Morning.
Time has come. Mina surely didn't want to remember the last time she did that. It had been a year since she saw herself in that situation and it's playing in her mind as she dialed a certain number on her cellphone. She could never forget that number. It rang about three times before a rushed voice could be heard.
*"Hello?"* The person at the end of the other line asked. Mina gathered all her courage.
"Mom? It's Mina." She said. Mina could hear the sigh of the woman.
*"Are you ok?"* Her mother asked with real worry in her voice.
Mina couldn't believe that, after all, that was the same woman that once said that didn't care about her.
"I'm fine"
*"Are you still with the Minatozakis?"*
Mina eyed Sana.
"Not exactly. Mom, I called to ask you something"
*"Okay, anything"*
'Here it goes'
It pains her to remember the times she and her mother didn't have a place to live.
"Do you remember when we first came to live in here? We stayed at your friend's house, right?"
*"Yes,"*
The things her mother had to do to be able to leave their home country. Although, Mina loved there and she never really liked when her mother dragged her to a 'new life' in another place. It had been years since they live in that place but about a year that her mother left her.
"Can you tell me who it was? I don't remember"
*"Why this so suddenly Mina?"* Her mother raised her tone of voice a bit, because, it had been too long that her daughter didn't call her and yet, it looked like Mina didn't forgive her. She knows what she did though, and yeah, not even she could forgive herself sometimes. In the end, Mina stayed with Sana's family, the year she spent there was good but still, the woman is her mother.
"Mom, please, I need to know" Mina hoped to get in the heart of her mother, as it used to be. She could hear the woman sighing again.
*"His name is Gong Jihoon and I know him because of your father actually"* She almost chocked with those words.
'My father, of course'
Mina's eyes became teary, her father, she missed him.
"Can you tell me more about this Gong Jihoon?"
*"Why?" *
"I need to know, it's really important to me right now"
After a brief moment.
*"Fine then"*
*"Your father knew him because one time they were friends. That's all I know about it. And... The day we had to leave, your father said someone owed one to him and that was it. Once we arrived there, I was sent to the place and I met him the same moment you did"*
The woman still remembers vividly when her husband gave that last hope to them before his last breath.
"O-okay"
*"He is dangerous Mina. I'm sure. Your father wasn't a bad person but he surely knew his demons. Gong Jihoon was one of the cruelest person I have ever met. We just stayed with him for a while because I had no choice at the time"*
"Hm. Do you know where I can find him or more about him?"
*"He used to work a lot for the community as far I know, doing the dirty job I mean. But, why are you asking? Stay away from him. No matter what"*
"Thanks Mom. Bye" Mina was about to hang up.
*"Mina wait"*
She did.
*"What's happening? You're not doing anything dangerous are you?"*
"No Mom, don't worry" She said.
*"Myoui Mina, don't you dare to lie to me"* Her mother said with authority. Mina honestly wanted to cry. The woman goes away and then all of a sudden wants to be a mother again.
"I'm going to be okay mom. I'll talk to you later, bye"
The phone call buzzed when it ended, she doesn't know the next time she will hear that voice again. Mina blocked the number.
Mina gave a heavy step backwards; far away, she saw the others waiting her, Tzuyu already inside of the car as Sana and Jeongyeon talked while watching the cars passing on the highway. They were about to leave the hotel, Mina was near the door of the place, finally reuniting all they could have.
Sana saw her teary eyes when she approached and immediately hugged her, while Jeongyeon gave a small pat on her back.
"I'm okay, it's fine." Mina said, cleaning the tears that left her eyes.
Like that, they followed the directions given by YoungJae earlier, joining the countless number of cars on the highway.

>>>>>>

Jihyo kept checking on her mind all the things she wanted for them to know, since she saw Nayeon so broken after everything, she understood that it was going to be at least complicated to deal with the facts. Nayeon, she had to admit she was doing all of that for her.
Jihyo and YoungJae were already waiting for the others to arrive, just near the end of a road, seeing people passing by not worrying about anything rather than their lives.
"They're here," YoungJae whispered seeing a distinct group walking in their direction. The group looked a bit distressed, Jeongyeon and Mina wearing backpacks with the things they found out being needed, they looked like in a mission. Tzuyu was just ahead, they stepped closer. Jeongyeon's eyes twitched when she saw Jihyo.
"Hi" Tzuyu announced.
"Hi, this is Park Jihyo" YoungJae said, the woman smiled and waved briefly. Jeongyeon was behind Tzuyu and glared her.
"What is she doing here?" Jeongyeon asked. They all looked at her. She didn't want to be rude but she was somewhat upset.
"Wow" YoungJae breathed out.
"I'm here to help" Jihyo said.
"Do you know each other?" Sana asked clearly confused.
"She's friends with Nayeon." Jeongyeon said and crossed her arms. Okay, maybe she was a bit traumatized.
They all now glared Jihyo. She gave an apologetic smile.
"But she's here to help, I swear" YoungJae said.
A brief moment of silence passed.
"Let's go talk somewhere else" YoungJae suggested, people were starting to look at them.
He had seen a park near there and so they all moved to the place.
