I don't remember the cause of my death.
I know it was quick and painless, a sudden sharp sensation in the back of my head, and then nothingness until I regained awareness once more.
When I did, I was no longer a twenty two year old working a dead end job, I was a two year old struggling to learn how to use the potty.
Still though, it didn't take long for me to realize I was reincarnated into a different world than the one I remembered. My Mom and Dad would amaze me with flames and little sparkly fireworks that caught my eye and held my shorter two year old attention span and made me want to learn it myself, what kid didn't want to be a wizard, after all?
I learned my name in full soon after I first awoke, I was now Helio Dart, only son of Anna and Blaise Dart, two freelance mages, who used their magic for entertainment more than combat. I had pale white skin, golden blond hair, and light green eyes, I was too young to figure out if I took more after my Mom or Dad in the looks department, but I hoped I had the more rough looks of my Dad.
Of course, soon after I learned that, I learned just what world I had been reborn to, not just some generic fantasy world, but one of my favorite stories of all time. I was reborn into Earth Land, the world of Fairy Tail, born in the year x765.
I was shaking in excitement the minute I'd heard someone use the word Earth Land in a surprised exclamation, I'd whooped with joy as I finally put all the pieces together as I realized just who I could befriend and meet.
Where most normal people would try to avoid things like canon, preferring to let it run its course, I was going to run roughshod over it. I'd make friends with Erza and Mirajane, I'd save Lisanna Strauss from going to Edolas, and if I could, I would make sure that the seven year timeskip never happened.
Because I knew, from the moment I heard just what world I was in…
I was going to join Fairy Tail.
The first two years of my life after being 'awakened' were quite dull, I was too young to learn magic, and to my parents, not mentally prepared to do so, which meant I did what two to four year olds did in Sun Valley, I played with other kids, and I 'learned' to read and write.
It. Was. So. Boring.
I'd already known everything they were teaching me except when it came to history, and while I looked and sometimes behaved like a toddler, part of me was more mature than that. Which meant I had to go behind my parents' backs to learn things they thought I was 'too young for', which meant everything from chapter books to beginner's magic tomes. I would sneak them to my room and I read all of them, from books by Kemu Zaleon -I could see why Lucy was such a big fan- to a book about basic Requip magic, which I learned as quickly as possible as I wrote volumes on my knowledge of future events. I read and learnt it all, quickly getting a reputation around Sun Valley as quite the little genius.
Of course this came with drawbacks.
While my apparent genius convinced my parents to let me read the more advanced books I'd had to sneak by them before, it also intimidated the children my age.
It had been true on Earth, and it seemed the same applied here on Earth Land as well.
Child geniuses didn't have friends.
The children that I'd spent time with before, whom I'd treated like little siblings rather than equals, now drew away from me, and if it weren't for my previous life's experience with it, they would have tried to bully me.
I might have been a weakling in my last life, but a punch to the face of your local bully works wonders when it breaks their noses.
And so, that's how my life went until I was seven years old, friendless isolation, self study and four years of self training in Requip Magic, coupled with meditation to increase my meager magical strength.
That changed on July 24th, x772, my seventh birthday, when my parents decided I was ready to learn magic.
"Now honey, what magic do you want to learn?" She asked me, her gentle smile making me beam my own. While she was technically my 'new mom', Anna Dart was a wonderful mother, as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside.
She had golden blonde hair, which I had clearly inherited from her, and kind blue eyes, her smiles were always maternal and kind, her cheeks dimpling whenever her lips twitched upwards.
"You could learn from me?" My father, Blaise, said, his face lit up in exaggerated hope. My father was what you could call handsome, I suppose. His jaw chiseled, with a strong face to match, the man could look intimidating when he wanted to, but his face was almost always set in a smile around me. His hair was a light brown, and his eyes a lighter shade of green, which I'd gotten from him. It was too early to tell if I'd inherited his face, seeing as I'd not gotten rid of all my baby fat.
I looked between the two, my mouth set in a firm line as I tried to find a way to deny them both, as to be quite honest, they weren't really combat mages. My Mom used a performance art, known as Sparkle Magic, good for a bit of razzle dazzle, and possibly blinding nocturnal beasts or Slayers, but in a real fight, she wouldn't last very long.
My father on the other hand was a fire mage,and a rather generic one at that, he could control it to a fine degree, capable of creating names and intricate designs that he could make as cool as a spring morning, or hot enough to melt metal, but he'd never fought anything tougher than a half trained bandit, or so he told me.
My face must have given away my thoughts, as my mother bent down and put a hand on my shoulder, "It's okay if you don't want to learn from us, we know you want to join a guild in the future and go on adventures, so I asked around, and apparently the abbot at the temple just outside of the village is a very strong mage and has very powerful magic." She said gently, her voice almost teasing.
