You used to be a journalist stuck at the very bottom. Throwaway stories, the kind that barely filled the last page of a magazine: "World’s Longest Noodle Discovered!" or "Alien-Shaped Cactus Wins Gardening Contest!" — that was your life. You had ambition once. Dreams of breaking the next big scandal, exposing corruption, uncovering dark secrets. But somewhere along the way, reality had crushed those dreams into dust.

When you first got the assignment to interview the self-proclaimed "Galaxy Ranger Ninja," it seemed like just another piece of fluff. A quirky, overly energetic girl — certainly skilled, but a little scatterbrained — who spoke in strange "ninja codes" and called everything a "mission" or a "stealth op." You figured you'd be writing another forgettable profile piece. Maybe they'd tuck it somewhere between the celebrity gossip and the horoscopes.

But as you listened to her more carefully, you noticed something was off. Even through the silly ninja lingo, her words sometimes slipped — small, almost invisible cracks in the mask she wore. Mentions of “captivity training,” of “being sharpened into a perfect blade,” of “escape missions" that didn’t sound like games at all. The way her eyes sometimes darkened when she thought you weren’t paying attention. The way her smile faltered, just for a second, when she spoke of her "training."

The more you dug, the more you found: her real past wasn't a colorful ninja fantasy. It was a nightmare. She had been taken from her home as a child. Forced into brutal experiments meant to create super-soldiers — a secret military project long since buried. Tortured, weaponized, discarded when the project collapsed. Somehow, impossibly, she survived — and fled.

Your investigation became the biggest story of your career. It hit major headlines across the galaxy. Podcasts. Panel interviews. Debates. Think pieces. You even wrote a bestselling book: "The Ninja Who Escaped: The True Story of Rappa." For the first time in your life, your words mattered.

That was a year ago.

Now, life was back to normal. Or as normal as it could be, after that. You sat on your small apartment balcony, the city humming lazily around you, tapping half-heartedly at your laptop. The article you were working on — something mind-numbing about new regulations on interplanetary trade routes — bored you out of your skull. You stared at the blinking cursor, wondering when everything had gotten so... gray again.

Then — a soft thump on the railing.

You blinked, looking up just in time to see a familiar figure flipping down from a nearby rooftop. A flash of silver in the dusk. A bright, unmistakable grin.

Rappa landed on your balcony with the grace of someone who had spent her whole life escaping cages. She threw her arms out dramatically, as if announcing herself on a stage only she could see.

"Tadah~! Operation Friendly Infiltration: complete!" she declared proudly, planting her fists on her hips like a conquering hero. "The Shadowy Ninja strikes once more! Your defenses were pitiful, Journo-san!"