The Gladiator

Pairing: Hidakaku

The story takes place in the vicinity of Rom in the year 65. It's the time when the Latin imperator Vespasian gave order to build the colosseum. It is also the time when slavery is very common.

(In the beginning Hidan is 5 years old and a very endearing child.)

Chapter 1

Love-What is love? Nowadays it's defined as an increase of hormones rushing through our system. Thousands of molecules making our feelings go overboard. But for the most people it's more. For them, love is like a precious gold coin, everyone should care about much.

But, every coin has two sides. And so, even love shows its owner its ugly face.

Love-a monster, eating us up from the inside, leaving only hate, anger and jealousy. So the body becomes just the casing for the disabled soul and the person starts to rot till death ends its suffering.

Love….being loved. That was exactly what Hidan felt. The feeling he felt in his early days, when he still lived with his family. Everyone cared for the other. And always, when he was depressed, he remembered these happiest days of his childhood. He remembered how his mother always woke his older sister and him.

Every morning she would open the door to their bedroom quietly. After ten minutes the kids would woke to the tasty scent of roasted bacon, eggs and the lovely flavor of freshly baked bread, which spread through the house and even the whole horse farm, his family owned. Impossible to resist this invitation, both children would immediately run downstairs into the kitchen. There his mother would usually still prepare the food or stand in front of the stone oven, waiting for the bread to be done.

"Hey honeys!" were always her first words. "Did you sleep well?" she would ask them softly while a still tired Hidan ran torwards her, wanting a hug.

Taking their seats, it normally wouldn't take long till their father would arrive, entering the room through the main entrance.

Greeting him the same waylikes his mother before, they would eat breakfast afterwards– together, as a family.

In the evening, when work was done and his father had given his last orders to their slaves, they often would go to the river.

Fishing! Only the two of them!

When the sun set and the young night spread itself over the sky, father and son would walk home, playing and fooling around. And when they had a good day, the family would always have fish for dinner afterwards.

It was a great time for Hidan. He could never imagine that this part of his live could ever end. But time passes and bad things can happen, bringing change with them and cutting deep into your lifeline.

***

Hidan was just playing hide and seek in the barn with a few of the slaves' kids. His father didn't allowed him to associate with them, though.

"They are slaves and aren't as high in rank as we are." he always said "Rather go learn for school!". But for Hidan, it was much more fun to just fool around with them. Learning was boring anyway!

He ran past some horse stalls, over a grassland to a barn and up a ladder, leading to the first floor of the barn. He knew the best hiding place one could imagine. He crawled under a wooden dish which was standing in a corner and covered himself with some straw, that lay scattered on the bottom.

`Perfect´, he thought `Nobody can find me here´

And indeed did nobody come. He waited 5 minutes, 10 minutes and even half an hour. Nothing. That was until he heard an ear shattering scream.

"MOMMY!" he burst out while rushing to the ladder. While passing the stalls he noticed the stench of burned flesh in the air. Panic overflowed him as he crossed the grassland and finally reached the farmyard. Stiffening in fear, he would never forget what he saw. The house of his birth was burning! Fire and flames everywhere. Hay bales, tools and shattered pots laid jumbled in the farmyard. Horses were running around trying to extinguish the fire on their backs. One was almost running him over, hadn't he jumped to the side in the last second.

And there they were, – among all - the men destroying his families estate. A few of them were throwing furniture out of the broken windows. They even got so far and killed the male slaves and hunted the female ones.

Then again: an ear shattering scream!

Hidan turned to his right, seeing a cluster of people, cheering. Looking closer he could see his mother on the dirty ground, a man over her, half naked.

"MOMMY!" he rushed to her but was suddenly stopped by a strong arm pulling him tight to a broad chest.

"Look, what we have here." a deep voice announced loudly. At that, the cluster of men turned to look at both of them. Then a few of them approached him. Hidan struggled to get free, just wanting to be by his mother. But the grip on his waist only tightened more.

"That's a feisty one," the man behind him growled. Someone grabbed his chin, forcing Hidan to look into the persons eyes. It was a tall man, maybe in his thirties with a stern face and a cold glare.

"and a true beauty!" his captor said licking his lips. Hidan shivered at that.

"STOP!" he struggling more now, but was held to tight to escape. The giant in front of him just examined his face further.

"I've seen such odd colored eyes once before." He said calmly. Now Hidan stopped struggling, paying the man his full attention. He himself didn't know, why he looked the way he did-ODD. His whole family has brown, almost black hair and blue eyes whereas his hair is almost white and his eyes are magenta. And even the skin color is for an Italian rather pale.

"It was a woman-a slave. She had white hair, pink eyes and the smoothest cream colored skin one could imagine. They sold her for quite a lot of money, considering her old age." His cold gaze was now fixed on Hidans eyes.

"Huh?" Hidan bleeped trying to take in what he just heard. He got wide eyes as it sank in. The man let go of his chin and the one that had captured the little boy brought him away and out of the estate his family owned.

"LET GOO!" he struggled again.

"MOMMY!! DADDY!!" he tried anew to get back - but to no avail. After a few meters they were reaching the dirt road. A procession of several carriages was waiting there. Each of them were pulled by two horses harnessed in front of them. A few of them carried pots, boxes and clothes the others cages with people inside. Behind each carriages were sitting about ten grown men in a line. Every one of them looked more than exhausted. A thick rope was tying them to the coach in front of them.

With one swift motion Hidan was tossed inside of one of the cages, before the door was closed. Immediately Hidan was tearing at his cage door trying to get out. The child did all to get free. He pulled at the bars and tried to push his body through the gaps and when the men slowly left the farm he, out of panic, even got so far and tried to bite the bars in two.

---

There was a jerk. The horses in front of the carriage had started to walk. Their feet dispersed the dry dirth and were taking him away - away from his home. They carried him down the road, along the fields his family owned, letting him see the fishing ground and the familiar landscape one more time. In his desperation he hoped he would see his father there again, waiting for him to sit beside him to just talk or relax. The little boy just couldn't grasp the whole situation. Only when they were miles away and he didn't recognize the landscape anymore, did the tears start to flow down his rosy cheeks.

"Mommy, daddy…"he quivered.