Raising Badged Yukkuri: Chapter 7

[Hourai]

Chapter 7: Badge Examinations

Matt and I headed off to the badge testing center. One of each type,
the best of the best, accompanied us. The yukkuri were excited. From
everything they’ve experienced, they’ve come to respect what the badge
represents and were anxious to obtain one themselves.

“Reimu is so nervous. Reimu still isn’t as smart as Patchouli. Math is
hard…” Reimu lamented.

“Take it easy, Reimu. At least Reimu is strong. Patchouli can barely
lift Mister Blocks” the Patchouli comforted Reimu.

“Practice with Marisa!” Marisa requested to Alice. “Alice speaks so
kindly with Mister Humans. Marisa doesn’t want to make mistakes!”

Matt was beaming the whole time.

“I think we’ve got this down.” He said. “No way that our yukkuri don’t
get gold badges. You’ve done one hell of a good job raising them.” He
congratulated me. I wish I could be as confident as he was. It wasn’t
the case that I wasn’t proud of these yukkuri. I believed as much as
Matt that these yukkuri deserve the highest recognition possible. But
considering what a status symbol gold badges are treated as nowadays,
the human element disturbed me more than any problems my yukkuri could
have.

We pulled in and walked into the center. I handed the paperwork in to
the lady at the front desk.

“Let me see…” she looked through the paperwork. “Testing four today?
And this is your first time at the testing center?” she asked as she
looked through her computer database.

“Yes. We’re applying for the gold badge exam.” I answered.

Virtually all pet yukkrui are badged in one way shape or form. Like a
dog collar, it is important for strays to be differentiable from owned
yukkuri. However, the testing center was adopted after too many pets
acted just as poorly as their wild counterparts. Nowadays, a pet must
be able to be at least trained to listen to its owner before
qualifying for a bronze badge. Silver badges are for yukkuri
demonstrating more refined qualities, such as knowing not to associate
with wild yukkuri, and being well behaved when among people. Gold
badges are considered a pinnacle, where the yukkuri is expected to be
courteous to people as well as other yukkuri. They are also expected
to never go against the owners wishes. Considering the empirical
evidence, I’m not quite sure they actually have been testing those
qualities with a degree of accuracy.

When testing, you sign up for the level you wish to test for, each
test being more arduous than the previous, and each one more
expensive. By having a yukkuri with a badge of lower merit, however,
there is a discount for the next level of testing, presumably since it
makes the testing process easier. However, the price works out to be
about the same if you were to test straight for gold or work through
the ranks, assuming you achieve every single badge.

The problem is that testing is costly. And most owners would prefer to
keep it safe. While raising their yukkuri to be a gold badged, they
will get the silver badge as a buffer. That way, if the yukkuri fails
the gold test, they can retake it with the discount still in effect.
Truth be told, this is likely why Matt and I had such a large problem
with gold badges to begin with. Most gold badges are going to be
silver badges that crammed enough so that they can pass a gold test.
This means that there’s very little distinguishing a gold and silver,
or even bronze, depending on how it was raise. Ultimately they can’t
fight nature so they revert back to a worse state.

The woman behind the counter clicked away on her keyboard and asked us
to take a seat. There were two segments of all tests: Open and
Private. Open sessions are held with the owners, and often other
participants, in the same room. A person can also choose to
participate on the televised show if they wish, although Matt and I
opted not to.

The Open segment is fairly easy to prepare for. Between the televised
sessions and books on the subject, it’s not hard to prepare for the
tasks given during open segment.

Private segment, on the other hand, is only for the individual yukkuri
and a tester. What goes on behind these closed doors is unknown, but
this segment, more than the others, really is the final word on if a
yukkuri is worthy of a badge.

We waited for the room to fill with participants. Alice was busy
practicing with Matt.

“Okay… What should you do if it is raining?” Matt asked.

“Alice would look for Mister Bus Stop or Mister Restaurant. They have
cover that humans can take it easy under.” Alice reasoned.

“What if Mister Humans are there?”

“Alice will try not to talk to Mister Humans. If Mister Humans try to
hurt Alice, Alice will look for Mister Plastic Bag instead to keep
Mister Water away!”

“Take it easy!” my Marisa called out. A lady walked in with silver
badged Alice. “Alice’s badge is really pretty!”

“Alice, don’t talk to that trash!” The lady told her pet. I swear, if
yukkuri’s had noses, Silver-Badged Alice had hers turned up and away.

“Marisa isn’t trash…” My Marisa said softly, her gaze slightly
downcast. I pet her on her head.

