I was surprised, to say the least, when I opened the door. The Fairy Tail I had heard of was full of people. It was supposed to be loud and upbeat. But I only saw a few people, and the guild was quiet and sorrowful. A couple of people looked up at my entry, and an older man stepped forward as if expecting me to attack.

"Do you have business with Fairy Tail?" He asked me. I guessed he was the current master. But that wasn't right... I thought the master was a little, older man. This guy had blue hair and a mustache.

I nodded and spoke lowly, not that used to communicating. "Yes. My name is Kimiko, and I'd like to join the guild."

His eyes widened a bit. "We're welcoming new members. What kind of magic do you use?"

"It doesn't have a name that I know of, but it's not dark magic." I assured him.

He nodded. "I'm Macao, the master of this guild. Head over to Kinana over there to get your mark."

"Thank you." I replied. I didn't expect to be able to join this easily. I almost expected to have to fight somebody and win to get in. I entered the guild and walked over to the bar, where I saw a pretty woman with purple hair and pleasant green eyes.

"Hello, it's nice to meet you! I'm Kinana." Kinana smiled. "Where would you like your mark?"

I pulled my hair away from the left side of my neck. "On my neck, please. I'm Kimiko."

Kinana nodded and soon, I had a white Fairy Tail guild mark on my neck. "May I ask why you decided to join Fairy Tail?" She inquired.

"You didn't seem full of yourselves like the other guilds I could have joined. I saw it as an opportunity to improve my magic abilities." I told her as I sat down at the bar.

Another girl came up to me. She had lilac hair and round glasses. She introduced herself as Laki, and then introduced me to the other members of the guild and explained to me why the guild was empty.

Apparently, six and a half years ago, Fairy Tail's S Class exams were to be held at the guild's sacred island, Tenroujima. Fairy Tail's strongest members and their master all went to the island, leaving Laki and everyone else I saw here behind. There wasn't many details except that the island was attacked by an evil dragon known as Acnologia, wiping out the island with everyone on it. Ever since then, Fairy Tail was known as Fiore's weakest guild and they were often picked on by another strong guild, Twilight Ogre.

I could then see why Fairy Tail's members seemed so saddened. There was a long search for the remaining members of the guild and the master, but they weren't found. I looked over at the request board, where we accepted missions from, which was empty, proof that Fairy Tail wasn't as popular as I believed it to be. But I didn't mind.

So far I had met Kinana and Laki, who both seemed to be nice. I didn't expect to be spoken to so soon, most people I had ever met besides Mei saw me as a disgrace and didn't want to talk to me.

"Hey, Kimiko." Laki calling my name pulled my attention away from Mei and my thoughts. I looked over at her. She was smiling. "Since we're friends, do you want to try to go on a mission together sometime?"

I was taken aback. I barely knew her for a few hours and she already called us friends? I couldn't help but let a small grin cross my face. "Sure.."

Fairy Tail was a really cool guild. Everyone was a lot more accepting of me than I thought they would be and all of the members were nice. Reedus, one of the members, once offered to paint a picture of me, which I allowed. It was almost life like, but while he was painting, I caught a glimpse at other pictures he had painted of other people that I didn't recognize. I saw the guild mark on most of them, so I took it they were the members that went to Tenroujima almost seven years ago.

About six months after I had joined, I was out in the forest, taking a small walk. I did that sometimes. As much as I liked Fairy Tail and enjoyed being there, I always preferred some solitude. I sat on a branch of a tree, thinking about Mei and Autumn. Would they be proud if they knew what I was doing?

I sighed. I missed them both a lot, but I never mentioned them, even to one of my closest friends, Laki. No one knew about them and I wanted to keep it that way. They didn't need to know about Mei or Autumn unless I had a good reason to tell them.

I couldn't help but admit that Fairy Tail had already grown on me. Laki and I had been on a couple of missions together. She used a type of magic I hadn't heard of. It was wood-making magic, and it was cool. Laki also used expressions I didn't quite understand, like saying that when something was moving slow it was 'turltleish'.

Even though Fairy Tail was a fun place to be, it also had its fair share of problems, like Twilight Ogre. They always came to Fairy Tail once a month to collect money, saying we were in a debt since they helped us one single time. They ticked me off, but there wasn't much I could do, no matter how much I wanted to.

