Alaine glancing at the flowers that Mya created with her new skill, stood there fazed by Mya's power getting better than Alaine, herself.
Alaine gasped with her astounded eyes. "No way.."
'She's so much stronger than me. When will I be better too?' Alaine pondered while placing her hand onto her silk arm.
"Sister Alaine! Please move away from there!" Mya uttered toward Alaine.
Hearing that, Alaine disappeared and reappeared beside Mya as she began to witness what Mya was trying to do.
"..? Hey, what are you doing?" Shocked, Alaine spoke when she noticed Mya making the large flowers float above the ground.
"I wanna help!"
Mya grinned mightily while she was rotating the flowers to make it seem like they were pointing at their directions.
Nervous, Alaine asked. "Really..? Why does it look like you're about to shoot us??"
"But I'm not?"
Tilting her head cluelessly, Mya gazed at Alaine before extending her hand up high. Moreover, when Mya swayed her hand down, it revealed why Mya's skill had the word 'Ballistic' in its skill.
Flowers that had pests within itself, were now being shot toward one direction with its pointy tip.
"Where are they going? Wait.." Alaine asked until she realized why Mya pointed it in that direction.
Concerned, Alaine exclaimed out loud to get another's attention and to warn the person within that area.
"Mirai!!! Watch out!!!"
———
On the opposite side of Alaine and Mya, there was Mirai who continued to do her part by defeating all the pests.
Mirai clapped with her two front legs. "This is going smoothly~"
With puppets of pests by Mirai's side, she managed to control them pretty easily without much effort. Right now, thanks to her puppets, she didn't need to move a muscle except manipulating her puppets.
Eventually, Mirai rubbed her two front legs together, excluding the other legs she had behind her since after all, she is a spider.
"Soon, this phase will be fini—"
She then uttered a few words out of her mouth before perceiving something coming toward her.
Accompanied with that from out of the blue, Mirai heard a loud voice coming where Alaine and Mya were. Though, it was hard to hear it clearly, Mirai could tell from what she was seeing to know what that meant.
"Flowers missiles..?" Mirai spoke as she took notice of the rockets of flowers advancing her way.
Without wasting more than a second, Mirai in her spider form used her skill, 'Ballooning' to get out of this place asap, ascending into the air while her puppets were on the ground.
"I have a feeling the blast will be deadly.."
As her gut and instinct warned her that, Mirai pulled her strings backward which hauled her puppets to surround her in a sphere to protect her from the blast radius.
At any rate, the flowers had launched straight at the bugs below Mirai before creating a huge explosion of guts and bits when they came into contact with a target.
"Sugoi!" Mirai sparkling like the cute spider she was, dazed at the sight beneath her.
As though it wasn't enough that the flowers had blasted away dozens of the pests around her, there were an absurd amount of blood and organs that had scattered around the dirt.
"Nani?!" Astonished, Mirai gasped.
Not only that, it appeared that the blast radius was as fierce as Mirai had predicted, because right now, the puppets around her were getting bombarded with flowers' petals.
Regardless of the petals looking weak and fragile, they weren't what it seemed at all, seeing as they were able to put several gashes onto the pests' bodies.
"Ehhh—??"
Together with the flowers' petals, there were more than just one part of a flower.
..That's right. The stems that looked like a mere stick, had punctured straight through one of Mirai's puppets.
Perplexed, Mirai jolted away from her spot after perceiving a warning from her instinct.
"Isn't it too powerful?" Mirai spoke as she hopped out of the way.
———
After a long time of waiting for this to subsided, Mirai had watched the whole scene unfold before her. It took quite a while for her to finally and safely get down on the ground.
By the way, her somewhat protective shield made out of her puppets were completely stuffed with plenty of holes and stems being stuck inside it, including many of the other parts of the flowers being impaled onto the puppets.
..It was perhaps not worthy of a good shield.
"Hehe…" With a nervous giggle leaving her lips, Mirai transformed back into her human form.
While masking her face with her fan, Mirai spoke in a highly strung state. "Truly strong.."
By then, Mirai was retreating from the messy ground around her and was swiftly walking toward the middle of the field to where Alaine and Mya were.
Alaine exclaimed to get Mirai's attention. "Oi~! Are you okay?"
With Mya standing beside Alaine, Mirai glanced her eyes onto Mya the most since she was wondering why the child had joined the fight.
'Did she make her decision? Or did she join in without coming into a conclusion?' Mirai pondered while hiding half of her face with her fan.
The sound of rustling resounding from the ten flowers in the center were tranquil to everyone's ears, making them feel at ease.
..Too at ease that Mirai's mind went blank while staring at Mya.
'I pity this child..' A thought whooshed in her mind.
