Being Reborn into a cheesy dating Sim is one thing. Being reborn into an anime about the topic is entirely another. Unfortunately for this version of Leon, he's not half as lucky or clever as his predecessor and doesn't have the convenience of foreknowledge, just a vague understanding from what he's seen of the show and read off wiki pages. Will this lucky self-insert fall into the traps his predecessor did, or will he die in obscurity after making a stupid mistake? Or maybe, just maybe, will become something even greater?

Chapter 1 - Awakening in a Dating Sim is Distressing

I've heard a lot of strange Isekai plots in my time. I think my favorite silly title was "Reincarnated and made a drug store." Just for how stupid sounding the premise was. To quote someone wiser than I, 'What's next? That time I got reincarnated and opened a Nandos?'

All the same, I thought that my situation could also rank up pretty high on the scale of stupid concepts.

'Yo dawg. I heard you like Isekais, so I took an isekai and put it into another isekai.'

My double life began when I'd woken up in a field with my head swimming and my memories hazy. It was like trying to wade through a desert dune. Where the sand constantly slid out from underfoot treacherously.

I was laying down staring up at a rather gorgeous view of perfect fluffy clouds and floating islands. I then heard an annoyed voice call out a name, my name. "LEON, what are you doing?!" My Dad- no my Father my mind corrected. He was angry at me for some reason as he gave me a smack on the head for some misbehavior and tugged me away from the field over to a fancy looking manor, my home. But it wasn't where I was sleeping right now… because Zola was visiting to collect our tithe. Something in my mind prickled with familiarity but I didn't pay attention to it, not yet.

Unfortunately for me that was when I met the bane of my existence, or rather the being that was both young child Leon Bartfort, and a 20-something year old from another world met her.

Baroness Zola radiated vanity, greed, and evil. She was a woman in her late 40s who was fighting a constant and fierce war with the wrinkles on her face employing makeup en-masse as her primary tactic, this did leave her face looking powdery, dry, and falser than her manners. She then took to perfumes with the same enthusiasm, leading the air around her being a choking, sickly sweet miasma. She hated children, commoners, and all the people I held close to my heart. The evil cow probably hated puppies too.

Even at the tender age of five years old, Leon Fou Bartford hated her. It told me a lot that a five-year-old hated this woman. I'm not describing a childlike passing anger at her, but a real, genuine hatred in his heart. Leon's eyes were normally a soft gray, reminiscent of distant stormy cumulus clouds. Like a storm far away that made one feel cozy and pleased where they were. For Zola, they were nothing but sharp pieces of flint that would kill her if they could.

I was glad that we were forbidden from meeting her eyes as though we were servants. If she looked in my eyes and saw the hatred I had for her, I might not have survived my first week in this awful world.

It took me a day to really regain myself though, to think about where I was, the implications of it all. I personally blamed the way thinking felt like trying to hold onto water for it taking so long, but maybe my poor little five-year-old brain was developing the ability of abstract thought about 8 years ahead of time.

I was studying with my older brother and as I asked a few odd questions in his eyes, it all clicked.

"Oh Fuck me. I'm in an isekai." I said with a grumble and Nicks Fou Bartford gave me a weird look, I was lucky that with our sheltered lives and young ages Nicks did not realize I just swore badly enough that Mother would've washed out my mouth with soap for that one.

"You're in a what?" he asked with a brow rising up high. Realizing I'd blurted the thought aloud I flushed and gave him a wry grin.

"I uh, it means I'm dizzy." I said before rubbing at my forehead. "I think Dad bonked me pretty hard back in the field today."

"Ah, quit being such a little baby." Nicks teased me, shaking his head and laughing good-naturedly. I protested loudly and jumped at him to wrestle. I wasn't sure why. Maybe it was out of habit, out of reaction to the child-like emotions that still ran through me, or maybe because playing at being the little brother to Nicks made me feel… like everything might be okay somehow.

It was a lie, but a beautiful one that I maintained for a few hours. It got even easier to enjoy when Father caught us on the ground, Nicks on top of me. My hand was pressed up and smushed up in my brother's face as he tried to drool a loogie down onto me. Instead of berating us for not studying, my Dad laughed and soon my brother and I had to join forces against the wicked surprise attack of our Dad. Despite our heroic efforts we both got noogied and lost against his superior strength, laughing all the while.

Far too soon though the night came and I was inevitably left alone with my thoughts in bed.

