Part 6

He would never know how he managed to get away without the police or paramedics finding him. He would never know a lot of things about what had happened that day. Later he would be able to piece together vague memories of people screaming and running, of seeing the face of a man on the ground before him, bleeding from mouth, nose, eyes and ears. Later he would remember stumbling out in a daze, being confronted with dozens of bodies. He never knew if they were dead or just knocked out.

For days he wandered, helpless and childlike, unable to really comprehend anything around him. He was beaten and mugged at least once, possibly several times. After a few days his fancy clothes were little more than rags - he was barefoot and grungy, and looked like a wild child. He mumbled brokenly in German, staring blankly at anyone who spoke to him until they gave up and went away.

That was how they found him, wandering around in the alleys of Tokyo. At first he thought he was going to be mugged again, and he absently braced himself for the pain. But the expected punches and kicks didn't come - instead he felt gentle and not-so-gentle touches, turning his face this way and that, rubbing a lock of his hair between rough fingers to get rid of some of the dirt.

Several male voices argued over him, as he sat uncaring in the filth of the alley, staring blankly ahead. They kept touching his skin and hair, and tilting his face up to see his eyes better, but he ignored them. The only thing that he could see were the bodies piled around him, his fault though he didn't know why or how. He just knew that he had caused all that pain and suffering, that he was responsible somehow. He was guilty.

"Oi. Oi! Namae wa?"

He stared at the man who was shaking him, feeling his teeth rattle. The words were like everything else he heard - meaningless babble. The man grunted and gave him a harsh slap across the cheek, as if to wake him up. "Anta teba! Nanda namae wa?"

Vaguely he got the impression they were asking his name. He answered with the only word he seemed to have left.

"Schuldig," he told them. Guilty, I am guilty. It's all my fault. "Schuldig."

"Shyuudehi?" the speaker tried, slurring the German word almost beyond recognition. "Namae wa Shyuudehi?"

"Schuldig," he agreed, staring down at a puddle at his feet. Roughly they hauled him to his feet, herding him along in front of them. He kept repeating the word over and over to himself, his voice rusty with days, perhaps weeks of disuse. Schuldig. Guilty. It was all the name he needed, he supposed. It certainly fit him, and he couldn't seem to remember any other name he might once have had. He let them lead him, uncaring as to his fate.

Thereafter time passed by in the daze of a living nightmare. It might have been days, it might have been months - he wasn't sure and didn't care. He was led about like an infant, bathed and dressed, forced to eat, and used in the crudest way possible for his 'rescuers' pleasure. He performed like an automaton, distant and detached from his surroundings. Vaguely he had the thought that he might have been in a similar situation to this once before, but he couldn't remember where or who.

He might have continued to drift forever, if not for the voices. At first he thought it was just the souls of those he'd killed come back to haunt him, but slowly he realized that there was more substance to them than that. Sometimes they were loud, sometimes quiet; sometimes there were many, sometimes only a few. They were stronger when he was being used, and rougher. When he was brought to the place where he slept, they were timid and frightened. They called out to him, crowding him into a tiny corner of his mind to escape them at times. Occasionally they even crowded him out of that small space, and he would blank out and be unaware of even the hazy events he could comprehend.

When he finally came back to himself, it was an abrupt process, like waking from a dream to sudden reality. He found himself waist deep in scented water, strands of hair tickling his cheeks and the back of his neck as a middle-aged oriental woman shampooed him. He blinked, and looked up at her in confusion.

"Where...?" he croaked out, his voice harsh and nasal from disuse and abuse. She looked back at him, astonished, her hands buried in suds on top of his head. "Where am I?" he managed to get out at last. She stared at him in incomprehension, so he tried again in German. "Wo bin ich?" When she still didn't respond, he tried the little Japanese he knew. "Doko ni?"

"Kami-sama, you're awake!" she finally exclaimed, mouth falling open in shock. He was startled to realize that he understood her easily - he must have absorbed the language during his time drifting in a dream. "We all thought you'd been brain damaged!"

He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, centring himself and searching his memories and thoughts. Everything was hazy, and he couldn't reach past the memory of dead (unconscious?) bodies sprawled out at his feet. His mind flinched away from the image, and he didn't try to force the issue, lest he go catatonic again. "I don't know," he replied honestly, feeling the beginnings of a throbbing headache. "Who are you? Where am I? WHO am I?"

She finally seemed to realize that she was still standing with her hands buried in his hair, covered in shampoo and with him naked in the tub. She disentangled herself, and gently guided him to lie back so she could pour water over his hair to rinse it. He obeyed with an ease that told him this was not the first time he had been washed in this manner.

"We all just call you Schuldig," she finally answered him after a moment's thought. He frowned.

"That's not my name." He didn't know what his name WAS, but he knew that wasn't it. What mother would name her child 'guilty'? At least, he thought that was what she was trying to say. Her accent mangled the German word badly.

"That's the only word you would say for the first two weeks," she told him, helping him sit up again and proffering a towel. He took it and stood, wrapping it around his waist and flushing at his nudity. "After that you wouldn't say anything at all. We had to call you something, the Master decided it was as good as anything else."