“Don’t worry about it. There’s Deibu humans too.” I reminded her. Matt
glared at that lady. We both had the same thought. These were the
kinds of people that were part of the problem.

As more and more people wandered in, Matt and I seemed more out of
place. Everyone was coming in with their silver badges, laughing it up
with the other owners. Apparently they all seemed to know each other
from various yukkuri membership organizations or something.

“Did you hear about how Trevor’s Alice didn’t get her silver badge?”
one woman said to a man.

“How embarrassing.” He replied. “Did it try to refresh with the
tester? I can’t imagine any other reason to be unable to accomplish
such an easy task.”

“I know!” The woman responded. “I had one of the best yukkuri trainers
in the country fly in to work with my darling Alice.”

“As I did with my Reimu” the man responded.

“Alice is so city-sect” the Alice bragged. The two laughed jovially at
the quaint response. I gagged.

“What a bunch of pricks” The man sitting next to Matt muttered under
his breath. Matt gave a snort of approval, and turned to shake his
hand.

“Agreed,” He said. “I take it you aren’t with that bunch?”

“No.” The man responded. “But unfortunately, there aren’t that many
options for yukkuri daycares. My wife and I have to deal with this
nonsense almost every day.” His wife reached over the yukkuri sitting
on her lap.

“Hi, I’m Linda” she said.

“Dave” her husband gestured, embarrassed by his lack of introducing
himself. Matt and I introduced ourselves and asked about their
yukkuri. Truth be told, I had not actually seen the type they owned.
It actually had ears, although they looked more like a mouse’s ears
than a human.

“Oh, she’s a Nazrin type” Dave explained. “I was overseas on business
and brought one back for my wife as a present. They’ve got some
environmental requirements, but they’re remarkably well behaved.
Something to do with their living conditions, I guess.”

“Of course, ironically having a more unique and foreign yukkuri is a
drawback on the yukkuri crowd around here” Linda interjected. “Not
having a yukkuri that’s ego is larger than this building is apparently
a bad thing.” Matt and I chuckled.

“So, you’re testing four yukkuri at once?” Dave asked. “And completely
badgeless? You do know that there’s no second place if you don’t
qualify.” He seemed genuinely concerned for our case.

“We’re starting a gold badge yukkuri business” Matt explained. He went
into the details of our trials thus far. Dave and Linda listened with
fascination.

“Quite a goal” Dave whistled.

“Well, you two have been around the badged yukkuri crowd for a while.”
I said. “Tell us what you think.”

My yukkuri bounced over to the couple.

“Matt tells me you all have been working very hard to get your
badges?” Linda asked them.

“Marisa works hard so that Marisa can take it easier in the future!
Mister Badge is really cool. Marisa wants to get Mister Badge for
Mister since Mister worked hard for Marisa.”

“Reimu agrees with Marisa. Mister worked hard so we can take it easy.
We will work hard for Mister Badge so that Mister can take it easy!” I
couldn’t help but beam in satisfaction. Needless to say, Dave and
Linda were quite impressed. A sound chimed, indicating we should go
into the testing center. Matt scooped the yukkuri back into our
carrying cage and we went in.

Each yukkuri was placed in a box so that they couldn’t see each other.
The tester then stood above them, asking them questions and requesting
them to hold up the appropriate sign that was inside their box.

The first test was a bunch of symbol identification. Questions like:
what does a stop sign look like? What indicates a restroom? What color
is the light means go?

Every yukkuri blazed through. Thus, we then started up the obstacle
course.

One by one, every yukkuri raced through the track. They jumped over
hurdles, hopped from one stool to another, and demonstrated overall
their physical prowess. One of the silver-badge Reimu didn’t make it,
as didn’t one of the Chens, who over estimated her jump.

On the next quiz trial, more difficult math and reading questions were
given. A Youmu failed to make the cut, as did a pet Remillia, which
kept spacing out.

My yukkuri kept up their pace, never falling short. Dave and Linda’s
Nazrin was also doing well, to all our pleasure.

After all of these simple tests, one tester came and took our yukkuri
away. The Private sessions began.

The Alice belonging to the woman who insulted my Marisa was the first
to come out. I grinned to myself as she was respectfully told that her
Alice had NOT earned her gold badge.

“If my Alice wasn’t able to get a gold badge don’t think that any of
yours will” the lady sneered at the rest of us.

“Country Bumpkins don’t get badges” Alice joined her.

