The planet Forestria is a small planet on the outskirts of the universe. There were no established cities on the planet, only small isolated villages and independent homesteads. All of which are separated by dense forests as the name would suggest.
This is the planet that Leona grew up on. Her parents lived in an isolated cabin. They survived by hunting and growing their own food. When Leona was still a baby, her parents died. She was eventually found and taken in by the people of a nearby village. Those people became like a second family and raised her until she was 5 years old. That was when tragedy struck again.
One day, which was just like any other, she went out into the forest to play and pick flowers. When she returned to the village, she found that it had been set ablaze and the villagers were being slaughtered by soldiers. Men and women it didn't matter everyone in the village was massacred.
As she watched the horror of what was happening, she was caught by a soldier. "I think everyone else is dead already, what should we do with this girl?" The soldier asked.
A large man rode up on a black horse. He had purple and gold armor and wore a helmet with large golden horns on the sides. He was on older man with grey in his beard and an eye patch on his face. She would never forget the way the helmet's horns glowed in the light of the fires, and she could never forget the words that he spoke in response.
"Leave that one alive as a survivor to tell the tale." The man ordered. "Now you listen well girl, this village was destroyed by me! Toro Fernandez! Go ahead and spread the word! And if you have a problem with that you can try to kill me someday little girl, but I'll warn you, I'm the strongest man in the universe! So if you want to kill me, you'll have to live a long life and grow strong." He said before he had the soldier set her loose and the soldiers marched away.
"I managed to make my way to the next village, and as soon as I got old enough I started to travel through space. Just like he asked, I told everyone who would listen about what happened but nobody ever believed me. I think him asking me to tell the story of my village's massacre was some sort of sick joke, because he knew that nobody would ever believe that the great hero would ever do something like that. So I took his other bit of advice and started to train myself to get as strong as I can so I can hunt him down and kill him." Leona said as she finished recounting her story.
"Hmm, that's a lot to take in." Ren said as he stroked his chin with his hand in contemplation.
"I'm sure he doesn't believe me, nobody ever does." Leona thought to herself.
"Well, if I'm being honest with you, I'm actually something of an admirer of Great General Toro. So, I find your story hard to believe." Ren said.
"Of course, I expected as much." She thought.
"That being said, I don't believe that you're lying either." He continued.
"If you don't believe either story, then what do you believe?"
"I think that the truth lies somewhere between the two. Personally I'd like to know what the truth really is." Ren said. "So, I think I'll stick with you until I get to the bottom of this."
"Huh? Why would you do that?" She asked.
"Plus, it's not safe for a girl to be traveling around the universe by herself. I can protect you." Ren continued, ignoring Leona's protests.
"Umm, I'm pretty sure I'm stronger than you, I don't need you to protect me." Leona said. Her words hit Ren like an arrow through the heart.
"W-Well, that maybe the case, but still it's a man's duty to protect a woman even if they're stronger than him." He said as he tried to hide his embarrassment.
"Whatever, you can do what you want as long as you don't get in my way." Leona conceded.
"You know, you can say that you're stronger than me and that's fine, but it kinda looked like you were struggling with that glasses guy. If you had a tough time with him then I don't think that you could beat Toro." Ren said bluntly.
"I could have beat that guy. I just didn't want to use my full power because it would have destroyed the entire town." She replied.
"Eh, that kind of sounds like the excuse a fake martial artist would give." Ren said skeptically.
"I-If you're going to just criticize then you don't have to follow me." Leona said as she now felt a bit embarrassed.
"Oh come on don't say that. Look, I got us a way off this planet." He said as he pointed to a starship at the port.
"This is a nice ship. How can you afford something like this?" She asked.
"Oh, it's just another perk of traveling around the universe." Ren replied dismissively.
Leona didn't really care for his vague reply, but against her better judgment she set out on the next leg of her journey along side him.