Circus of Hell (Oliver x Fukase)

Rehearsal

After the signal resonated through the huge hall, everybody positioned themselves in lines, how they were used to it. Their conversations fell silent and some of the younger kids held their breath out of the tension they felt.

Oliver checked briefly his appearance, neatness was one of the important rules. It even came right after the 'respect your master' rule.

Suddenly several heavy boots resonated in harmony and out of the shadows showed up four tall figures. Mere their superior aura signaled well enough that those men were the leaders and from their faces could be seen the pleasure they felt when they wielded authority.

They let their gazed wander around and a smirk crept on their faces as they came even closer to the children. Oliver noticed the tools they brought with them. Some of them were new to him but he wasn't even a bit curious, those tools were only harm anyway. He looked to the ground depressed. He didn't feel like training - he never did, for years now he had the same task over and over again. Of course, their choreography changed from time to time; after all, the visitors wanted to be entertained, but still. Sometimes he couldn't surpress the feeling of having enough. It wasn't a place you got tortured out of fun and everywhere lay corpses around, that would be even more exciting. More likely, only if you did something wrong you got punished and they preferred to break your mind until you become a puppet - some already did, Oliver didn't talk with them though.

"Hey, look up, slut!" Oliver heard a raucous voice right in front of him and his eyes widened. At once he looked up to of one of the leaders who faced Oliver with ignorance.

"Who's your guardian?" The man asked and crossed his arms. Not good. Oliver knew very well what expected him and gulped. But it was no use, he wasn't paying attention and that was the consequence.

"Highly praised Master Gakupo, Sir!" Fast Oliver bowed and added. "Please forgive my misbehavior, it won't occur anymore."

Oliver stayed like this and waited for a response. After his first months in this place he learnt it helped immense to be extremely polite and submissive, though it had destroyed with passing time his once huge pride. Even now those words contained not a bit of honesty, but a learnt phrase to keep himself halfway unharmed.

Oliver felt a hit on his head so strong and unexpected he fell to the ground with a gasp. He held his head and breathed heavily from the shock. Inside of him he hoped for no blood coming out of his head, he still had to participate in rehearsal - only with a higher risk of losing consciousness.

"Stop that obnoxious nonsense. Master Gakupo will be informed anyway," the leader said and went off. He expected from Oliver to stand up by himself again, the blonde mustn't forget the orders.

Oliver slowly got to his knees and bit his lip, trying to blend out the pain. He saw a hand stretched out for him and gasped surprised. He let himself get pulled up and looked at the one who did it. A familiar face smiled in his direction, though not exactly to him since the boy with silver shimmering hair had no eyes. Nobody would see that since his eye sockets were covered with a blindfold but once before Oliver talked with him and found out eventually. The silver haired boy - whose name was Piko - was known as the friendliest one when it came to comrades but a monster towards the master. Oliver himself often wondered if such a change of personality really was Piko's character or made by the leaders - he didn't was to find out though.

"Thanks," Oliver murmured to keep it from the leaders and Piko smiled in return.

Loud clapping echoed, followed by laughter. "Alright, kiddies. Let's go!"

A small figure came out of the shadows, her head bent. The little girl was known as their choreographer as the leaders didn't teach anything. They were only checking if everybody behaved and put the group under pressure for a faster achievement.