“I’ll be speaking to your manager about this!” the woman threatened as
she stormed out.

We all shared a smirk at the sweet karma justice. One by one, yukkuri
were brought out and the owners were informed of the news. Linda and
Dave happily pinned the gold badge on their Nazrin. Matt and I said
our goodbyes, but I was getting worried. Not one of our yukkuri had
been let out.

[Hourai]

“What do you think is taking so long?” I asked.

“Maybe they’ve been taking breaks. Can’t imagine testing yukkuri from
morning to night is a fun job. Especially if you can’t get the
satisfaction of personally dealing with the trashiest ones” Matt
reasoned.

Finally after another hour, a person called for us. The man asked us
to follow him, and we were taken to the head of the center.

“Have a seat” the head, a Mr. Behrens motioned.

“Is there something wrong?” I asked. Mr. Behrens scratched his head,
looking a bit concerned.

“I have to say, your yukkuri have us a bit confused.” He said. That
was a bit discouraging.

“So there is a problem with our yukkuri?” Matt asked.

“Your records indicate you’ve never participated in a badge test
before?” Mr. Behrens skated around our questions.

“No” I answered.

“Neither of you are in the yukkuri profession? No ties to at all?”
Matt and I glanced at each other.

“I had a yukkuri a few years back, but that was before badging had
even become standard.” I said. “What exactly is this about?”

Mr. Behrens sighed, turning on the tv in his office. He walked over
and inserted a tape.

“What I’m showing you two has never been revealed to the general
public. We take great strides to keep our private testings just that.
Although after today, I’m not sure if any of that matters anymore.”

The video played. It was a silver badged chen. She was sitting on a
stool across from the female tester.

“So, tell me about Mister Car” She said.

“Chen gets it! Mister Car is uneasy! Chen stays away from Mister Car!”

It was a correct response, no doubt. Matt shrugged at me. Mr. Behrens
ejected the tape and played again. This time it was my Marisa.

“So, tell me about Mister Car” the same woman asked.

“Mister Humans make Mister Car to take it easy! When Mister Car makes
vroom, Mister Car can move, so Marisa should stay away! If Marisa sees
Mister Car, Marisa should go flat flat between Mister Lines!”

The tester seemed baffled and cut in.

“What do you mean by Mister Lines?” Marisa tilted her head, as if
confused.

“Mister Car drives between Mister Lines! Marisa understands. Mister
Car won’t be uneasy if Mister Car doesn’t hit Marisa. So Marisa goes
flat flat to be beneath Mister Car! When there’s no more vroom vroom,
Marisa can leave easy!”

Mr. Behrens stopped the tape. This time, I was the one confused.

“I guess it was a little long winded. But what’s the problem” I asked.

“The problem isn’t that the answer wasn’t good. It was that it is
unheard of for a yukkuri to comprehend to that degree the problem
being asked. Your Marisa is demonstrating a fundamental understanding
of how and why cars are uneasy.”

“I would hope,” I replied. “After all, I wouldn’t want my Marisa to be
run over by a car because it tried to Puff it away.”

“That’s not my point” Mr. Behrens continued the tape. My Patchouli was
given a math problem, which it solved fairly quickly. Again, I
couldn’t help but shrug. Another instance was shown where my Alice was
given a book to read. Questions were asked to her about the contents,
which I presume she got right. Then at the end, Alice asked if she
could see the book again so she could remember the author, because she
wanted to find out what happened to the little boy’s dog. My Reimu
gave a clear little speech on why she would never associate with
trash, not just because they were uneasy, but because it wasn’t her
place to be challenging her owner’s wishes. Matt cracked a smile.

“Wait, is this about how our yukkuri are too good?” he asked,
chuckling a little in disbelief.

“We don’t take kindly to pranks.” Mr. Behrens stated. “Especially when
the integrity of our testing is disrespected in such a manner.”

“Oh, this is bullshit” Matt scoffed.

“Mr. Behrens” I cut in. “Matt and I have spent the better part of the
year raising these yukkuri. We have filtered dozens of generations,
breed them for excellence. Taught each one you see here through days
of constant practice and hard work. It is not our problem if the
standards you have been employing and accepting are lower than our
expectations. But do not, for a second, claim that anything we’ve done
here today is here as some kind of joke.” I stated firmly.

“Come by our workshop if you want,” Matt insisted. “Day’s over. You
can follow us back.”

I picked up my yukkuris and got in the car.

“Sorry for not getting Mister Badges…” Alice said to me. The four
yukkuri were very saddened by the days events.

