.

"Memoria"

Chapter I:

"Questo stato é Sicilia"

Sicily; Palermo, 1859

"This world is cruel, abusive and lonely, my dear"

It was.

He knew it. He knew it since the beginning. Only that he barely noticed clearly without the protection those warm arms had given him.

"But, you know? I still have the hope that the world can change. The darkness can't reign forever, don't you think?"

He wanted to believe it too, he wished to believe that the world could be a better place. However, in moments like that when he was running on the street, searching a place to cover him of the downpours of the heavy rain, he wasn´t sure of holding much hope as he would please.

"So, promise me you'll fight. You'll fight for continue living and you'll never surrender"

The rain good part it was if you cried in it, your tears mingle with the raindrops falling from the sky. The only difference was that the water dripped from your cheeks was warm and water from above was not, but it was something that only you could notice.

"I love you so much, Giotto. Don't forget that."

If only the rain could also wash the feeling of pain, gnawed him from the depths of his soul.

"Sorry to have to leave you alone."

If only, he can disappear the anguish and despair gripped him.

But he could not, as neither he could not turn back the time so that Nonna (1) could open his eyes again, or see his parent's alive one more time, or remember his little brother's face. Nor could he ever do anything to change the situation.

The same scenarios, the same cries, the same exploiters and the same ones exploited. Everything would remain alike.

At the end, tired and dejected, he dropped to the ground, leaning against the wall of what would be the beginning of a small street where no one would pass unless that person wanted to shorten the path to a particular destination. He did not care that he had nowhere to cover himself; after all, he was too wet to make a difference. And he was sleepy, his eyes were about to close and he couldn't help it; nor the cold rain kept him awake, although it was to be expected if he took into account he had not slept in one day and the next he ran without rest. Trying to fight against the fatigue, as he did not want to fall asleep on a street in Sicily, the great, cruel and still feudal Sicily, he looked up at the gray clouds of the sky, wondering if Nonna would be up there in those moments as he had heard it happen when one dies.

Would she be happy to meet with Mom and Dad? With her husband who died years ago? Would she be laughing and enjoying the company he had loose?

Then he thought, with fear but with a stranger awareness of his present state. What was to become of him?

The kindness of its inhabitants had never been characterized Sicily, at least not of those who had sufficient resources to survive. He couldn't go to an estate or fertile land to work, he was still very young and no one would bother hiring him; and be in any of those places ensured that their situation was going to improve, maybe even just make it worse. He did not like steal, he did not want take away from people what they earned. He had no special ability characterize him to considerate asking help to some aristocrat in exchange of "talent," as it usually happened at the beginning of the "Renaissance" (or at least he had heard that it was common, it wasn't that in his short life he would have witnessed something like that).

"I'm surprised you're still alive, useless. I suppose it's true that the bad grass never dies." Sometimes he too was surprised to stay alive. Especially, after all the amount of kicking, punching and hitting he was accustomed to receiving. He once told her grandmother that he was "invincible", and she responded only with a sad expression.

Now, he did not have his grandmother at his side. Now, everything relapsed on him.

Moreover, for him, only try to survive remain. Somehow, he promised he would. He had given his word to Nonna that surrendering was not going to be in his current or future plans. Of course, if a 7-year-old boy like him who was without any living relative and with debts to pay to the collectors still possessed future.

With those lugubrious thoughts on mind, Giotto fell asleep in the rain.

Everything he saw was white. It was pure and immaculate white. In that white world, there was only him. Somehow, it did not bother him; a white world was a thousand times better than the black world he was accustomed to living.

"Why cannot we help them?" His own voice echoed.

"Because, my little one, we don't have how"

Nonna's voice, and then a cacophony of screams and laughter that shook him and made him embrace himself. The white world was beginning to fade into a sort of haze from which people came out with frightening smiles and weapons in their hands.

He was afraid, his small body trembling as he watched as these people approached. Nevertheless, to his surprise, they walked past him without looking at him and continued their straight path to an older man who was behind. The mist began to cover everything and the white world turned gray.

"Wait, please!"

Screams, screams, and screams. There were always screams.

He put his hands on his ears, hoping to silence the sound with no result.

They shouted something he could not understand.

The gray world became black. Giotto was even more afraid.