I knew the temple she was speaking of, it was an odd place, a very confusing mix of worshiping the sun and Buddhism, which left me scratching my head every time I was around them for more than a few minutes, but the notion of the abbot being a powerful mage made me set that feeling aside.
My excitement must have shown on my face though, as my mother spoke, her tone laced in amusement. "I guess you'll just have to go see him tomorrow then." She said teasingly, I nodded quickly in excitement, the notion of learning a powerful magic was something I was not going to pass up. I would have been happy with generic fire magic if I'd absolutely had to choose, but with an open option, I would always take the more unique one.
After all, I was going to be an S-Class mage of Fairy Tail, and I couldn't do that if I didn't stick out.
I stuck my tongue out at my Dad, who was acting almost comically depressed at my decisions, but I saw that proud glint in his eye, he'd told me before how he always wanted better for his child, and it seemed he thought this was better.
We all returned to our little celebration, my cake tasting all that much better as my excitement kept me going for the rest of the day.
Falling asleep that night wasn't easy, but I managed it.
I woke up early the next morning, having asked Dad to get me up when he did, as the sky was beginning to light up, the sun just below the horizon. We ate breakfast together, my Mom apparently sleeping in, and as Dad headed off to his small magic store, I waved at him and ran in the opposite direction, towards the temple on the eastern edge of town.
The temple itself was built in a pagoda fashion, with what looked like a balcony built on the east and west sides, the Temple of the Sun was a very beautiful building. Even if their customs baffled me, the building itself was awe inspiring, if a little out of place from our village, which looked more like a western fantasy village than anything else. The eastern construction clashed with the more simple western construction, but in my mind that just made it stand out more. A piece of beauty in an otherwise unremarkable place.
Shaking my head to clear it, I walked up to the temple, lightly rapping on the large wooden door in slight trepidation, I steeled myself as I heard echoing footsteps on the other side.
The woman who opened the door was dressed in a traditional Buddhist robe, a large brooch shaped like the sun holding the fabric together at the front that covered her generous bust. She was of eastern descent, her dark eyes slanted upwards, and her black hair done in a bun that was held together by two wooden hair sticks.
"Hello, and welcome to the Temple of the Sun, I am Hikari, a humble member of this temple, how may I help you?" She asked kindly, I smiled up at her as I felt my resolve harden, if I wanted to be strong, it would start here, with gathering up the courage to field my request.
"I would like to see the abbot of this temple, Miss Hikari, if I may." I asked politely, bowing my head in respect. She looked surprised at my request, but she nodded all the same.
"Of course, please wait here in the entryway while I go get him, he should be heading to his morning meditation right now." Hikari walked off at a fast stride, her gait gliding across the hard wooden floors.
I smothered my nerves as I admired the architecture of the temple, it truly was beautiful, wall scrolls with paintings of the sun and entire congregations of people dressed like the monks bowing to it, the rising sun casting a wonderful light into the room through the rice paper screen doors. It gave the entire room a peaceful ambience that I was grateful for as it soothed my nerves while I waited for the abbot.
"It's peaceful isn't it?" A soft voice tore me from my musings, I quickly turned to see the man I could only assume was the abbot.
"Hello, I am Abbot Sheen Flare. How may I help you today?" He said with a sunny disposition, I bowed slightly at the waist as I answered.
I smiled at the abbot of the temple, he was a very kind looking man, his skin was a golden tan, and his eyes a warm brown, he was bald, the only hair on his head being thin black eyebrows. If the man weren't seven feet of solid muscle, I'd think he was the Buddha.
"I am Helio Dart, Abbot Flare. My mother, Anna Dart, said you were a powerful mage, I wish to learn from you." I said humbly, I didn't want to look like a snot nosed brat, I mean, I was only seven years old, if I acted like an arrogant little buffoon, I would surely get rejected.
All of a sudden, Abbot Flare's disposition changed, his stance went rigid, and his face became set in stone. He looked down at me with a scrutinizing eye. "You wish to learn from me, do you? Tell me, Helio Dart, why exactly should I do that?" I looked Abbot Flare in the eye, hoping to convey not only my seriousness, but my determination as well.
"I wish to become strong enough to protect the people I care about, to be smart enough to know how to keep them out of danger and wise enough to seek the most peaceful, and failing that, swiftest victory possible. My parents were freelance mages in their youths, but they freely admitted they do not possess the strongest of magics, and said to seek you out if I wished to learn one that would better help me in my quest."