“Marisa is trash…”

“Patchouli should have practiced more. Patchouli was too slow…”

“Reimu took it too easy. Reimu should have read more books like
Alice.” I shushed them calmly. This matter wasn’t over. Not yet.

We got to my house, and showed Mr. Behrens and a number of testers
around the first floor. I showed the activities I had them do
everyday. We went downstairs to see the numerous families that were
being raised. I showed them my spreadsheets: detailed family trees
with thousands of annotations to try to isolate good behavior.

By the end, Mr. Behrens respectfully apologized.

“I’m truly sorry” he said. “I’d never thought that it could come to
this. Our gold badge exams are always designed such that no yukkuri
can ever get the final question of that section correct. Gold exams
are about making a threshold. Even if a yukkuri isn’t the smartest, or
fastest, or most easy with people, it can still make gold badge by
achieving the minimum requirements. Today, not one but four yukkuri
maxed out each of our scales.”

“Fuck yeah they did.” Matt whispered to me in passing.

“Obviously, we don’t know what to make of this,” Mr. Behrens finished.
“Clearly a gold badge is an insufficient representation. I’ll have to
bring this up with the higher ups, but we’ll be I contact soon.” With
that, they left.

I gave the little testees some words of kindness as they rejoined
their families; who continued to try to cheer up their spirits.

“Well, nothing left to do but wait?” I asked Matt. Matt had a
bewildered look on his face.

“Are you kidding? We kicked ass! Blew away the guys mind! This is
calls for celebration!” I chuckled. Couldn’t argue with that logic.

--- A Few Days Later---

I was opening my mail, when a larger heavier package caught my eye.
Inside was a letter, which I opened first.

“Blah, blah, you’re really important, blah…” I murmured, skimming
through the introduction junk. Then the passage caught my eye.

“We, the committee, have taken in Mr. Behrens considerations. Upon
reviewing the footage, we agree with his assessment that your yukkuri
represent a pinnacle of yukkuri behavior. For this reason, we would
like to request your services in aiding in the development of a new
testing protocol. And we are also proud to award to you, the first
ever platinum badges.

~The Yukkuri Behavioral Research Board.”

Pulling out the contents, in my hands I held four glistening little
badges, each stamped with a little P in the center. Matt came over and
I simply handed him the letter. He jumped and fist pumped in the air.

I smiled, as I think I was the one with the crazed glint in the eyes.
Because now that we knew it was possible, there was no longer any
reason to hesitate.

“Matt. Order us some new yukkuri”

[Hourai]

Wee... First major arc completed! Although this is definitely not the
last chapter.

I remember MET calling out the Platinum badge thing right from the
prologue, and kind of groaned because I was hoping not to be that
obvious XD (hence, the ambiguous raising badged yukkuri).

Oh well. Congratulations MET! Called it from day one.

Anyway, thanks everyone for your thoughts so far. I've been writing
different portions of the story out of order, so some chapters will be
up a lot quicker than others.

[Coloris]

awesome. kick ass...though i hope that the less smarter yukkuris dont
mistake the platinum badge for a silver one ^^

[Acer]

I was wondering if you were heading in that direction. Well done. A
satisfying close to the first arc. A question would you be willing to
connect this story to other stories, because I would like to write a
few stories connecting to this. It would be about a Yukkuri researcher
and I figured if he heard about what you had achieved he would
definitely be interested in your project.

[Hourai]

While I'm not one to get all "proprietary" about what I've written
(this IS a fan based community), my main concern is that there are
various aspects of how my story will be playing out that may
contradict your own intended story. Like their security business, part
of the safety of the product is dependent on the technique being kept
secret (a reason why up to this point, these two have been worked
nearly exclusively by themselves). Although a yukkuri expert will be
brought into the cast next chapter, the character I'm writing for the
role has distinct consequences for the story overall.

Otherwise, I have no problems with other people using the same set of
rules I've been using to write this story (just for the sake of
consistency in my own story, I've been trying to be consistent with
how yukkuri's behave both physically and mentally).

If you're eager to be writing right now, I'd recommend to go for it.
Kind of like how I adjusted so that the yukkurarium family story from
OYP was referenced in my work (although as a documentary, instead of a
story outright), you could reference Matt and Narrator's
accomplishments as part of the premise. That way, you don't have to
spend the time building the background of your story, but not have to
operate completely under any restrictions that occur in my story. If
you want to do something more collaborative, however, I'd recommend at
least waiting to see how this story plays out. It's probably less
restrictive, honestly, to just write the way you want and not have it
bound to another persons work. But I'll leave that up to you.