He glanced at her sharply, forgetting for a moment his nudity. "Master?" he repeated, not liking the sound of that.

She shrugged and handed him another towel for his hair. He noticed for the first time that she was nude as well, save for a leather collar and silver pendant at her throat. Raising his hand, he found a similar collar around his own neck, the weight of the pendant so familiar against his collarbones that he hadn't even noticed it.

She said nothing, but a sudden flash of images and emotions assaulted him; whips and chains, pain and pleasure, humility and subservience. He staggered, made dizzy by the onslaught, and she steadied him hastily. The visions gained in intensity when she touched him, and he saw himself as if from another's point of view, crouched down before a man dressed in silks and leathers, mouth wrapped around the man's erection as another took him from behind. He gagged, and suppressed the urge to throw up by force of will.

"NEIN!" he shouted, repulsed. Startled, the woman backed away from him, obviously afraid he was going to become violent. He clutched his head and tried to sort out the conflicting emotions and thoughts streaming through his mind. He was startled to realize how long his hair was - shouldn't it have been much shorter?

"How long have I been here?" he demanded of her roughly.

"About six months," she replied, frightened. He towered over her and outweighed her by half again as many kilos, and she was terrified of him. Somehow he knew her thoughts, could feel them flowing through his mind like a stream of water against his skin. "Please, you must let me help you dress. The Master is waiting for you, and he doesn't like to be kept waiting!" *Surely he won't punish me for being slow, not with the boy behaving like this!* her mind whimpered at him, her panic reverberating against his mind like a chord struck on a badly tuned piano.

He allowed her to lead him into the next room, heavily scented with sandalwood and jasmine. She sat him on a soft couch and patted his hair dry, then proceeded to comb out all the tangles for him. She used a small hairdryer to finish the job, as he sat silently trying to figure out what was going on.

He could hear her thought process as she worked, chattering on in disjointed bits until he thought he would be dizzy again. Feeling himself slipping away under the force of her personality, he reached out for something to steady him, and found dozens of other minds pressing against his.

There were many people in the building, and there didn't seem to be a limit to how far out he could reach, either. Of course, he didn't try going very far - he pulled back into himself before they could overwhelm him, trembling. Frightened, he envisioned a thick wall between himself and the pushing minds, and to his relief he found himself cut off from their influence once more.

Telepathy. He knew without knowing how he knew that the word for what he was doing was 'telepathy'. He was a telepath - someone who could read other people's thoughts and emotions. Somewhere along the way someone must have taught him how to block his mind away from others, taught him to imagine that wall falling into place. It was a crude defence and far from perfect, but it was better than nothing. He thought that he might have known how to control it better, once, but no matter how he strained he couldn't remember the techniques.

The woman moved to brush lightly scented oil over his skin, and he stopped her with a hard hand on her wrist. She jumped, startled by his sudden movement when he'd been sitting so still. "Don't," he told her, eying the rest of the assortment of cosmetics and perfumes she'd laid out while he wasn't paying attention. "What's your name, anyway?"

"This humble one is called Hana," she answered him in stiffly formal language. "You must wear the scents and powders! The Master commands it!"

His mouth twitched, pulling downwards into a frown. "He may be your Master, lady, but he ain't mine. He can go fuck himself for all I care." He heard the words coming from his mouth as though they originated from someone else - he hadn't meant to be so harsh with her. His mouth was on autopilot, his sarcastic facade coming to the front to protect him, just as it always had.

Just as it always had? He had to examine that thought for a moment. Yes, the sarcasm and roughness felt familiar, comfortable, like a shield that he had often placed between himself and the world. He was frightened, uncertain, and this was apparently how he'd learned to deal with those emotions.

For her part, she looked terrified again, and he caught the idea that she was afraid she would be punished for his rebellion by this 'Master' of theirs. He sighed. "Look, just find me some clothes, okay? Then I'll go deal with this guy, and I'll make sure you don't get in trouble."

She nodded and scurried over to a wardrobe he hadn't noticed before, her eyes firmly on the ground. *Surely the Master won't blame me,* she thought to herself, and he picked it up without even trying. *Not with the boy acting this way! It's not my fault. Surely...* She turned and proffered the armful of silk she'd pulled out of the drawers, still not looking at him.

He picked it up and shook it out, and stared in disbelief. The diaphanous creation of silk and velvet he held would have been at home on the set of a movie about an Arabian harem - soft and sheer, the pants would leave almost nothing to the imagination. "No way!" he exclaimed, making a harsh sound of rejection. "I'm not wearing this! For crying out loud, it's see-through!"

She cowered subserviently before him. "The Master commands it," she whimpered, her mind gibbering in fear. He grimaced and imagined the wall a little thicker, trying to block her out.

He growled, seeing that even if she'd wanted to, she couldn't give him something more decent to wear. "Fine," he gritted out reluctantly. "I'll wear the bloody thing. Get out of here - go tell your Master he's got one hell of a pissed off camper that wants to talk to him." He wasn't sure the idiom made any sense to her, but she seemed to get the idea of what he wanted. She was out the door before he'd even stood to unwrap the towel from his waist.

