Episode 26 : What One Yearns For (6)

"Mama!!" Mya cried out as she embraced her mother affectionately.

For how long had Mya missed her mother's voice? It was obvious when she finally heard it once again.

Annabelle spoke, caressing Mya's hair. "Yes, sweetie?"

"..." Mya, speechless to the point of not knowing what to say or do, dazed at her mother with a mystified look.

"Is there something wrong?" Annabelle said again, resting her hand on Mya's cheek.

That question coming from Annabelle's lips really hit Mya hard because Mya, herself doesn't know what to do in her own situation.

"..I.. have a problem.." Mya mumbled while wiping her tears away, looking at her mother once she was done.

Needless to say, Annabelle put all her attention on her daughter as she got up in a sitting position.

Afterwards, Annabelle held Mya's hands and told her. "Please tell me."

"..!" Mya flinched upon getting her hands touched by her mother after such a long time.

Since it felt so surreal that Mya was finally having the chance to see her mother again and being able to sense the warmth from her mother's touches.

..It was a strange yet welcoming sensation.

Trembling lips that couldn't say the words out correctly, Mya spoke those words out of her lips.

"I w-wish to bring m-mom bac—"

Even before she could finish her sentence, Annabelle had raised Mya's hands to cover the child's mouth. Of course, Mya was a little bit surprised by her mother's suddenness when she was the one who asked Mya to tell her about Mya's problem.

By then, what came after Annabelle opened her lips, made Mya's eyes spread extremely wide.

"Mommy is sad that her daughter can't move on." Annabelle frowned bitterly as she gazed her sad eyes on Mya's wide eyes.

"Mmh erm!"

With her mouth covered by her own hands because of her mother, Mya couldn't say a single word to Annabelle.

"You must move on, sweetie. I have died for a very long time. So, everybody will be surprised to see mommy right?"

Annabelle spoke, removing Mya's hands from Mya's mouth which resulted in Mya releasing all the questions she wanted to ask to Annabelle.

"..w-why mom?! Why!? How c-can anyone be s-shocked to see mama when t-they miss you as m-much as I do!?"

Even as Mya was directing her questions into Annabelle's ears, Annabelle just smiled toward Mya.

"..Just why.. mama?" Dumbfounded, Mya gasped as she was almost letting her tears flow again.

Because of Annabelle's grin, it showed everything within that one expression, enough to tell Mya that her questions were useless against her resolved mother.

Upon wrapping her arms around Mya, Annabelle gave her daughter a big hug before muttering to Mya.

"Mya, you used to have no friends at all."

"..."

"But now, I'm happy that you're doing well even when I'm gone. You even have a lot more friends to help you."

"...ma?"

"I don't want you to ruin your friendship, do I?"

Annabelle looked at her daughter's shaken eyes, giving her a kiss to the forehead before grinning happily toward Mya.

"Move on, Mya. You don't need to bring mommy back, alright? Since I'm already with you in spirit."

Annabelle said again. "So please, look after yourself for that is enough for me to rest in peace."

After telling Mya that, Annabelle tapped her finger onto the amulet around Mya's neck, not knowing of the fact that there was a terrifying creature within that jewelry.

"Mya.. Please remember this well."

Annabelle spoke as though it seemed like she has no more time to stay within this dream.

Without a doubt, Mya noticed the ambience around her and her mother, and Mya also wanted to say something to her mother, but she just couldn't figure out what to say at this moment.

..So Mya nodded slowly but surely to her mother, waiting patiently for her mother to say what she wished.

"I love you, Mya. My lovely and shy daughter."

Words that could describe all the parents' love toward their children, were pounding deeply within Mya's heart until it reached Mya's brain.

A moment to be remembered and a feeling to be engraved in her heart, Mya's eyes that once cried earlier, were now back in action when they began to unleash a river of tears.

"...I..I lu..luv you too, mama..!" Sniffling through this moment, Mya tried to wipe them away with all her effort.

..Yet, her tears kept going and going without pausing for a second. It was as if all the bottling emotions that Mya had locked deep within her, was finally able to let loose into the outside world once and for all.

"Take care, Mya."

Afterwards, Annabelle pressed her lips onto Mya's forehead, making it feel like it was the last forehead kiss that Mya would ever receive again.

"Wait..!"

In that moment, Mya called out to her mother who immediately dispensed an enormous amount of creamy pink roses without a moment's notice.

"..Mom.."

Standing up to reach out for the roses, Mya luckily collected a few while the others were freely galing through the sky in tranquility.

As Mya witnessed all the roses gliding along the wind current, she finally took a look at the flower she was holding and was wondering why her mother had turned into these flowers.

"..These are.. High and Mya roses.."

"Oh...mom.." While hugging the flowers close to her, Mya broke down into tears once again.

But after a short period, Mya beamed a smile on her face, taking a glimpse at the sky where there were still a couple of roses in the middle of the sky.

"..You're the best mother ever."

Uttering these words that meant so much to Mya, she expressed her blissful look to show the world that she finally had moved on from her mother's death.