Coming out of any other seven year old's mouth, that speech would have sounded awfully rehearsed, but I had a bit of a reputation around Sun Valley, so I sidestepped the awkwardness that could have caused. I hoped it was enough, because I wanted to be able to stand out amongst my peers as a powerful wizard, both for the reasons I mentioned, and for the element of surprise in having something powerful and unexpected.
Abbot Flare looked at me searchingly, presumably looking for any hint of falsehood, it felt as though he was searching my very soul for a moment before his body relaxed, and his face brightened once again.
"If what you speak is true, Helio Dart, then I will gladly welcome you as my pupil. We shall begin your training with meditation, seeing as I wasn't expecting to gain a pupil today. Please, follow me."
And with that, began my three years of training that I would come to know as hell.
"You seem to have an impressive hold on the basics of meditation," Master Flare said, now that I was his pupil, he'd told me to refer to him as such.
I nodded in response, "Yes Master Flare, I taught myself how to do so from a young age as I taught myself basic Requip Magic to supplement my main one."
Master Flare nodded sagely, "Yes, that was quite a wise move on your part, not only will it allow you to keep a weapon on you at all times, but it will allow you to travel without a heavy pack. Smart thinking, my pupil." He said sagely, I smiled at him, I'd only been his student for a couple of days, but I'd already come to love praise from my new teacher, having been rather starved of such things in my first life, I soaked it up in this one like a sponge.
"Now that I've ascertained your grip on the basics of magic, we shall begin your physical training, for you see when it comes to magic, a well trained body is just as important as a well honed mind." He stood straight, his hands folded behind his back. "A man with a well trained body may beat you physically, and a man with a well trained mind may beat you cleverly, but if you are well trained in both, you will always find triumph." I nodded seriously, I could be as smart as I wanted to be, but all of that would be meaningless in close quarters if I didn't have the strength to keep myself alive while I thought up a strategy.
So began a rigorous training regime that began with running, and ended in me getting beaten into the ground by the martial arts expert that was my master.
Finally, after a month of sheer physical torture, and rigorous mental exercise, Master Flare finally showed me his magic.
"Now that I have firmly tested your resolve, I believe you are ready for the next step of your training," I shook in excitement as he held his hand out, palm facing the ceiling. "I believe you're ready to learn the basics of my magic." He smiled secretively, "Most people who've seen my magic believe me to be a simple, yet powerful, Light Mage, however they have not felt my magic, nor have they truly experienced it." He let a miniature ball of light appear in his hand, I walked closer to it, cupping my hand over the ball of light and feeling the warmth of the energy. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow, "Do you know what type of magic I use?"
I looked at the ball of light, the magic was warm and comforting, like my Dad's fire, but it didn't hold that potential of destruction that even the coolest flames had. He'd already told me it wasn't light, so I could only think of one answer, and hoped I was right, else I'd look like a fool.
"Is it sunlight?" I asked, curiosity and confusion lacing my tone, he smiled proudly at me as he nodded.
'Yes, my pupil. My magic is known as Sun Magic. It is a discipline passed down from master to student for thousands of years, and you, Helio, are the one I've chosen to pass my talent along to." I felt a smile grow almost too big for my face at his declaration, I was to be his only student in this magic, the one he'd pass down all he knew to?
I felt resolve well up within me. I'd do my best to my master proud of me before I left to join Fairy Tail.
But for all my work on writing down and memorizing what I knew of this world, I'd forgotten one little, but crucial, detail.
Every member of Fairy Tail has a tragedy at their backs, a story that led them to their new family.
Little did I know, my own tragedy would come all too soon.
A/N: Hello everybody! It's been a while since I've written anything, and boy have I got to say it feels good to step back into the game, if only with a Self Insert/OC reincarnation fic.
I figured there weren't enough of those, seeing as most SI fanfics just chuck people in randomly in the story and don't give us believable time periods to make the characters strong. A Reincarnation fic makes it far more believable, and lets you shake up the story way sooner!
I was inspired by a few other fics that I've read recently, with interesting takes on magic we'd already seen, or magic they'd made up themselves. Child of Heaven by Jacques0, Speeding Through Life by PSIness11, Ripples by the real narnia, and Music of the Spheres by Teninshigen were my biggest inspirations, I highly recommend you give all of those a read.
This story will focus a lot on Cana and Gray in the early chapters of being in Fairy Tail, followed by the Strauss siblings, while still having a bit of time to spend on the other well-known members of Fairy Tail of the time, Erza, Natsu, and Levy included. It might take a while to reach x784, but it will be a lot different by the time we do.
See you guys next time, with more Solar Flare!
EDIT 01/17/2022: Fixed some errors and made this chapter fit the tone of later ones better. Sorry about that.