I wondered how long it would take to find Mei. She had most likely grown up a lot, her childish brown eyes showing maturity. I couldn't imagine her grown up. My little sister had been childish and immature for the five years of her life I had known her. It had been seven years since I last saw her. Mei would be twelve at the current time. Did she remember me?

I sighed again and jumped from the tree, landing gracefully on my feet. I began to make my way back to the guild. I didn't want to be gone too long. Maybe there was a mission I could go on with Laki. I approached the guild I was a part of. The sign with the words 'FAIRY TAIL' on it was beginning to collapse, but the building emitted a safe feeling of home to me.

But one thing was off.

I heard yelling and laughing from inside, making me frown. Was Twilight Ogre here? I quickened my pace to the front and opened the door, looking inside. What I saw made my frown disappear. Twilight Ogre wasn't there, just a lot more people than usual.

I looked at some of them and they seemed familiar. After scanning through my brain, I found it. They were the members that were lost at Tenroujima! How long was I even outside? Everyone seemed so happy, a huge change from what I had grown accustomed to in the last few months.

"Kimiko!" I heard Kinana call my name and I looked over at here. "Come here!"

I managed to slink through the many people unnoticed and got to Kinana without being struck by a flying chair or plate. Kinana was smiling and she seemed happy. She was with another woman who had hair that was a silver color and blue eyes. "This is Kimiko, the new member I was telling you about." Kinana introduced me to the other girl, who sent me a friendly smile.

"Hi! I'm Mirajane, but you can call me Mira."

I sent her a small grin. "I'm Kimiko." I then turned to Kinana. "Everyone from Tenroujima that Laki told me about.. Is this them?" I asked her shyly.

Kinana nodded, her smile never leaving her face. "Yes! Introduce yourself, they're all nice!"

With that, I was in the mess of people again. I was unsure of where to go, so I decided to sit down at a table in the corner to the room and talk only if someone approached me.

As I tried to sneak through all of the people, I accidentally tripped on a broken chair leg and barely caught my footing, only to bump against someone. I pulled myself back up, a blush of embarrassment crossing my face. I held my hands up. "I'm sorry, please excuse me!" I apologized hastily to a blonde girl with deep brown eyes. Those eyes reminded me of Mei.

"It's alright!" She smiled at me, before looking at me and the mark on my neck. "You must be a new member, we haven't met. I'm Lucy!"

"Uh, I-I'm Kimiko." I introduced myself, trying not to be distracted by her eyes. They were almost the exact same color as Mei's.

I wanted to escape to the corner of the room, but before I could, another person I didn't know caught sight of me. "Hey, Luce! Who's that?"

A boy with salmon colored hair and dark eyes shot a grin in our direction.

"This is Kimiko! Kimiko, this is my partner, Natsu."

And with that, my night consisted of meeting new people and introductions. Kinana was right, most of them were pretty nice except for a select few that didn't seem very interested, like a guy who's name was Gajeel, I believed.

All of this noise was something I would have to get used to, as I wasn't usually surrounded by so much noise. Everyone in the guild seemed more lively and fun. Laki told me that when they all made an entrance while I was gone, they had done so by taking out the five Twilight Ogre members that were harassing my guild members.

Something that struck as odd was that while everyone was stuck on Tenroujima, they didn't age at all. Blue Pegasus members had told us a few days ago that the sacred island had been spotted again, and I decided to stay back with a couple of other members while they were gone. I was outside when Twilight Ogre attacked and everyone else came back.

At the end of the day, when I went home, I was happy. Everyone else coming back made all of my friends happy and they were all surprisingly nice. I was glad I had joined Fairy Tail instead of another guild.

I entered my house and immediately fell onto my bed, worn out after the day's events. I couldn't help feeling that something important was going to happen in the near future, and I hoped it would have something to do with me finding Mei. I fell asleep with those thoughts in my head.

A/N: Hey guys, I'm back with another chapter. I would have uploaded this yesterday, but my internet was being a derp because of all of the snowstorms. In this chapter, Kimiko joined the guild and all, so the excitement is going to be going up. And yes, I had her join during the seven year gap. I've never seen anyone do that before, so I thought why not.

Thanks for reading, please review!