(Note: backdated slightly)

After such a long period of time of going to the asteroid Iris on a weekly basis and training to better develop her Revenge, it felt absolutely odd to not visit the asteroid after a week had gone by. True, she had finally figured out how to put her attack together, and perhaps she did not need to train anymore. However, it was now a weekly ritual, and she could not abandon the sand ball all that easily.

It even felt odd now to not bring that obnoxious yellow boomerang with her. However, it wasn't like her hands were completely empty. No, Iris had learned that the heat on this world was pretty intense during the summer. She had two bottles of water to last her. It wasn't a lot considering how quickly the heat had managed to wipe her out when she had been here with Parthenope. It maybe gave her twice the amount of time to do anything.

Rather than wait in the one spot as she arrived, she immediately set to exploring. Her training had prevented her from investigating the asteroid more carefully. Some of her early visits, she had explored various regions, and she had even managed to trek her way to what seemed like the edge of this world. There was one thing she had learned though in her few bouts of exploring this asteroid. There were hints to the past scattered all over the sand. The old wooden structures which she now knew were pieces of the various covered wagons she saw in some of her memories were honestly the most common ruins she saw. As her feet staggered through the dark sands, she thought she saw something. She had to tuck her water bottles under her arm and rub at her eyes to make sure it wasn't a heat-induced mirage.

Whatever it was, it was still there after she had rubbed her eyes.

"Let's see what th'f*ck ya are..." she said softly as she continued to make her way there, eventually settling down to her knees in the dark sands just short of the strange sight.

It looked like dead plants. Well, more specifically, dead plant hair, like that gross silky stuff one could find on corn, except charcoal black in color. The plant hair looked all dried out and more fragile than any of the wooden structures she had come across up to date.

"...there's no f*ckin' way I'm touchin' that sh*t..." she seemed to warn herself aloud, as if to remind her what happened the one time she did touch something on this asteroid that wasn't sand. The heat was already drying the girl out ridiculously, so she cracked open one of the two bottles of water as she simply sat there, looking at the plant-like strings. Idly, she mused aloud "...so what exactly were ya before...?"

As she sat there, drawing the bottle to her lips and taking one long drawn out gulp (draining that water bottle to half full), something seemed to change. When the bottle was pulled away from her lips, she no longer seemed to be looking at a dead clump of plant hair. It seemed as if it suddenly had regained all senses of life. The hair now looked more like silk with a slight bit more volume to it and a bit more curl. No longer was it black in color, but it was instead a neutral medium brown color.

"...what th' f*ck jus' hap..."

"This is only a small patch of Sand Root... Aque, let's see if there's enough to harvest!"

In a very flat tone, the blonde senshi stated "Oh." She got her answer rather quickly as to what was happening. She was remembering something about what was apparently called Sand Root. Of course, she couldn't help but wonder why everything on this damned asteroid had to have Sand in its name. First it was Sand Munchers and Sand Crunchers, and now Sand Root. It was odd to say the least. Rather than fight the urge to run off screaming like a lunatic because yet another memory was about to rape her mind, the teen remained seated, settling in to watch the show, so to speak.

As she watched, Iris noticed that a hand with what seemed like a trowel made of stone came into view. Another hand came out and delicately seemed to tug the silk up so it was no longer touching the sand. The trowel was then brought forward and began to dig slightly at the sand in a rather wide ring about where the silk had been laying. There wasn't anything elegant about this process, but the senshi didn't seem to think in the past she would have been very elegant in the first place. She lived in a damned desert, there was no need to be elegant!

It wasn't exactly all that exciting to watch, and it was f*cking hot. The senshi paused to take another long drink from her currently opened water bottle. Watching someone dig was as exciting as watching paint dry. In other words, it wasn't exciting at all. Yet when the bottle was pulled away from her lips this second time, the memory hand holding the silk rather suddenly jerked upwards, revealing what her past self had been digging for.

It honestly looked like some sort of beef jerky in a rich reddish brown color. Beef jerky with corn silk hair. Obviously, it wasn't actual beef jerky, but the Sand Root looked just as dehydrated as those pieces of beef. There were maybe 3 separated sections total.

"Nope... this only looks like enough for maybe one small piece to be taken off." With that, the trowel dipped into the mess of roots and cut off the smallest of the 3 portions. It fell into the sand, but was pushed to the side for the moment with the trowel. Carefully, the trowel then went back to the sand and dug a little bit more, trying to get the sand to stop refilling the hole the moment her past self stopped digging.

"Be sure to grow fast for the next person!" With those words, the hand lowered the remaining roots back into the sand. The trowel carefully began to smooth the sand back into covering up the roots.

"I don't see what's so special 'bout those..." the senshi idly commented as she remained watching in a seemingly bored manner. Once the trowel had finished up, the silk was let go, and the newly freed hand went to snatch up the little root. It was kind of small, but it seemed to be getting closer and closer. It was as if she was bringing it to her mouth.

And then it hit her. This god awful taste in her mouth! It was like an overwhelming taste of sand in her mouth, with like an undertone of dried vegetable all rolled into one flavor. "WHAT TH'F*CK!!!!!" she shouted, sticking her tongue out of her mouth as if it would solve the problem. When this didn't seem to work, she quickly unscrewed the top to her second water bottle and began to down the water as fast as she could. Maybe she could wash away that disgusting flavor sitting on her tongue. In all of her fuss, it was hard to hear that sound of chewing in the background.

She downed half a bottle of water pretty quickly, and the flavor was still strong upon her tongue. Usually that much water would have made any flavor vanish from her mouth. Vainly, she tried again, downing the rest of the contents of the bottle. Again, nothing changed in her mouth. She spat out a few times, trying to repel the evil that had invaded her mouth. Nothing. It made no sense to her.

Until the memory seemed to fade and that silk returned to that disgusting charred color. The moment the Sand Root's silk returned to the modern day appearance, that flavor had vanished.

"Ugh... that's what Sand Root was?! IT TASTED LIKE MOTHER F*CKIN' SAND?!!!" Spitting out a couple more times as if to make sure she no longer could taste that grossness, the senshi then looked over her two empty water bottles.

"...sh*t... means I gotta go back..." With a sigh, her phone was summoned, and soon enough, she was gone from the asteroid of Iris.