Realizing that she thought that, she was quick to deny it and shook her head to get rid of that thought.
"No, no, no. I only feel related to her that I feel bad for the child." Muttered, Mirai tried to deny the pity that she had for Mya.
Avoiding the fact that her and Mya both had the same desire to save their own mothers, Mirai just shook her head again to erase that idea from her mind.
Meanwhile, Mya, who was receiving Mirai's glance, was feeling a bit uncomfortable. And so, Mya subconsciously walked behind Alaine.
It took a while for Mya to realize that she was already behind Alaine, but when she noticed, Mya quickly resolved herself to go toward Mirai.
'I have to tell Mirai.. And this time, I don't need to be sad about not having my mom back.'
Mya thought while moving toward Mirai, holding onto the amulet around her neck.
'Since..'
'..I already have her with me.'
In the end, Mirai and Mya halted in front of each other, standing there silently without saying a single word as though they were waiting for the other to talk first.
"I—!"
Without knowing it, both of them spoke at the same time, prompting them to be surprised and be cut off the other's words.
After folding her fan back, Mirai showed a smile on her face, telling Mya. "You go first."
"Ah, yes." Anxious, Mya fidgeted with her fingers.
Before getting her courage to say her words, Mya laid her eyes directly to Mirai's, staring at her confidently which sort of baffled Mirai slightly.
"I wish to have uncle JoonChul back." Mya said with her determined look.
In spite of it being what she wanted, Mirai wasn't at all relieved by Mya's resolved words. It only forced Mirai to have a conflict with herself as she dazed at the child.
..Mirai pondered as she took a step back from Mya.
'Uso? Doushite? She was able to change her mind that easily..? She.. listened to my words..?'
* ( 'Uso' Japanese → English 'That's a lie' and 'Doushite' → 'Why' )
From that moment on, Mirai became aware that she and Mya weren't at all the same as one another.
The reason being..
'She listened to me so easily while..I.. I didn't listen to the captain..'
Remembering the scene where Mirai didn't follow nor listen to JoonChul's words back in the past, Mirai could only feel frustrated by the fact that she wasn't like Mya in the past.
'If only.. I was like Mya in the past.. If only!'
Angered by this, Mirai gripped her fan tightly to the point of almost breaking it little by little.
Standing there with her furiousness unveiling onto her face, Mya wasn't certain as to why Mirai was expressing this way.
'Isn't this what she wanted? So why does she look mad?' Mya wondered as now she was worried about Mirai's response.
..It was quiet for a minute..
Until out of the sudden, they were both astonished by someone. Someone being Alaine who had joined in by placing her arms around Mirai's and Mya's necks.
"Hey, hey! We did it! We finally completed phase 2! Haha." Alaine giggled to show her joy in finishing this phase.
"Erm.. Sister Alaine.. You got.. a uhm.. something on your hair." Mya told Alaine.
"Hm? What is it?" Alaine spoke while moving her hand to grab whatever was on her hair.
..And it revealed why Mya was talking in that tone.
"Putain!!" Alaine, scared as hell, jumped from her spot when her hand touched it and noticed what it was.
* ( 'Putain' French → English 'Fuck' )
..It was a cockroach.
The moment the cockroach got dropped from Alaine's hand, it had landed onto Mya's hands…
..Which wasn't a good thing.
..Mya with her pale face was ready to let out a scream as deafening as ever.
A squeal in a baring and high-pitched frequencies, almost resounded like if a mouse were shrieking in front of a microphone and created an ear-piercing sound from the speaker.
"EEEEEEKKKK!!"
The one who wasn't scared by a single cockroach, was Mirai, standing next to two people who were afraid of one insect.
When she thought her anger was infuriating, Mirai didn't expect to see such a scene right ahead of her. And to think that this much was enough to relieve some of her fury.
Eventually, Mirai blankly blinked once and twice to realize that this moment was real and not just a mirage.
"Pfft…" Mirai chuckled as this sight was unfolding before her. "Hahaha!"
"Hahah! Ahaha!"
Mya and Alaine, who were still scared of the cockroach, quickly took notice of Mirai's laughter filled with such a blissful feel.
By then, Mya and Alaine stared at each other before chuckling along with Mirai.
"Hahaha. What are we even doing? Haha!"
The three of them finally got the chance to let out such a relieving laugh from within them. Since all of them had experienced a lot from Phase 1 to Phase 2, they really needed this moment to release their stress with some good old laughter.
But after laughing for a short time, a voice arose from above which indicated to the three participants that they still had one more phase to deal with before they could go back.
[I didn't want to bother you all since you were chuckling so happily, but did you enjoy your moment?]
..And of course, it was Eve.