The road to Magnolia had never felt so long.
Rei Atsui stood at the crest of a hill overlooking the town, his blond hair catching the late afternoon sun. Below him, the familiar rooftops of Magnolia sprawled toward the river, smoke rising from chimneys, children playing in the streets, merchants calling out their wares. It looked exactly as he remembered it.
And yet everything felt different.
Two years.
He had been gone for two years.
The thought sat in his chest like a stone as he started walking again, his boots crunching against the gravel path. Two years since he'd seen the chaotic warmth of the guild hall. Two years since he'd heard Mira's laugh, Natsu's shouting, Gray's bickering. Two years since he'd looked into Erza's eyes and promised he'd be careful.
He'd kept that promise. Barely.
The mission for the Magic Council had seemed straightforward enough at first—investigate rumors of a dark guild operating in the northern territories. But straightforward missions had a way of becoming complicated when dark magic was involved. One guild had become three. Three had become a network. And Rei, ever the one to see things through, had spent month after month dismantling them piece by piece, always finding one more threat, one more reason to stay away just a little longer.
The letters he'd sent had grown fewer as the months wore on. Not because he'd forgotten them—never that—but because putting words on paper felt inadequate. How did you explain the things he'd seen? The people he'd failed to save? The nightmares that still woke him in the dark hours before dawn?
Better to come home in person, he'd told himself. Better to let them see with their own eyes that he was still the same Rei who'd left.
He wasn't sure that was true anymore.
The guild hall came into view as he rounded the last corner, its familiar facade rising against the sky like a monument to everything he'd missed. The doors were closed, but he could hear the noise from here—the raucous laughter, the crash of furniture, the unmistakable sound of Fairy Tail living life at full volume.
His hand trembled slightly as he reached for the door.
Stop it, he told himself firmly. This is home. These are your people. Just open the damn door.
He took a breath.
He pushed.