In the heart of Washington D.C., where glass towers met old stone monuments, stood one of the most secure and prestigious complexes in the world—NASA headquarters. The building had that sterile hum unique to government institutions: polished marble floors, white fluorescent lights, and the muffled chorus of keyboards, printers, and distant footsteps. It was the sound of bureaucracy wrapped around the dream of space.
Inside one of the offices in the aerospace research division sat a man who had once believed his life would be spent among the stars.
Dr. Rowan Halberg was in his mid-thirties, with round wire-frame glasses that made him look more like a tired professor than a government scientist. His desk was a graveyard of empty coffee cups, energy bar wrappers, and dog-eared reports. Telemetry spreadsheets scrolled endlessly across his monitor, numbers blurring into one another until they lost all meaning.
Rowan pinched the bridge of his nose. Another day, another wall of bureaucracy. He had dreamed of rockets, engines, and exploration. What he got was paperwork, meetings, and endless political tug-of-war over funding.
With a long sigh, he leaned back in his chair and clicked open his second monitor. YouTube. A guilty little ritual he allowed himself on particularly draining afternoons. He told himself it was "for inspiration," though more often it was just a rabbit hole of rocket launch replays, physics lectures, and the occasional absurd video of cats in astronaut suits.
Today, however, something new caught his eye.
At the very top of his recommendations was a video with a thumbnail that stopped him cold.
「The Halo Project: Prototype I to III – My First Step」
Uploadedby:Saeki Reina
Views: 3.7 million in 24 hours.
Rowan frowned. "Saeki… Reina?"
The thumbnail showed a teenage girl—Japanese, judging by her uniform—with a faint smile. Floating above her head was a glowing ring. Not edited, not a digital filter, but something that bent and reflected light naturally. It looked absurd, like something out of an anime, yet eerily real.
His curiosity overcame skepticism. He clicked.
The video began simply, with a girl sitting in what appeared to be a classroom laboratory. She bowed her head slightly before speaking, her voice calm, almost formal.
"私の名前は佐伯レイナです.北海道に住んでいます.これが,私がこの一年取り組んできた研究です."(My name is Saeki Reina. I live in Hokkaido, Japan. This is the project I have been working on for the past year.)
Rowan adjusted in his seat.
The footage shifted. Hand-drawn sketches filled the screen: messy, chaotic at first, but gradually refined. Diagrams of circular rings with notes scribbled in the margins. Equations about power distribution. Annotations on stability and field intensity.
The next clips showed her prototypes—awkward, heavy contraptions strapped to mannequins. One spun violently before collapsing in sparks, nearly taking the mannequin's head off.
Rowan flinched. "Christ, kid…"
But then came iteration after iteration. Lighter materials, smaller circuits, new designs. Failures stacked, but each time she adjusted, reconfigured, improved.
By the time Prototype III appeared, Rowan's jaw had gone slack.
It was sleek. Minimal. Floating steadily above her head like it belonged there.
The halo turned with delicate precision, emitting a soft hum. She tapped a control pad and it shifted, rising slightly, then lowering. The close-up showed custom micro-fans, electromagnetic stabilizers, and circuitry that didn't look like anything available commercially.
Rowan whispered to himself, "…No way. This isn't CGI."
Then came the final segment.
Reina stood in her lab with the halo hovering gracefully above her. She looked directly into the camera, her expression serious, her dark eyes unwavering.
"This is not for decoration. This is not for fun. This is my first step. My dream is to create the technology that will take me to space. This halo is not just a symbol. It is an auxiliary propeller design. One day, it will help propel a ship beyond Earth."
The video ended with her bowing politely, the text fading in:
"To the stars, step by step. Thank you for watching."
Silence filled Michael's office. He hadn't realized he was holding his breath until it came out in a sharp exhale.
"…Holy shit."
It wasn't corporate. It wasn't staged. It wasn't the work of a billion-dollar lab. That was what made it terrifying. This was raw invention. Passion and obsession distilled into something real.
He scrolled through the comments.
"Is this even real??"
"She built THAT in high school???"
"NASA shaking rn."
"Bro invented divine tech."
"Witnessing the birth of Iron Man but kawaii."
Rowan chuckled nervously. "They're not wrong…"
He replayed segments, pausing, scribbling frantic notes on a pad. EM field control. The stabilizer chip design. The insane efficiency of her ring's materials. He muttered to himself like a scientist unraveling a conspiracy.
"This shouldn't even be possible with high school resources… How the hell did she design that circuit? And that alloy—what the hell is she using? Carbon composites? Something custom? Jesus…"
The more he watched, the more one truth burned in his mind.
"This kid is a goddamn genius."
By lunchtime, the video had already spread through the building. Group chats lit up with messages like "Have you seen this Japanese girl??" and "Is NASA about to get outpaced by a teenager?"
Rowan sat frozen at his desk, the weight of realization pressing on him. This wasn't just another viral video. This was history, right here, unfolding in real time.
He opened his email client, drafting a message to his superior.
Subject: Urgent – Independent Innovator in JapanBody: Recommend immediate review of a viral YouTube video by an individual named Saeki Reina, location: Hokkaido, Japan. The device demonstrated appears to be a functioning EMF-propelled stabilizer with potential aerospace applications. Suggest outreach or monitoring.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard. His hands were trembling slightly.
For a long moment, he simply stared at the paused frame of Reina's face on the screen—calm, determined, unwavering. The look of someone who didn't need a billion-dollar budget to chase the stars.
Rowan leaned back, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
"…Kid, you just lit a fire across the ocean."