It was a maelstrom, anguish, grief, rage. I was fortunate that it was fairly simple to sneak out of the shed my brother and I slept in when Zola was over. Soon I had snuck off to the field where I had woken up. I stared down at the imprint in the grass where the young boy named Leon had laid down to hide from Zola.

Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes and I fell to my knees. There was one unshakeable, terrible terrible thought that would be silent no longer.

"I died. How-... how did I die?" I asked, my voice wobbly with emotion, high pitched and young, far too much so for the half of my mind that was used to things like cars and electricity.. Slowly my body was wracked with sobs and I buried my face into the grass. Whether I cried because little Leon realized how unfair his life was, and only now realized the cruelty of it. Or whether it was the nameless dead half that remembered snatches of loved ones, family, friends, comforts and a life far more peaceful than this place would ever offer. I sobbed and cried and wailed in the dead of the night.

I mourned a life I couldn't remember. I wailed and raged against the furiously apathetic world that would grind me up and spit me out. Snot ran down my face as I realized I wasn't even allowed the dignity of faces or names to remember. I coughed wetly as the five-year-old part of me realized that the lines on my Father's and mother's face spoke of a hard life, one spent under the boot-heel of a tyrant.

To sum up. The two halves of my mind and memories were both in agreement about how awful this was.

"It's not fair." I hissed out in a hoarse voice after a few moments of this. Staring hatefully at the night sky stretching out peacefully, beautifully even. The natural beauty of the full moon and the spectacle of a sky without light pollution in contrast to the wretched mood I was in.

But then a bitter laugh bubbled out of my throat. Of course it wasn't fair. This world I had the miserable misfortune to be born in, despite being a 'noble' I was little more than a slave.

Hells below- if I had been born a commoner I'd have had more rights and freedoms than I currently did.

I snarled at the thought. It wasn't that commoners did not deserve the scraps of freedom they bought with their misery. But I was not content to live a life under the boot heel of a withered old hag like Zola, her malicious little friends, and the society I was surrounded by. I would not sit meekly by and let others decide my fate, my marriage, or my worth.

I swore then that I would tear my freedom from Zola's, preferably cold and dead, hands. No matter how long it took. No matter how much I had to suffer. No, not just that, I would tear back my Father's and Mother's smiles back from that witch, and protect my brothers and sisters from her. Her and anyone else who would be foolish enough to dare threaten them. Thoughts of returning back home, of mourning that life, of trying to fix the world to be more like home, or finding out why and how I was here were to be postponed till me and mine were free.

Inhaling sharply, I centered myself. -Which was hard, given I was stuck with the emotional maturity of a five-year-old, but I did anyway.

I then stood up with my little legs all shaky from emotion, looking up at the expanse of the night sky, broken only by floating islands above ours.

In my memories of the show I was in. Leon had first tried to live his life peacefully as just a side character. It wasn't a bad decision; he did not know just the depths of evil that Zola plumed, or the gravity the situation his family was in. He also hadn't known at the time of Marie's toxic presence at the academy that was screwing everything up and potentially going to throw the kingdom into civil war and side-line the woman who was supposed to save it as a Saint.

I needed to know if Marie would be a presence in this world and whether Marie was- er, well… the Marie I knew from the fiction, or if she was someone from my life or if she even existed in the same capacity at all.

I then paused. Did I even care about the kingdom being destroyed in one of the many crises that were on the horizon? I mean I hated the government. I'd already held a genuine dislike for such a corrupt feudal government watching the show with only glimpses of its cruelties. But I now had five years of memories swirling in my mind and with full context… I hated the kingdom of Holfort. The very basics of its principals and values clashed with my own from earth.

Still. I was only five years old, too young to do anything about anything. I couldn't even start trying to track down Marie. Hell all I knew is that she came from a poor Viscount family… which from what I remembered meant she lived on a more wild frontier island maybe? I mean a poor viscount family could probably come from anywhere.

But as it was, I knew I couldn't even sniff at the Luxon ship, not yet. It was guarded by robots far too deadly for a five year old to have any hope of dealing with. Let alone its 'final boss'.

I also realized that I needed to write down everything I could. In English so that anyone who saw it would see only meaningless scribbles. My memory would eventually fade. I also knew I could not grow complacent.

Leon had originally hoped that being unimportant that he could be left alone, but I knew better. My bitch step mother would not tolerate my existence for longer than she had to.

I sighed. It was going to be a long 10 years.

This is one of six starter stories I'm releasing in order to promote my P*a*t*r*e*o*n! Only 2-3 of them will get updates beyond five chapters though, so if you'd like to have your voice heard, head there!