Feels more like growing up story.
The candidates are children. From their eyes, adults have power to do so many things they can’t, so they also want to be adult. Or, see it as maturing socially; for example, Reika after maturing has status, starts dressing up more lavishly, hangs out with other cool kids, she even climbs up to be a boss; and she seems to get more nihilistic. That’s her position in life right now.
It’s all well and good, but oftentimes, people also don’t have any real purpose besides becoming adult, so after getting there, they can lose themselves. At first they might feel empowered, but no clear idea of what they want to do now and get drowned in following the group’s mindset and dynamics.
Ayumi was in the white butterfly faction.
Iyu is from the yellow butterfly faction, while Yotsuba is from the red butterfly faction.
So if they matured, they all would be following different queens.