Square Enix has announced Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: Dear Destiny, a new novel by Kazushige Nojima, releasing January 30, 2026. Serving as a sequel to Traces of Two Pasts, the novel follows both Tifa Lockhart and Aerith Gainsborough in the crucial period leading up to the events of Final Fantasy VII.
The summary opens with the line, “After the Guardian Angel of the Church takes flight, fate begins to turn once again in the slums of Sector 7.” The “Guardian Angel of the Church” may refer to the Angeal Copy who guards and then leaves Aerith’s church to deliver her final letter to Zack, a moment that directly connects the end of Crisis Core to the beginning of Final Fantasy VII.
From there, destiny shifts once more: Zack’s death and the delivery of Cloud to Midgar, followed by Tifa finding him at the train station, become the twin catalysts that set the events of Final Fantasy VII in motion. In this way, Dear Destiny seems poised to trace how love, loss, and reunion intertwine through Tifa, Aerith, and Cloud, each carrying the threads of fate forward into the next chapter.
The product listing also notes that a short story on Cloud is included, with many speculating it may be the same as his novella “2000 Gil to Becoming a Hero” from the Rebirth World Preview book—mirroring how Traces of Two Pasts featured Aerith’s “Picturing the Past” from the Remake World Preview as a coda.
Dear Destiny thus appears poised to bring the emotional core of the Final Fantasy VII saga full circle—where the canon love stories of the series become inseparable from the destinies of its heroines. Many fans believe this novel will mark the point where Tifa and Aerith’s intertwined paths, their connections to Cloud and Zack, and their roles in shaping the fate of the Planet come into clearer focus, setting the stage for the final resolution of Part 3 of the Remake project.
Fans can purchase the Japanese edition of Dear Destiny from the Square Enix Japan Store (Japan only) or Amazon Japan (international shipping available).
