User blog comment:Sargenttacos115/Natsu and Gajeel age Theory/@comment-122.49.170.118-20140620170833

I think there are some serious flaws with this theory. For a start, Wendy, Sting and Rogue all have confirmed ages. Wendy is 12 both pre and post timeskip, and Sting and Rogue are both 19, as confirmed by this wiki. It makes no sense for only Natsu and Gajeel to be the only Dragon Slayers sent into the future.

I agree with the people who think they were kept by the barrier because their magic is considered "ancient" or "lost" magic. Dragon Slayers haven't been seen for more than the eighty years required by the spell. I think it might have something to do with that rather than time travel.

If we look at the flashbacks to the Fairy Tail members as kids, it looks to me like Gray and Natsu are roughly the same age. If Natsu were older, say in his twenties like some are suggesting, he would appear to be older than Gray in the flashbacks too. Although Mashima's age gaps do appear to have a lot of discrepancies with their appearance. For example, Erza and Mira look a lot older than they are; they're only 1 year older than Gray, but they look like they are quite a bit older than that. So as far as I'm concerned, I think to say that Natsu can't only be in his late teens because he looks older doesn't really mean much. I believe him to be 17-18; probably 18, as he's probably older than Lucy.

I do however concur with the idea that Layla Heartfilia is connected to the disappearance of the dragons somehow, seems to me like the fact that her death happened in X777 is way too convenient to be a coincidence.