"Dad! Mom!" He screamed in terror, trying to see something in the blackness "Nonna!"

None of them answered; instead, more supplications of help filled the space and threatened to drive him crazy.

"Enough! Please! Enough!"

The voices didn't cease, the voices never ceased.

"What are not the guards to avoid this sort of thing?" Again, his own voice spoke in the air.

"Maybe it's the way it should be, but things are not always the way they should be, Giotto" Nonna's voice. Her voice was loaded with sadness and disappointment. She too was hurt for not be capable of help, he knew, but as she, he could not do something to stop it. "Sicily is like this, and there is nothing we can do to change it."

"There is nothing, there is nothing, there is nothing" repeated the other voices on a chilling echo.

"Since when is France on our side?"

The sudden phrase broke the chorus of screams.

"For a year, have you forgotten? They are in a war against Austria."

The words seemed close and far away at the same time.

"Sure, because Austria has a lot to do with us here."

"You complain about everything, Flora. Better shut up and keep working, they will not be long in coming with us."

They?

The sound of something breaking abruptly made him wake up shocked.

Fearful, he looked everywhere without recognizing anything around him and not knowing where he was.

He almost expected to be again in the black world, but the soft sunlight that made his eyes narrowed confirmed it: all had been a nightmare. If it were not for that and because everything happened in the last two days settled furiously in his mind, perhaps it would have given him a nervous attack, would have screamed and run around in panic. Good luck it was not so.

Nonna had become seriously ill, he did not know of what or why, but it was palpable that she did not have much time to live. The visit of those people demanding the payment of the taxes had not helped her to overcome her discomfort and finally, she died yesterday morning. Desperate and scared, he had left the small hut where they lived and decided to go to the next city, Palermo, so that the collectors will not be angry with him and they will arrogate all the things that it had the building he had called "home" until that moment of his life. He ran all day and much of the night, but even so, he only managed to reach the border between Palermo and his city. Although, border or not, at least he reached his destination.

And there he was, in an unknown city, with unknown people in it and not knowing what to do or where to go.

Then, a noise. This time the sound he heard was like a knock, followed by little noises that resembled coins falling on the floor.

Slowly he pulled his head out and peered out to see what was going on. A few meters from him, a woman lay on the ground trembling with fear while a man, probably her husband, Giotto concluded, gave his face with a brave and resigned gesture as two big people frowned at him with a fist in what would be surely the house where the couple lives. At the feet of the four people, a few coins were scattered along with a small brown bag where they had been stored.

"But if this isn't even 30%!" roared the biggest of the two men. His partner behind him seemed about pounce on the unlucky couple to beat them and demand full payment. To Giotto's infant eyes, those two boasters were as giants drawn from one of the tales his grandmother used to tell him before he fell asleep.

"Campieri" (2) thought the boy with apprehension.

"I-I know. I'm sorry."

"That will not pay the commission."

"Give me a little more time. I'll pay, I will."

"This is the third time you ask for time to pay, you know what that means, right?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

"I know" the man stammered a second time.

"He knows," said the other boaster with a grin on his face "He knows!" he let out a laugh, the people around him shivered visibly but continued pretending that they were very entertaining in their own affairs. "So, you understand what might happen. I'm sure that you don't want the Lord to come and request in person what he deserves for justice."

Giotto was not sure that the word "justice" was the best for the occasion, but it was not he could complain or debate about it.

"That will not be necessary!" he exclaimed quickly "I assure you, I will pay everything next time, with nothing missing!"

"I hope so, Paolo (3), I hope so."

With the threat present in the air, the campieri started their march back to the main estate from which they came. Giotto hurried back as far as he could, trying to camouflage himself in the shadows of the small space between two buildings in which he was. If that pair would see him, two things could happen: one, which they don't care and go their way as if what they saw was nothing more than a simple cockroach; or two, to be given a good beating for daring tread his boss's land without permission and drag him out of the place dying. The boy did not want to tempt fate, less after all that had happened, so it was best to try to hide.

Both campieri passed without deigning to turn and the people's daily movements normalized. Two things represented Palermo: possess the richest part of Sicily and, consequently, the greatest violence of the state. As if Sicily alone was not violent already, Palermo took the jackpot.