I hope I'm not coming off as being harsh, as I don't intend to be
insulting. I just tend to express myself as clearly as possible to
avoid misunderstandings.

[Acer]

Your not. Thank you for the other comments as well I was planing on
waiting a little while longer anyways. One of the reasons I was asking
was partial because I was curious about my character send messages to
your characters ect... so sort of a lose collaborative to begin with.
Once again I am perfectly willing to wait till your ready for
something like that.

[MET]

Well it was my hope that Matt and his Pal could accomplish some true
progress and even a outstanding one, since, as it was mentioned Gold
was getting overrated and non worthy, true platinum was a the best
result for their efforts, since they where aiming to some serious
issue in yukkuris and trying to solve them.

It was more a hope or a wish than guessing.

Glad to see things working well, and can't wait to see what kind of
stories "this world" of your story spawns, specially with this high
tier yukkuris or at least high enough for the wild, living in nature
and facing the typical shitheads and deibus.

[Autochron]

...I just joined this group, after lurking for a couple months, to say
that I have never been more glad that I discovered yukkuri fandom than
today. This story is probably the best fanfic I have ever read so far,
and I'd definitely say it's in the top 5. I anxiously await more. I
think I might have an inkling of where this story is going, and I
don't like it, and I love that I don't like it :) So please, continue!

My apologies if I'm not using the discussion group correctly.

[CubisticArt]

By the way, the four that just got the platinum badges - same four as
in the end of Chapter 6, right?

[Poweryoga]

Finally got a chance to finish the story, and I'm glad things turned
out the way it did. Now I'm thinking about Flan and her sock....

Great story overall!

Some things that caught me while I was reading were the names. I know
its difficult to label individual yukkuris (believe me I have the same
problem in my stories...) but the influx of all these names kinda just
catches me as "too many". I noticed you slimmed down the names
towards the end and it's a good thing you did, but I feel like many of
the named-yukkuris were just kinda there for a tiny bit of time and
then disappeared. Ironically, the most memorable ones were the
shitheads because they had very unique names and striking behavior.

So one question, why would the tester feel so offended that the
yukkuris were so smart? After all, its the exams and nobody has ever
been let in the back, so its not like they can be trained to answer
these sort of questions.. So why would the tester be upset that this
is some sort of prank when the yukkuris answered the questions
perfectly in their own way? Wouldn't they be pleasantly surprised and
want to immediately find out more about these yukkuris, as opposed to
thinking this is a prank of some sort and want to fail them on the
tests?

[Toawa]

They're probably government bureaucrats...

[Hourai]

@Autochron: I guess we'll just have to see ;) Welcome! Glad to have
contributed to your experience. World of Sand is probably the top of
my list, so it has nothing short of my highest recommendations.

@CubisticArt: Yes.

@ Poweryoga: It's a honor to hear that from you. It really is.
Neglected to tell you that when you said you liked the direction
chapters ago, but I guess I'm saying it now.

The upsetting part was that I never intended to keep up with the
names. By chapter 3, I myself was really tired of keeping track of all
the little ones (even though the characters still had to). Mainly, I
needed to name the shitheads, so the reader knew that Matt/Narrator
weren't just picking on random ones. But I also didn't want to just
carelessly classify a yukkuri as a shithead. A theme I'm trying to
keep is that all yukkuri thus far, even good ones, still likely have
some problems in their traits (the fundamental problem the characters
are tackling, and by this point, found a solution for). Thankfully,
those times are past, and in the future chapters of the new types,
I'll be looking specifically at "unique" traits of the less commonly
written about types (for better or for worse). As for the original
named ones, a few of them will be "starring" as part of the set that
will be released in the wild. But only a few.

Oh, the reason he's so pissed off is that they might have answered in
their "own way", but the answers were still borderline unnatural (up
to this point, the tester wouldn't even conceive that a Marisa would
walk in and remember all the details concerning the workings of cars
and streets). The private exams are generally unchanging and are
almost the same from a year to year basis. The head's primary worry is
that Matt and Narrator had gotten their hands on the private exam
material, and forced the yukkuri to grind responses. It would be like
if you glimpsed a solution manual and copied the right answers. It
renders the testing as not legitimate. And if somehow those two
actually did get their hands on the test, the bigger problem is that
this means the security in place to protect the test is insufficient,
and new testing protocols need to be come up with (which is costly).
Although Toawa's answer kind of nicely sums it up...