1: Oh no, I'm Geminis.

"Get out of there, you damned old man!" someone very rudely started banging on the wooden door, which seemed to be handmade, like everything else in the hut. 

Outside was a contingent of soldiers, their clothes were very different from today's standard, they looked like they were taken from ancient figures, or so the old man thought, watching the whole thing from his crystal ball. That bright red and those white trousers were as annoying as the nasty guy knocking on his door. 

The old man just shook his head as he stood up, and although he looked quite old, his movements were very fluid as he walked towards the entrance. His deep-set eyes, full of age, bore into his door exactly what was carved into it. 

Well, even though he lived in a hut in the middle of nowhere with handmade things, he had style in carving his things, although the thing on the door was different. There was an intricate spiral carving on his door, not only following golden proportions but also imbued with something precious, at least in this world. 

Magical power. 

This world was dying, at least magically. Gone were the exploits of wise wizards, clever witches, and mythical creatures. The world moved on, no, the world simply discarded this mystical power that allowed humans to bend its rules like clay. 

He knew what these people were coming for, his legacy, the last vestige of real magic in this world that had discarded everything magical but him.

His memory took him back to when he was ten years old, he had lived up to that time thinking he had arrived in a steampunk world in an alternate Earth, yes, he was a reincarnate and had a twitch when he realized he lived in a world where steam engines roared wildly. 

Luckily, he didn't appear in the world of Lord of the Mysteries, or he would be toast by now. But even though this world seemed to have nothing remarkable, and he might grow up to be a clockmaker like his father, he got his lucky break.

Maybe the magicians of this world were like the martial artists or cultivators in the stories our protagonist read in his past life, I mean, who leaves their inheritance on a cliff?

Well, he stumbled upon his strange inheritance when he fell from a high place when he was 10 years old and survived by sheer luck, or perhaps fate, on a rock ledge that contained a cave. Inside, he found the skeleton of what appeared to be a woman, and next to her was a classic ancient scroll. 

Sure, he was excited by the experience, but he was cautious. What if it was just a trap? He wasn't anything special beyond being reborn into this world without any golden fingers or systems, except for outstanding skill. He was good at carving and assembling clockwork mechanisms, but that was about it. 

But curiosity got the better of him, he picked up the scroll and opened it... and his life changed completely. 

It was strange how, in this world that barely resembled the Earth where he had lived his first life, he had similar things. He became an astrologer, a wizard who could see the stars and understand their mysteries and how they affected the world. 

Sure, he hid this from others, except for a few people who helped him and lived with him in the past, but seeing a contingent of armed soldiers in front of a hut isolated from civilization explained a lot. 

His mind drifted away from happy, lustful, painful, and sad memories. From the age of ten, his life was a road of emotions. He traveled a lot, explored ruins, researched ancient scrolls, and met remnants of other intelligent species, you name it. 

But his life seemed to end here. Mars was bright last night, and well, that's the harbinger of war or death, although Pluto would be more obvious for that. Anyway, he just put his old hand on the coil on the door and felt the faint magical force protecting him from the rabid man pounding on his door. 

"Open up already! You're just a decrepit old man with no one! Give your magical inheritance to people who can benefit from it!" shouted the wild dog, our protagonist was too old for this shit. 

"Terra... thank you for protecting me, Mother Terra," his fingers ran along the carved spiral, releasing the magical power protecting the door, which began to creak from the repeated blows of the screaming man. 

"If you want my legacy so badly, let me show you," the old man was already angry.

Yes, he spent a long time in this world, without golden fingers and magic he could barely do because the mana in the air was almost dead, he had no one to share his ideas with except this woman... the memory pained him, but he had to go on. 

"Mars," the old man whispered, putting his hand to his mouth and blowing.

The door opened just as a huge fireball shot out of the old protagonist's hand and exploded in the body of the impertinent guy who had not stopped pounding on the door. 

"Mars is not only brilliant, it also explodes!" the old man shouted as he ran outward. 

He would die, not only the guns pointed at him said so, but also the stars. He could refuse, he could survive, but so much pain, so much loneliness... the only thing he regretted was leaving his daughter alone, but she was a pure soul, she didn't have to go through this.