He looked up again, noting how Paolo picked up along with the woman the few coins lying around them. Some had gone too far, so much so that Giotto could assure that they would not see it and give it for lost. Which actually happened and he noticed the woman's disillusioned and sad look along with the man's expression of exhaustion, caused him a prick in the chest.

Decided, he braced himself and ran to collect the few coins lay a short distance from where he was. Whether be or not the number the campieri requested, no one liked to lose what little he had.

"Excuse me," he said in a whisper as he approached the duo, who had jumped at the sound of his trembling voice. "I believe this is yours."

Giotto opened his hands and showed the four coins he could find. The man looked him in amazement before giving him a small but sincere smile.

"Thank you."

Paolo had to thank. Not one would have returned it, and if he was sincere, he did not believe anyone had.

It was at that moment when he paid more attention to see whom the person in front of him was that Paolo's heart shrank. What he saw was a little boy about seven-eight years, his clothes were broken, dirty and wet, and his hair ruffled full of debris and his eyes swollen as if he had been crying for a long time ago. If that entire, one added that his face had certain red dyes with a definite fever he would have contracted without noticing it by the use of his drenched clothes, the child gave a pitiful aspect. Even more than anyone in the city.

"What's your name?" He asked still with the smile on his face. This time the boy seemed to him so fragile that he thought he would vanish at any moment and by any touch.

"Giotto" he replied without thinking. Maybe he would not have answered if someone else had asked him, but at that moment, he felt no danger or any bad feeling that would tell him it was wrong to say his identity. He had learned, somehow, to trust his instincts.

"Giotto" Paolo repeated. "You aren't from here, right? I don't remember seeing you before."

This time, the boy tensed visibly and was about to run for fear by thinking he had been wrong to judge that person so quickly, and the man would surely call the campieri. He did not want to be beaten; rather, he did not want to be hit again. It hurts; it hurts a lot and someone as weak as he could never defend himself, not even of the children of his own age.

"This world is cruel, abusive and lonely, my dear" It resounded in his head again.

"Easy," he said, noting the nervousness that had appeared in the infant. "It was a simple question. It is weird seeing someone of your age alone. Unless, of course, you are really with a relative and I haven't noticed."

"I'm not from here. That's true" he replied doubtfully, avoiding answering the other question about being alone.

"Where do you live?" He asked interestedly as he stood up. His wife, beside him, imitated the gesture without taking her eyes off the boy in front of her. Known it was that she loved the kids, and see one so mistreated made her have a strong tightness in the stomach. Even more, because she was sure that, with good care, the child's features would look better and reveal more clearly those peculiar eyes and hair he had.

"I ..." he stopped at the beginning of the sentence. He shook his head from side to side, making sure that people did not pay attention to him and there was no other authority to fear. He had learned badly that it was best not say certain things in the presence of certain people "I lived in the near town."

"Lived?" Now it was the young woman's turn to speak. Giotto nodded his head, looking away at the floor. Her sweet tone reminded him Nonna's voice. "Now, where do you live?"

"I don't know."

Paolo noticed sincerity in the answer, so he spoke again.

"Don't you know?"

"Nonna died and I came here running from the collectors of my city," he muttered softly. A few seconds passed before the young couple could fully understand the meaning of the words.

"Oh, poor angel!" exclaimed concerned the woman, trying control the impulse she had to go and embrace the small one in front of her. Her heart was especially weak when it came from children. For his part, Paolo wiped the smile on his face.

"You have nowhere to go," he said in a statement. Giotto answered with a sad silence, confirmed the words. Paolo turned to see his wife and she nodded in acceptance to the unspoken question reflected in her husband's eyes.

They were poor; they did not have to pay the commissions and barely managed eat. He was not sure that with them it was the best place a child could aspire to be, but that did not fix the situation. In addition, he was a kindness man as not leave alone a child who had suddenly seen himself without any endorsement. If to them, the old people, the world was difficult, he did not imagine how rude and cruel would be to someone infant and lonely.

Bah, he would somehow manage pay what he owed. A life was more important than saving money to give everything to the aristocrats' accursed clown.

"Giotto," Paolo said, taking the small hands that still had the coins found between his own; the little boy looked at him confused as he tilted his head. "Will you come with us?"

He wondered if the sudden brightness in the kid's eyes had been for tears. Well, if it is for happiness, then there is no problem.

