A new world

Azrael Yaer had managed to escape the clutches of death and had found himself awake in a new world.

Azrael's POV:

I had believed that one's life would cease to exist after taking their final breaths. I had dismissed the idea of a conceptual idea of an afterlife as mere fantasy. The mere idea of my life being judged by another entity utterly disgusted me. Simply said, I was a non-religious man who disregarded the existence of higher entities.

It seems that I was foolish in this regard, as I had found myself in an unfamiliar environment.

As soon as I woke up, all I wanted to do was curl up and go back to the first decent sleep I had experienced in a long long time, except for the fact that I couldn't due to an annoying ray of sunlight falling on my face, making me uncomfortable and delaying my capacity to sleep.

My eyes automatically moved towards the light as I squinted my eyes to protect them from the bright glow. After trying my best to ignore the ray of light for who knows how long, I gave up and decided it would be in my best interest to fix the issue by drawing the curtains together and stopping the bright light from leaking inside.

I moved myself to the edge of the bed and swung my legs off of it. The feeling that I was anticipating never came. As I looked down and observed, instead of my feet touching the ground, there were a pair of legs swaying just above the ground. Okay, this is not right at all. My legs definitely shouldn't be like this. I thought that I was not fully awake, so I moved my hands to get off the bed, but the moment the hands entered my sight, I stopped.

What I saw was a pair of surprisingly young hands. My first thought was that these couldn't be my hands; after all, I was a full-grown adult, but then a stray thought hit me and made me think, 'Huh? How could my hands even look like this? As that line of thought came to an end, an assault of panic struck me, as I started to look around and saw myself in a very unfamiliar room, whilst thinking how I managed to end up here, as I was 100% confident I had died.

I realised that I couldn't remember much of my life in detail. The more I thought, the more terrified I felt. I had various thoughts float in my mind about my current situation. I found myself asking if this was another experiment conducted by the organisation to disturb me or the quite radical idea that everything I had seen and experienced in my past life was maybe just a dream.

Sighing I decided it would be best for me to think over everything after I got more of that appetising sleep.

After waking up once again, I came to the realisation that I somehow managed not to die and, as absurd as it sounded, had somehow transmigrated into the body of a young kid.

.......

3rd POV:

He, Azrael, could recall some information before transmigrating into this body, and the reason he wasn't going into another panic attack was that even though he had lost some memories regarding his past life, he had retained enough to understand his current predicament.

Furthermore, he had gained knowledge of the identity of his current body.

He leaned back on the single bed, and looked at the ceiling, and sighed, "Azrael S. Sephtis, so this is my new name, huh?" Not that different from my past"

Azrael S. Sephtis, born in 1991, and currently 11 years old. Born and raised in Japan, he is the son of Caitlin Sephtis and an unknown father. His mother, Caitlin Sephtis, had passed on from this world. She died from an incurable disease when Azrael was only 6 years old. From then on, he was raised by his aunt Maria and his grandfather, George Sephtis.

His memories had also revealed something that left him completely stunned: the presence of magic. Yes, you heard it right, magic. He had seen his grandfather use it around the house to do basic cleaning and washing. The implications behind this were hard for the young boy to process, as the idea of magic existing meant that this was not your average world.

However, the most important memory of Azrael that stood out to him was when he managed to overhear his grandfather discussing with his colleagues about how to deal with so-called "stray devils" a few weeks ago. However, his grandfather's partners were worried whether the owner of the lands, the Gremory clan, would have any issues with it.

The name 'Gremory' brought back some memories from his past life. He had heard of it from an anime he watched called High School DxD back when he was a teenager.

As he sat on the bed and tried to process, he assumed that he was currently in the DxD universe, factoring in everything he had learnt from his current memories. However, he was not 100% sure whether this was the correct timeline and not some alternate world.

Despite feeling less panic, he was still uncomfortable with being in this body. The realisation that he had taken control over a child's body had left him with an uncomfortable feeling in his heart. Azrael looked at the mirror on the wall opposite his bed and stared at his heterochromic eyes, thinking about the original Azrael's last memory.

The original was a young Padawan who had just embarked on a new journey based on the path of magic. Nevertheless, he had tried to manipulate and change a new spell that he saw his grandfather do in order to suit him better. He had been hubristic as his confidence had backfired on him. This feat of magic backfired against him, causing him injuries that resulted in him having difficulty breathing. The next moment, the original had passed out from the pain, allowing the current Azrael to take over.

Waking Azrael from his deep thoughts was a light knock on the door.

He was about to respond, but before he could speak out, a young woman entered the room, and he was immediately able to recognise the woman as his aunt Maria Sephtis.

Maria Sephtis was a lady of Greek origin who was raised in rural Japan alongside her elder sister, Caitlin Sephtis. She was a lady in her late 20s and had waist-length brown hair that fell down along her shoulders, stopping right above her raised butt that reminded one of a fully ripe peach. She had a tempting figure and her beautiful turquoise blue eyes, which were bright and full of life, could cause a person to lose themselves in her beauty. She was really a gorgeous woman.

What Azrael could infer from his new memories was that Maria was a strict woman who was cold and unaffectionate to most people, but at the same time friendly and loving to those close to her. He had heard that she used to travel all around the world in order to do business and that she used to run a tight ship in the family business. When her sister, Caitlin Sephtis, passed away from a disease, it caused the young lady to focus herself on her work to avoid grief. The business prospered, but that came at the cost of her relationship with her father.

However, they managed to take steps to repair their relationship for the sake of the young Azrael, who had just lost his mother, and it had been successful to a degree as George and Maria took some of their time in order to look after their grandchild and nephew respectfully.

One thing Azrael might have missed mentioning was that the Sephtis family was rich, and by rich he meant successive generations of successful businesses, which had not only maintained the family wealth but also the reputation.

Maria walked to Azrael and sat beside him whilst casting some quick magic spells on him. Azrael could guess these were diagnostic spells to check his current health.

"How are you feeling, Azrael?"

Azrael was unsure how to interact and converse with his aunt as he wasn't her original nephew and the current Azrael was completely different from the original. He began to think about how to approach the coming conversation, and the answer he came up with was

As you can see, I'm completely fine, but I'm sorry for the trouble I caused. I thought I would be able to do the spell grandpa had done," spoke Azrael, as he was grateful that the original was not a toddler or a young kid, as if that was the case, then it would have been much harder to act naturally.

"You don't have to worry, Azrael. It was not your fault, and I hope you don't think much about what happened today, as what you tried to perform was a very tough spell. Even though you were unsuccessful, I am still very proud of you. " A hint of a small smile made its way across her face.

She continued, "However, make sure you don't do anything reckless like that again. If you want to practise your magic, either come to me or your grandfather.

Maria got up from the bed and made her way to the door, and whilst closing it, she spoke, "Oh, and come to the kitchen downstairs and eat something." "You have been asleep for nearly a day."

I stared at the door for a few seconds before I slowly got up and headed downstairs to fill my belly up.