The musket shots made his body bleed, but he dodged some with his agility, he was very flexible and fast for an old man, but that's what he was, a decrepit old man. As one line retreated to reload, another took their place, in that period all hell broke loose, almost literally. 

"Pluto," he whispered, his voice softened by the blood seeping where it shouldn't, but magic, that almost dead magic, answered him ironically. 

A pitch-black orb appeared before him from nowhere, moving slowly toward its target. Black tendrils shot out of the spell and towards the soldiers, grotesque appendage-like extensions that clung to their bodies and withered them.

They fled, of course, they did, bullets were no match for a life-destroying black orb. Too bad I couldn't take advantage of that, the spell did that, it devoured life, not absorbed it. The plants on the ground had died just because the orb passed over them, and even the earth was affected. 

As he closed his eyes, a strange but loud and booming scream of pain came from the hut. Too bad he couldn't see his daughter, his last creation, but a brass-colored hand appeared in his vision. The last thing he saw was the ruby eyes of his beloved Persephone before she died.

He had returned to that strange void, darkness, no, not even that, there was nothing, no senses, no perception, nothing at all. Her mind shouldn't be here either, his being, his soul, his essence couldn't be here, but it wasn't something he could confirm, and he didn't want to deny it either. 

In his soul, there were traces, not only of his age and the corresponding wisdom, but also of the stars, although they were rather representations, but not only the ones we know but also some more, courtesy of his arduous progress. 

Not only were there representations of the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Terra, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto. There were also Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris. The effort to achieve this took as long as the creation of his daughter, of which he was extremely proud.

A solar system, spinning in his soul, and maybe that was why he had much more awareness than the first time he came here, even though it seemed that this would be the last time he would return to this place, soon he might simply stop thinking and his soul would be extinguished as the sun was destined to be one day. 

But soon, as strange as it seemed, he began to feel. Not only did he feel much more, but he also noticed the familiarity of these feelings, as if he had experienced them before. Moreover, there seemed to be a lot of magic in the atmosphere, a living magic, a magic that was happy to receive him. 

The sun in his soul then began to behave strangely, it now seemed to absorb this unruly magic in the environment and seemed to harmonize it with him. Soon, the entire solar system slowly spinning inside his soul was bursting with magic, as was he.

He realized immediately that he was inside a woman, that he was being carried, that he would be born into a world where magic was not only alive but present and active; at least that much he could understand, for he could feel the mana stirring inside his mother, sometimes with great frequency and exhaustion. 

He had so much to do, so much to experience, though he noticed that his cognition was returning to its infant state, at least he would be wiser than normal children but with classic crying, tantrums joy, exploration, and wonder. 

He couldn't wait, he even kicked his mother several times, eager to see a new world, though he stopped, mind you, after much self-control. It seemed that wise and all, he was just an unborn child being naughty.

Soon he saw the light, and when he was born, he kept his eyes closed as his primal instincts took over and made him cry. Pure air, the air full of living magic, flooded his lungs. He was so happy... until he realized.

Shit, he was a Gemini now! Sure, he was grateful for Mercury's influence, making his mind so much more agile and all that, but he was Mercury, that was sad, because he caught the irony in it, as if the world was mocking him for having lived his first two years quite carefree, but full of strong emotions he couldn't express. 

At least he was born into a magical world, and from what he could hear of his mother's conversation with the nurse, he was born into a world that used the same calendar as in his first life, and some loose dialog that he could barely hear and understand hinted at something both terrible and interesting. 

Someone everyone referred to by the phrase 'You-Know-Who' was wreaking havoc and destruction in .... Our young protagonist caught Fatum's irony there, born into a homologous birth to the one who sent soldiers to kill him in his second life. 

"My little Astreo, the stars are shining for you, I just hope this will all be over soon," his mother murmured as she took him in her arms.

Astreo already realized that he was born into the magical world of Harry Potter, a fairy tale if you only looked at the possibly distorted view of the chosen child of this world, or a harsh and cruel world according to many fanfic writers in his first life. 

Whatever this world was, maybe only the centaurs, a seer who was about to fall into alcoholism, and another seer imprisoned had a clue what would happen in the future, because on the night of July 6th, 1980, not only Mars was bright, but all the stars were bright, foretelling the one who would hold the power they represented in his hands.