"Why is the house near the outskirts so big compared to all the others?"

"My dear Giotto, that's because it's the Lord's house."

"Lord?" he asked without understanding "So if you grown-up you will have a huge house?"

Her grandmother laughed at his comment. There was no doubt that childhood was the time of innocence, and he hoped her grandson could enjoy a little more of it.

"No, no Giotto. When I say, Lord, I mean the owner of these lands."

"Owner? What the owners weren't those people in fancy dress and beautiful speech?"

Gioretti (4) smiled at the boy's description of the aristocrats. No one who knew them would refer to them that way, but it only confirmed to her that the little one was of good heart. She expected him to continue with this while growing up.

"Yes, they are the original owners. But these people lend the land to others for work, and these, in turn, have us to do that work."

The little boy frowned, but Gioretti knew that it was more out of disagreement to understand the position so down where they were on the social ladder. Giotto was an infant, but not a fool.

"Oh..." he said quietly "I suppose that they are the ones that have to be called gaba ... gaba .."

"Gabelloti (5)" Gioretti completed the sentence.

"Yes! Gabelloti!"

The memory came to his mind almost instantly when he heard some people talk about how "cruel" the current Gabellote was with regard the tax rate he was charging. Giotto just hoped no one outside of him would have heard that otherwise, the pair of women would be in serious trouble.

It was not surprising to learn that many of the aforementioned Gabelloti made deals with thieves. At first, it was supposed to formalize some "peace" that the government and the aristocrats could not achieve, but soon it had become a cycle of threats and extortions. It would not be the first time someone "accidentally" died in an ambush with criminals after they heard him speak against the Lord of the lands. It was good to mention that several of the campieri used to be such people.

Giotto sighed heavily. Knowing all and still not being able to do something to change it frustrated him. However, he was a seven-year-old whose relatives were dead; a person in such conditions would never be able to do anything. Well, to be honest, hardly anyone would be able to do something. The fairy tales where a masterful hero saved everyone were not real life, he realized that too soon.

As he continued to walk behind Paolo and his wife, Giotto kept looking everywhere and trying listening to the conversations. It was not that he wanted to break the people's intimacy, but the more he knew the city, more would be easier to survive.

Thus, he noticed a constant use of a certain word he had barely heard a couple of times in his previous neighborhood. One that, he discovered, people seemed to use a lot to refer the Gabelloti of the city and his Campiere. As if it were a keyword the high cribs could not understand but the low class did, and in that way, you could talk about everything you wanted without fear of future reprisals. At first, Giotto himself did not know what they meant whenever they mentioned it, but after listening more carefully, it was not very difficult to find out whom they were talking.

The word came from an acronym (he heard it called, it was when he thought for a long time that he discovered the meaning of "acronym"). The phrase was simple and direct. The phrase that lately made echoes in his head and with which he had dreamed that morning.

"Mazzini Autorizza Furti, Incendi, Avvelenamenti" (6)

If you put the first letters together, you formed a word.

"Mafia"

He realized that this term seemed to define a new type of people and organization. After all, the Gabelloti were neither high nor low class; even to some extent, one could say that they somehow took advantage of both classes. When his parents lived, he had heard that a Gabellote had succeeded in blackmailing the aristocrats who have entrusted his property to him. That, there in Sicily and elsewhere in the world, was something surprising.

Giotto was relatively happy to have a new word in his vocabulary. Although, in some way, the word turned out to be bitter.

"Ghinizelli" he repeated. Paolo nodded in agreement it had been correctly said "Ambizio Ghinizelli. That's the Gabellote's name."

In the last half hour, Paolo and his wife had explained him the functioning of the city. He realized that it was not much different from how things were done in his past house, whether this for better or for worse. The only thing that did change was that people tended to rebel more.

That, therefore, indicated a higher number of deaths.

"And he has a son. Giovanni Ghinizelli" the couple nodded again.

Giotto thought it curious that a Gabellote had a son. Of those he had heard, none of them had any family.

"How old is he?" he asked curiously.

"Nobody knows exactly. But to me, for being capable of handle a gun perfectly, I don't think he's exactly a child" Paolo replied with a slight shudder. He had never liked guns, these weapons were capable of killing incredibly easy, all you had to do was pull the trigger and someone's life disappeared.

