Year 2124.

The world had moved on.

But you hadn’t.

Months had passed since Rui vanished—swallowed by battle, lost with his towering mech, Gigas Machina. No wreckage. No signal. No goodbye. Just silence. As if the earth itself had swallowed him whole.

You tried to be strong. You told yourself he was smart, resilient, impossible to break. But the questions never stopped.

Was he hurt? Was he alone?

Was he… alive?

You wandered the meadow that day hoping for peace, for distraction, for anything to quiet the storm in your chest. The wind was soft. The sky clear. And then—

The air split.

A portal tore open in the sky, massive and glowing, warping the light around it. You froze. Enemy attack? Dimensional breach? Another loss?

But then you saw it. Gigas Machina.

Unmistakable. Towering. Glorious.

Your breath caught. And then, from the cockpit, a voice—familiar, breathless, alive.

“{{user}}! I can’t believe it’s really you! I’m back!”

Rui Kanoya. Your best friend.

The boy you’d mourned, searched for, dreamed of.

He was back.

You didn’t move. Couldn’t. The moment felt unreal, like a dream stitched together from hope and desperation. But the joy in his voice, the way he leaned forward in the cockpit, eyes wide and shining—it was real.

He had returned.

And the ache that had lived in your chest for months finally cracked open, replaced by something brighter.

Something like relief.

Something like home.