When the guns went quiet, the silence was unbearable.
It was not peace. It was the sound of ghosts counting what was left.
The war between Earth and Controval-3 had devoured everything—oceans drained, continents fractured, and the stars themselves dimmed under the weight of loss. No victory. No surrender. Just two broken worlds staring at one another across the void, too tired to hate, too proud to speak.
On Earth, the survivors crawled out from the ruins like shadows afraid of the light. The cities that once glowed like jewels were now black husks. The great towers of Asia lay folded into dust. Europe was a skeleton of glass and stone. And the Americas—once called the "heart of civilization"—had fallen silent under endless clouds of ash.
The population had dropped to less than one in five.
No nations remained—only scattered settlements and radio whispers.
Among them walked a man who had once been a soldier.
Fujita Giono.
---
The Wanderer
He moved without ceremony, carrying only an old plasma rifle and a shard of his former insignia, melted into a crude pendant. His uniform was tattered, his armor scorched, his eyes—cold and hollow, yet strangely alive.
He had fought in the final siege over the ruins of New Kyoto, where the sky burned for three straight days. He had seen fleets die, comrades vanish, and the earth itself split open. When the last Controval drone fell, he didn't cheer. He simply dropped his rifle and walked into the smoke, not knowing where else to go.
Now he wandered.
He crossed the rusting skeletons of megacities, scavenging batteries from dead ships and drinking condensation off shattered domes. He found children born in the rubble, their parents long gone. He found soldiers who still believed the war hadn't ended.
He didn't try to lead them. Not at first.
But leadership finds those who do not seek it.
One night, in the ruins of what was once Geneva, he found a small camp surrounded by wrecked drones. There were a dozen survivors—hungry, sick, afraid. When raiders attacked at dawn, Fujita fought without hesitation. He used the fragments of an old energy blade, a weapon fused to his armor long ago, and moved with a calm fury that silenced even the wind.
After the battle, a young woman approached him.
"Who are you?" she asked.
He looked at the blood on his hands, then at the rising sun.
"Someone who remembers what we were," he said.
Word spread.
Over the months, more survivors came. They brought stories of Fujita Giono—the soldier who protected, who shared his rations, who never raised his voice but was always obeyed. He became the quiet center of a world struggling to find balance again.
---
The Gathering of the Lost
Within a year, small groups began to merge into something larger—a settlement that rose among the shattered remains of Old Switzerland. It was there that Fujita met Kinyu Kioski, a former fleet tactician from the Earth Defense Command.
Kinyu was everything Fujita wasn't: loud, restless, and endlessly clever. He saw potential in Fujita's vision before Fujita himself did.
"People follow you, old friend," Kinyu said once, as they stood over the growing camp. "You should give them somewhere worth following to."
It began as a joke. It became prophecy.
Together, they organized the survivors—farmers, mechanics, former engineers. From broken satellites they built radio towers. From fallen ships they forged new tools. Slowly, the camp grew into a settlement, and the settlement into a city.
They called it Nouvaterra—"the New Earth."
But it wasn't built on hope alone. It was built on knowledge, and that came from a man they found in the fifth winter after the war: Dr. Oton Pris.
Hidden deep beneath the ruins of Oslo, Oton had survived in cryogenic sleep, surrounded by his life's work—blueprints, reactor cores, and research drones. When they awoke him, he was frail but alive. His first words were not of confusion, but purpose:
> "You rebuilt the world without science. Let me show you what it can become."
Fujita listened.
And thus began the rebirth.
---
The Rebuilding
Over the next five years and seven months, Fujita, Kinyu, and Oton reshaped the ashes of humanity into something living.
Dr. Oton led the construction of clean energy grids, converting old fusion reactors into sustainable cores. He designed towers that breathed for the planet—massive "Sky Filters" that purified the air and released oxygen into the poisoned winds.
Kinyu, ever the soldier, began rebuilding the defense forces—training those who survived to fight not for war, but for protection. They called it the Reclaimer Guard, sworn to defend the fragile peace.
And Fujita… he did what no machine or law could do—he united them. He walked through the growing streets, spoke to the people, helped mend roofs, carried supplies. He was more legend than man by then. Children whispered his name like a prayer.
Nouvaterra became the symbol of rebirth.
By the end of the sixth year, it glowed at night—an oasis of light surrounded by wastelands. Gardens bloomed. Music returned. For the first time since the war, laughter echoed through the ruins of Earth.
Yet even as the people rebuilt, Fujita could not forget.
Sometimes he would stand on the city's outer wall and look toward the sky—toward the stars that had once burned with war.
He could almost feel them watching.
And far beyond the reach of his gaze, past the cold black void between worlds, Controval-3 stirred once more.
Their cities had not healed.
Their pride had not softened.
They saw Earth's new light not as hope… but as defiance.
And soon, they would make their move.