"Actually" his wife continued, once more assured that no one could hear them. She used a curious tone of a secret that caught Giotto's attention. "I've heard that indeed, it's a child. About your age, Giotto" for what she said, the little one could not help but tilt his head and wince. That did not sound cute at all.

"A child who can handle a gun?" Paolo shook his head, disappointed. "If that's true, I don't think I ever wanted to meet him. And less when he grows up."

"What if he isn't really bad?" Giotto said, earning a strange look from Paolo and his wife. "I mean, if no one knows for sure who he is, I don't think he is exactly proud of his blood" the adult couple paid more attention to his words, and that gave him encouragement to continue "Also ... I don't know, maybe they forced him to learn how to use a weapon or something like that. Coming from the Gabelloti, nothing is surprising."

Paolo admitted that he had a point.

"Why do you think that?"

Giotto shrugged, not knowing what answer.

"Intuition, perhaps?" he commented a little nervous "Not all people who seem to be bad are, no one chooses where to be born and the circumstances. At least that was what nonna said."

"Your grandmother was very wise, Giotto" Marie, Paolo's wife, said with a smile. The boy returned the gesture with a blink of pride.

He had to run, run, and run. Escape, flee, escape, and flee. If they caught up, he would be dead.

When a bullet brushed his cheek making a cut, he cursed his father by a millionth time and his filthy corrupt dealings. He cursed his last name. He cursed his family.

When he turned back, raising his pistol and firing on a perfect hit that struck one of his pursuers, he cursed himself.

Good people did not know how to use a weapon. Good people did not shoot others. Good people did not kill.

Therefore, he was not a good person. That, it hurts in the depths of his soul.

He spun around, into one of the small streets between the buildings, and ran on to everything his legs gave him. He could not leave his house without a bunch of annoying citizens chasing him and threatening to kill him. Though he does not blame, they had their reasons for hating him; after all, he was the son of the person in charge of his torture.

He should just let himself killed and end everything. Maybe that way, his father would learn the lesson. But even with that thought in mind, he kept running. Because despite denying it repeatedly, he did not want to die. A primitive instinct inside him shouted he must live.

Therefore, he ran spinning and turning. He would be lost, he knew, but he did not care now.

He only wanted live.

(1) "Grandmother"

(2) "Campieri" is the plural of "Campiere". They were guards in the service of a "Gabellote" (for more information on them, move to number 5) to protect livestock, property, equipment and control peasants. The Campieri could be people who used to do vandalism, of course, not all of them, but it is something that must be taken into account.

(3) "Paolo" is a character mentioned in episode 308 of the manga, in the first memory of Giotto and Cozart given to the Vongola and Shimon in Inheritance Ceremony Arc.

(4) Italian Name. It is in honor to "Santa Maria Gioretti". I thought it was a nice name for Giotto's grandmother.

(5) "Gabelloti" plural of "Gabellote". Its name comes from the word "Gabella" which refers to a tax or fee in the form of payment required. These people functioned as an intermediary between the aristocracy and the peasants. They managed the properties of the aristocrats and obtained in return a percentage of goods, in addition, to increase their profits they divided the lands into small areas and leased them to the peasants, who also granted them a percentage of the earnings. When they gained more power, they extorted the peasants, appropriated land improperly and organized groups of thieves. At the same time, they managed the supply of food in the cities, which allowed them to carry out extortion in the market.

(6) Means, "Mazzini authorizes robberies, fires, and poisonings". To what they refer to this phrase, I will explain it in the next chapters.

Ciao! Thank you for reading. What did you think of this first chapter?

I decided to settle everything in Sicily, an island in southern Italy that has always be characterized by its high rates of violence, especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In addition, is where the concept "mafia" originates for the first time, in the mid-nineteenth century too. Today, the Sicilian mafia is one of the strongest and most famous. Unlike other states of Italy, Sicily, still in the 1800s, remained feudal, and this meant there was much exploitation by the upper class towards the lower class. Yep, everything narrated here has its historical data. Hey, I want to do things right!

The war between Austria, France, and Italy that is mention is also real. More details will be revealed later (?)

A mistake? Please, feel be free to point it.

That is it; I hope you enjoyed it and see you next time.

Atte.: ElenaMisaScarlet