Jihyo then explained the same things she said to YoungJae, about how she got into this, about the magical complications and about her theory behind why they want Jeongyeon and Sana. They didn't ask questions at first, but Jihyo said a lot.
She sighed.
"And there's this" YoungJae took of his pocket the thing JaeBum fought him for.
"It has magic…How did you get this?" Mina asked.
"At first, I was looking into some proprieties of BamBam and Yugyeom that we have most access to information, so I discovered about this curious little thing. There wasn't much interesting stuff about them, including JaeBum, but I was able to connect the three to a very intriguing robbery not too long ago, and this was the object stolen. Okay, just another felony but I just... Felt something about this one, it was so unusual for them to do such procedures like they did for this thing." YoungJae said opening the box and letting the gaze the object inside of it.
"It's a magical artifact mostly used to restore lost power or balance magical forces but it was actually made to extract power" Jihyo completed, Mina nodded actually recognizing it.
"Of course, they have something like this." Jeongyeon whispered.
"Right, they're really rare. If I am right this is of those that were banned right? They're adaptions of other more powerful ones" Sana completed. She slightly remembered learning about that.
"Yes, they can't perform as well as a regular one and it has side effects, like, extremely bad ones. This one is irregular about the amount of magic taken." Jihyo said.
"And what do you mean by that?" Jeongyeon curiously asked.
"I know that in fact, the person that uses such magic can actually die because of it and this one, it I'll drain an unpredictable amount of magic, enough to kill a person and it's what most likely happens. They're more like replacements of the better ones, that can take magic in small amounts without killing." Jihyo said. Jeongyeon looked at the ground and breathed heavily, giving a thought to it.
"And you?" Tzuyu asked eyeing YoungJae.
"Actually, at first, I didn't find this one anywhere at the black market or really anywhere but, one night I realized that it couldn't just vanish so they kept to themselves. That's how I knew they stole because they need it not because they wanted to sell it like I assumed firstly. But yet, I didn't know why they wanted it. Anyways, in the end I decided to track everything that entered or left JaeBum's house I have a friend that can do it, so, one day he called me saying that they moved a bunch of things to a storage unit. I got there and discovered that some old dude took the stuff from there, so I discovered his name and tracked him to a little shop. Once I got there, it was in fact the easiest part, I said that I worked for the Im family and he just gave me this box. I left the shop and that was when I found JaeBum. Jihyo told me later that JaeBum's mother was trying to get rid of this, I guess that was an attempt to lose the tracks" YoungJae tried to answer. In the end, it was just because he was curious.
"You met JaeBum?" Sana immediately asked.
"Yes, I have no idea how he found me, I guess he tracked me while I was tracking this. I don't know how he knew I was looking for this thing but I assume that he was also looking for it so I just crossed his way in some point. We had a fight and Jihyo saved me." He said to all of their surprise.
Jihyo hummed.
"I was tracking JaeBum, that's why I was there and I recognized you." She said.
Jeongyeon was still uncertain about her. After all, she couldn't afford to trust random people.
She gazed Sana.
'I have to do this for her, for us. We can't let our guard down'
Jeongyeon crossed her arms.
"So, you knew JaeBum was after YoungJae and didn't thought of warning him?" Jeongyeon asked squinting her eyes. Sana frowned, Tzuyu nodded slowly with the question.
"No, I knew that JaeBum was after the artifact." Jihyo explained.
"How and why?"
"Why it's because he's actually thinking about using it to beat Sana and how it's because Nayeon told me everything about it. They want it as a replacement since the real artifact that can extract powers they need is nowhere around and they used all their resources to find and didn't yet. But they know is out there. Nayeon said that this is actually one of the reasons that JaeBum left his mother, she didn't want to use this one and risk everything, she wanted the real one but JaeBum said he had a plan, they argued and I guess that was it"
Jeongyeon was following the idea and nodded slowly, thinking hard.
"And what do they need after all? I mean, his mother, the leader." Jeongyeon asked. Jihyo had already explained to them the separation between JaeBum and his mother and how she was the leader of an operation while her son assumed other ideas of his own.
"For start, what they need to do it's an adaptation of an anciently banned extraction procedure, and they need the same resources that the community used before it was banned, it's some sort of extraction core? I don't know exactly since I only know the description Nayeon told me they found"
'Of course'
A sudden memory perked Mina's memory.
"I know what you're talking about. I read that they destroyed all they used to do that. And even that some people tried to replicate it after everything and that's how the adaptations or replacements started to become a thing, and still they are really rare to have because people that did it were banned and incarcerated"
"You're right but, you know that there's always an idiot that actually ruins everything? They found out rumors about existing one of the real artifacts that didn't get destroyed" Jihyo said.
"That's bad" Sana completed.
"Really bad" Jihyo shook her head. Tzuyu hummed, Jeongyeon was looking at the ground with an unreadable expression.
"Nayeon told me it took a while to find the description and they had to translate it from an incredibly complicated language of the community and they collected information for someone that saw it one time."
"And? Do you remember it?" YoungJae asked.
"Yes. So, it's a two-part object, a golden chain to protect from being apart, round with the color of ashes and if reacts it unleashes rays colored of blood, it has a symbol in it. At least is something like t-"
"Oh my God" Mina whispered.
Jeong