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If there was anything Morishita was particularly skilled at, it was doing absolutely nothing productive at all, when it came to fulfilling her duties as a senshi. Indeed, if given the choice, she'd prefer to pass on the work to someone else, while she instead did nothing at all... If nothing else, the only real benefit to being a senshi was having a talking cat that could be swayed into doing her homework for her. Other than that, well, Morishta would vastly prefer to sleep in all day when she didn't have classes, or otherwise take some fairly long naps.

Now that winter was upon them, this was even more true- why go out and freeze in the cold weather, when she could be curled up in bed, under a mountain of blankets and with her own heater nearby? Rune just didn't understand how good she could have it, if she just accepted the life of a housecat, which seemed to be the route Morishita was going, herself, despite being the more human of the two.

It was such as it was that Kalani would have been content remaining a chibi senshi until the end of days, or the heat death of the universe, whichever came first. Even though she had heard from both Rune and other senshi about the mysteries of the past that they had come to find on their homeworlds, Lani just wasn't interested. After all, space didn't have wifi, or a comfy bed for her to nap in. What good was visiting a rock in space going to do?

Somehow, Rune had managed to get through to her eventually, finding the right choice of words to spur the lazy teen into action. While discovering what her world had to offer didn't interest her, well, surely, she didn't want to still dress the same as she did when she was 12, now did she? Ever the aspiring fashionista, Morishita may not have particularly cared much about 'aging up' and out of being a chibi senshi, but she did care about the way her peers might percieve her potential sense of style...

... And those legwarmers certainly had to go...

So it was with much reluctance, but also with much wanting to remain 'cool' and 'stylish' that Morishita had been persuaded enough to make the trip into space to her homeworld, fluffy guardian kitten in tow. When they arrived, Morishita wasn't sure what she had expected, but the teen was relatively unimpressed at what she found. The two had been transported to what looked to have once been a vast marketplace, only in its present state, it seemed to be pretty devoid of life, not to mention, anything valuable looking. If she was this world's protector, then where was the welcoming committee, the parades?

Morishita glanced down at Rune, frowning; a certain someone owed her an explanation...

While Rune may have originally found the right words to sway Morishita into coming all the way out here, she was going to have to try a lot harder to convince her to actually have feelings for this place other than apathy, or something similar to that effect. The teen crossed her arms, staring down at Rune while remaining unimpressed with her surroundings. She got out of bed for this?

"Why would I want to learn more about being Morishita? Senshi stuff's too much effort, all this 'learning' and 'training' and 'protecting'," the chibi retorted, not buying it, "When you said I'd get to change my clothes if we went into space, I was under the impression we'd be meeting up with someone, but..."

She made a sweeping gesture at the whole emptiness of the marketplace, "There seems to be a whole lot of nothing and no one but us here."

Morishita sighed, and there might have been some eye rolling, too; why did Rune think she was interested in some boring history lesson as much as she was interested in getting back home and to the comfort of her nice warm bed? And what did learning about her heritage have to do with changing her look up? But Rune said that word again, 'outdated', and Morishita could only continue to be at the mercy of the little cat's whims, because somehow, she seemed to remain insistent that this was all going to pay off in the end.

Then Rune started talking about there being a 'special song' that apparently was relevant to her homeworld, and Morishita started to wonder just what kind of research the cat did to figure out that. Of course, Rune might have said it was from here, but the teen chibi had a sneaking suspicion it was probably just another one of her idol songs... not that it mattered much at the moment, seeing as Rune was likely not to let Morishita hear the end of it until she obliged. "Alright, fine, let's hear this 'special song' of yours," the chibi finally said, although not without some degree of huffiness in her voice.

While the tune definitely seemed suspiciously adlibbed and not at all whatever the original song had been about, there was indeed a certain sense of nostalgia evoked by the little cat's singing, horrible as Morishita thought it was. She didn't know why though, because she had never heard such lyrics or melody before in her whole life, and yet...

Sure, the lyrics were all wrong, and yes, the singing was absolutely off-key, but for whatever reason, it managed to trigger a memory. A really faint memory, yes, of an encounter in the distant past, that seemed to involve a familiar face... ? The details were fuzzy, as if the memory was streaming on a toaster in 144p quality, but, well.

This memory seemed to be hers? There she was, supposedly more fashionably dressed than she was now, she hoped; there was also a very familiar fuzzy white ball of fluff with what she assumed to be the same stupid little hat she wore now. Although Morishita wasn't super certain as to the context behind this meeting, it seemed that the fluffy Mauvian was congratulating her past self on... something or another, and this was, in Rune fashion, cause for celebration, in the form of a song.

The very same song she was singing in the present, or rather, this was the origin from which the current... 'modern adaptation' of that same song came from, anyway. Morishita wasn't sure if she should be surprised or not that the singing hadn't been any better back then than it was now, to be honest.

"Once again, I must congratulate you on your promotion! You are the first Sailor Morishita this world has had in a very long time, so this is a very special occasion."

The next couple of words were hard to make out, but the tune seemed to be some sort of old Morishitan folk song, the kind sung during holidays and celebrations, except it seemed that even then, Rune botched the lyrics. The Morishita of the present day certainly hoped that her past self had the sense of mind to put a curb on the singing, but given how things were in the here and now, perhaps not. Either way, the brief memory seemed to resonate within the teen, and awaken something or another, because the next thing she knew...



Her outfit had changed.

"Huh, neat," Morishita murmured, as she examined her new digs. She'd have to look in a mirror to get a proper, much better look later, but for now, ditching the leg warmers and the silly cat ear hood were a step up at least. She turned her attention to Rune, to discuss this turn of events, and to ask if she had had any funny flashback visions as well, but stopped short when she realized...

The medallion she had 'bought' from the alien merchant the year before...

And the medallion that the Rune of the past wore...

... Were exactly one and the same?

Suddenly, Morishita felt very much like she had been ripped off, and like she should have just kept that shiny rock she had traded for the trinket. Some trade deal, huh- she'd have to hunt down Almadel next time he turned up, and have a word with him.

And Rune, too.

... After she went back home, anyway.