"..Thank you for everything you did for me, mom." Mya spoke with all her gratitude and tenderness.

Not long after, she slowly but surely took a sniff of the rose in her hand, smelling its scent until she suddenly felt dozy.

Faintly getting sleepy, Mya uttered these words out of her lips once more. "I love you, mom.."

Out of the blue, Mya soon passed out from all the time she had to shred her tears and being emotional during her time staying in her miraculous dream.

..And that brought an end to her unbelievable dream.

———

Currently while Mya was having her sweet time in her dream, Mirai and Alaine were facing the countless bugs that they had encountered.

"Great~!" Mirai exclaimed.

Coming across several pests, Mirai managed to take control of a few of them by turning them to her puppets for a while.

Mirai cheered happily by herself. "Sugoi~! Heh."

As it looked like fun to Mirai who were making the bugs fight each other, she didn't appear to have any more trouble with her offense.

And then, there was Alaine with quantities of her clones in every part of the center field to defend the 10 flowers as well as protecting Mya from any threat coming her way.

However, quantity meant nothing without quality. As a result of having too many clones to command by herself, Alaine was having some serious problems with coordinating.

"Ugh.. My head is hurting so much!" Alaine groaned while smacking her head.

Some of those problems were fortunately fixed and thanks to Mirai's silk arm, Alaine managed to fight off the bugs with brute force.

"Why are there so many?! When will this end!? Oh my god..!"

Alaine cried out while drawing out one of her old daggers to toss at the mosquito in the sky.

But sadly, Alaine missed it by a lot. Or actually, just like how mosquitoes can dodge claps and any other objects hitting them, they could evade it without a problem.

Exactly like how the mosquito in front of Alaine flawlessly dodged her dagger, and Alaine wasn't happy by that.

"Stop using your hundreds of eyes to see, let me kill you right now!" Alaine bellowed when she vanished in thin air.

In an instance, Alaine was soon spotted beside the mosquito she was attempting to kill. As she had used the other pests as platforms to get higher and higher, she had thrusted her daggers swiftly into the pests she stepped on.

Eventually letting the daggers reach the mosquito, Alaine swung her dagger as fast as she possibly could to not let her weapon or herself be detected by the mosquito's watchful eyes.

"What!? Oh heck no!" Stunned, Alaine gasped as she witnessed the mosquito dodging her attack so easily.

In actuality, Alaine expected as much, considering how mosquitoes operate with those innumerous eyes.

"I'm not stupid enough to run in without a plan!"

Accompanied with her words, the mosquito in front of her was sliced off in the back which led the mosquito to screech in an ear-splitting sound.

ScReEEehHH!!!

The ones who were beside the pest, were Alaine and her clone who was behind the mosquito. As having their ears covered wasn't enough, the mosquito was currently soaring in the sky in a ferocious state.

"Eek! My eardrums!!"

Even though that bug knocked into its own race, Alaine and her clones were randomly knocked out of the sky as well.

"Oof! Gah! I'm falling!" Alaine cried out.

Thinking of a plan, Alaine put it in action in a hurry. 'Think, think! Let's just use the other pests to jump on! Yeah!'

Even before she could do anything though, Alaine had bumped into something soft to stop her descent entirely.

She gasped. "Huh?"

When Alaine turned to look at what it was, she heard a voice from beneath her, becoming aware of who that voice belonged to.

"Are you alright, sister Alaine?"

In an ecstatic mood, Alaine called out to the person who saved her the trouble of having to save herself.

"Merci~!! Mya! You're finally awake!"

* ( "Merci" French → English "Thank you so much" )

Mya who had received a new skill, 'Ballistic Blossom' upon awakening from her nap, had summoned forth a field of massive flowers in her vicinity.

"Sister Alaine! Get down from the flower if you don't want to get blasted off into outer space!" Mya shouted toward Alaine as she waved her hands up high.

"Uh what!? Oh, okay??"

Immediately after that, Alaine had leapt off of the flower before she got to witness the reason why Mya had warned her.

"Oh my goodness gracious..!"

In her sight, what Alaine saw, was that of a field of flowers launching their pollen into the sky. Not only that, those pollen weren't at all what it seemed.

With one contact of pollen, the pest was instantly addicted to it like crazy, going mad when it rushed toward Mya's giant flower to suck out all those pollen.

Alaine's mouth dropped completely. "What in the world… Now it just looks like a big clump of bugs on the flowers!"

In just a short time, Mya's large flowers were eventually crowded with bugs that desired to have all of the pollen by itself.

And once Mya observed how all the pests around her were on the flowers, she speedily swayed down her hands, signalling her flowers to close its petals entirely.

Because of this, the bugs who were enjoying their time, were stupidly lure in to get trapped inside every flower.

Alaine, as baffled as ever, fazed by this scene. "No way.. It was this.. easy for her..?"

"Mya.. you're getting stronger.." Alaine murmured, clearly feeling jealous of Mya.

"..than me.."