Hokkaido had never really been curious as to what was out there in outer space, nor was she ever interested in visiting her homeworld, due to her fears of what monsters she may find there. She couldn't deny, however, that listening to Lepus recount her own tales of homeworld explanation had left her curious, especially since it did seem like there wasn't actually any untold horrors beyond her imagination lurking around the corners... though perhaps that was just on Lepus' world. Still, there were times when the chibi senshi couldn't help but wonder what her own world was like, what kind of place a senshi of baku would hail from; were she and Aomori twins in a past life as well?

Eventually, curiosity won over caution for once in her short life, and Hokkaido finally worked up the courage to ask Lepus just how she did it. Apparently, it was painless enough- there was an app on her senshi phone she could use, that would take her to her homeworld, an upgrade from the old flip phones that senshi started out with, that Rune had immediately upgraded for the twins upon their awakening. Simple enough, right? Hokkaido still had her doubts, because that was simply how poor Hokkaido functioned on a regular basis, and perhaps she should have waited to ask Aomori to come with her, because the twins did nearly everything together, but...

This wouldn't go like the last time she'd gone off alone without her sister, right? Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Hokkaido took the proverbial first leap, so to speak, and pressed the app icon for homeworld teleportation.

The first thing she noticed upon arrival was how... silent everything was, as if she was truly the only living being left on this world, and if she went off Lepus' retellings of her own personal experience, then perhaps she really was. The second thing she noticed was the style of architecture of the buildings that surrounded her, which seemed to be of an ancient make, like in the photos of imperial Japan in the history books she read in class. The state of decay seemed to vary; some of the more wooden buildings definitely looked unsafe to check out, but others seemed almost like someone may have just been living in them until recently, if she didn't know any better.

As Hokkaido continued to walk around, she started to feel like perhaps it wasn't really all that great that she was the only one here. The fact that she hadn't seen another soul, or even detected the presence of the kami somehow, made the child highly uncomfortable, as she started to have second thoughts about staying any longer, especially as she didn't know how much time had passed already back home. If Mama and Papa discovered her gone, especially when she tried so hard to be the good twin that behaved...

Eventually, Hokkaido saw the familiar sight of a torii gate and stone stairs, signs that a shrine was nearby. It had been a couple of years since her family had gone back to Japan for the holidays to see Mama's family, but Hokkaido remembered the procedure well enough, at least. Slowly climbing the steps, the chibi senshi of baku approached the chōzu-ya, and was surprised to find that the basin still held water, though she was unsure as to its cleanliness.

(The fountain still worked, though, which meant that surely the mountain spring that fed into it still flowed, yes?)

Still, it didn't seem appropriate to pray at the shrine unless she followed through with the purification ritual, and Hokkaido hadn't climbed these steps just to go back. If she wanted her prayers to be heard by the kami, then she should follow the proper procedures and all that; even if she was only eleven, the chibi senshi knew that much. What better place, after all, to appeal to the kami to undue whatever curse had been placed upon her at birth, than at the shrine on her own homeworld?

(Her family always insisted she was simply being superstitious, pointing to how clumsy Mama could be, too, but Hokkaido knew better than to think it was simply something that was hereditary! No, there had to have always been a higher power at play.)

As she proceeded with the ritual, Hokkaido felt an odd sense of deja vu wash over her, as if she had done this before, at this very place, and many times at that, too. A whisper of a name crossed her thoughts, but it was too distorted for her to understand what it was. For a brief moment, a flicker of a memory flashed before her eyes, of two girls doing this ritual too; their features were too blurry to make out, but one she would assume to be her, due to the green and red fuku, and the other... the other...

The other was equally hard to make out, but she could identify hints of a pretty blue butterfly patterning adorning the other girl's fuku. A friend, then? So she wasn't alone and friendless in her past? That was comforting to know, maybe, though Hokkaido knew she shouldn't speculate like that without more information- what if they were actually just complete strangers? Or, worse, what if they were sworn enemies? Maybe she would ask Lepus about this later, just this once, because surely Lepus had enough experience with past memories to have an idea about what this could all mean, right?

With the ritual completed, Hokkaido followed the path up to the shrine, noting that there was no one here either- no attendants, no shrine maidens or priests, nothing. Just like the weird deja vu she felt with the purification ritual, she also felt an old familiarity with the shrine itself, and she wondered if her past self had been a shrine maiden herself, before becoming a senshi. Unfortunately, there probably would be no way of her ever knowing, because the past was in the past, and it wasn't as if she could just ask her past self, right...?

Well, Lepus might disagree, but Hokkaido was pretty sure this was just going to be one of those mysteries that haunted her until the end of times.

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