
Trying its best to ignore the anomalies within its body, Sanae crawled back to its nest again and fell asleep with the ticking sound.
It was awaken by a sharp, excruciating pain next morning. Those things in its body... their rapid motions were twisting and grinding its fillings, and they seemed to be growing in numbers, with the crazy ticking sound and metals chaffing against each other.
Those things pushed and pieced towards its fillings, and Sanae grimaced in pain, biting tightly onto the plastic sheet in its nest, but the extreme pain was almost exceeding its limit.
Would death finally come?
Would Sanae finally be gone from this uneasy world?
And mister Yu-god, the one whom Sanae always believed in. Could Sanae finally see Him after death?
Its vision had already blurred into a frenzy of colors, and thoughts flashed through its paste core along with the pain.
Those things started to multiply and move, growing and gathering near its face. Cold, metal-like edges cut through its filling and skins near the empty eye socket, and they pushed out, still spreading and ticking frantically—
Its consciousness faded into blank in the pain, before everything were engulfed in a warm, comforting darkness.
When Sanae finally woke up, it was night time again.
Its body felt unusually heavy, though the pain was long gone. A few attempts were made before it could lift up its body and look outside.
That was the time when it noticed some strange things with its eye. The rough eyepatch was pushed upward by something, and it felt cold and hard when Sanae touched it with her braid.
What had happened?
Sanae dragged itself outside, almost impulsively continuing its search for food, but stopped when it realized that it did not feel hungry at all.
"Impossible. Why Sanae did not feel hungry? Sanae have not eaten anything for a day..." Some parts of its paste core started to feel uneasy as it talked to itself, wondering what changes had taken place.
A puddle of water, almost dried up from the rain in the previous day, reflected the lonely stars on the pitch-dark sky. Sanae walked towards it, and saw its reflection on the water surface.
Half of its face was covered in complicated clockworks. Made up of springs, gears and various strips of metal, the silver mechanical devices hummed and rotated in a structured manner. From the socket of its missing eyes, a simple machinery part grew out of it, resembling only the tube-like structure in front of mister humans' cameras.
Its frog accessory was turned into a thin piece of brass, with miniature gears spinning on it. The shape still looked similar though.
Sanae breathed deeply, unable to comprehend the sudden change.
The strange "replacement eye" suddenly started to extend and retract with a pace, followed by the grinding noise of clockworks around it. Such movements brought pain again, but it felt like something was connecting with its inside.
Then Sanae saw images from that device. The familiar colors and shapes long gone from its missing eye formed in its paste core, but what it had seen was nothing like before.
It was almost like a miracle, something that a yukkuri would only see once in its life.
Clockworks and gears of brass, copper, iron and steel formed a rotating machinery. Metal against metal, the ticking and tacking of gears and springs played a magnificent symphony. Red and golden metals, neatly oiled and cleaned were as beautiful as gems, with vast amount of spring and metal spikes in between.
This machinery was alive. Every single gears of it moved according to some unseen rules, rotating and grinding non-stop. Sanae knew it was broken, as seen from the black oil trickling down the bent and rusted metal, like blood from a wound, accompanied by the gasping sound of steam.
Even though it was incomplete, this machine was still formidable, magnificent and beautiful.
Sanae listened to the lyrical ticking, somehow echoing through its own body despite emitted from an illusory source. Those clockworks in its body seemed to be shivering in excitement, trying to call back to the sound with their own noises, but its filling was struck with fear and disgust instinctively the moment such sound rang louder.
The sound was asking. It seemed to be questioning Sanae, would it accept the voice, did it wish to continue and see the ultimate truth, to abandon its fear and old self in order to take in this miracle.
Sanae hesitated, for it still worried about this unknown being. However, everything about this machine awed it with its vastness and beauty...as if it was the God Sanae once believed in.
And it answered loudly with the metals in its body, the screeching of friction and ticking formed a song of its own, yelling out its earnest wishes.
I accept. Show me the truth.