The pantaloons were even worse than he'd thought - the crotch was missing, granting easy access to his ass and cock. There was nothing he could do about it, though; he decided to tough it out, rather than go out with a towel around his waist and appear at a disadvantage. He stormed out the door, letting his fury build with each step and boil over in his famous redhead's temper.

At the end of a long hallway was a metal and wooden door, standing slightly ajar. He could hear the sound of conversation beyond it, and the mental din was even more cacophonous than the audible one. He had to steady himself with a hand on the wall for a moment, caught up in the waves of pain and humiliation pounding over him. He pulled his imaginary wall in closer around him, and though it didn't block everything, it did help. Straightened, he strode through the door as though he owned the place.

It took him less than a moment to identify the 'Master' - the man lorded it over his guests and slaves like some mediaeval baron, perched in a gilded throne on a raised dais. Three beautiful young teens languished at his feet, two women and a man. Given the outfits they wore, it was clear he'd been meant to complete the foursome.

The Master arched an eyebrow at him when he didn't come any closer, and gestured for the crowd around him to get out of the way. They parted, giving him a clear view of the man's feet for the first time - Hana was crouched there, head to the floor in abasement and dark red welts rising on her back. The whip in the Master's hand was evidence enough of the source of the wounds. He scowled.

"So, the dreamer awakes at last," the man chuckled, his baritone smooth and sonorous. The people gathered around him chuckled as well, turning to eye him speculatively. He felt his cheeks burn, but held his ground, keeping his eyes steady on the man's gaze. "And it would seem he is displeased with his situation. Join us, Schuldig, and we shall talk."

He waited just long enough to make it clear that he was going because he wanted to, not because he'd been ordered to. Then he paced forward, keeping his gaze locked on the Master's, not allowing himself to be distracted by the press of people and minds around him as he passed through the crowd. "Who the fuck are you?" he growled at last, planting his feet shoulder width apart and clenching his fists.

The man smiled lazily. "The only name you need for me is 'Master', boy," he replied indolently. "You are my pet, my slave, after all."

"I am no one's slave," he snarled in return, furious. "You're one hell of a sick fucker, taking advantage of a guy who's completely unaware of what's going on around him. Real big of you."

The leather-clad man shrugged, unconcerned by the vitriolic accusations being flung at him. "I found you dirty, starving and beaten in a filthy alley. You wouldn't have lived another week, most likely. I took you in, cleaned you, dressed you, fed you, cared for you. All I asked in return was a few simple services that you didn't object to providing."

"Well, I'm objecting now!" he shot back. A muscle in his jaw was twitching as he clenched his teeth together, waiting for the response.

"So?" The man shrugged again. "You are, of course, free to leave. The door to the outside is that way." He gestured, and the crowd parted again to reveal the door. Not quite trusting the magnanimous gesture, but unwilling to lower his wall lest he be overwhelmed again, he edged away from the cleared space before the throne, heading for the door.

Two massive bruisers blocked his path almost immediately, and he sense four more closing in on him from behind. A trap, then, or perhaps a test - he gathered from the thoughts that penetrated his wall that if he could defeat these men, the Master would lose face because of it, and he would have a chance to get free for real. He pretended not to notice the four men behind him, concentrating on the two before him as his body settled into a familiar defensive stance.

The first man lunged at him, and his body whipped around in a spinning kick to the gut. He found that if he just disconnected his mind and let his body do the fighting, it was much easier. He punched the second man in the nose hard enough to break it, feeling eerily detached from himself. He could feel the crowd's astonishment at his sudden fighting prowess, and smirked inwardly.

It was obvious that he'd had extensive training somewhere - his body moved like a snake's, striking without warning and twisting easily away from any attacks. The four goons at his back moved in on him when the first two faltered, crowding him from all sides. He kicked one in the balls and leapfrogged over him when he doubled over, smashing his foot into the next one's face. He felt a fierce joy overcome him, a love of fighting, of physical exertion - his or theirs, he really wasn't sure. He spun again to see a punch being aimed at him. Automatically he reached out with his mind and twisted, altering the man's perception of him. The punch whistled harmlessly by his ear, and his opponent looked shocked.

Laughing, he reached out again, to all of them, and danced through the flurry of blows and kicks as though in a mad ballet. They couldn't see him, couldn't focus on where he was, a he blurred their perception of the world around them with his power. It was too easy, too simple...

He had only a split second's warning, the brush of a malicious thought across his mind. Too late, he spun and tried to duck, but the Master's whip caught him squarely across the cheek, stunning him. He lost his concentration abruptly, and was tackled from two sides by the musclemen.

Pinned now, he struggled wildly against his captors, flailing with little grace and no finesse. Whatever training it was that his body remembered, it abandoned him now to the tender mercies of the men who were determined to pay him back tenfold for every injury he'd dealt them. To make matters worse, the skin-to-skin contact sent their minds surging into his, washing over him with their joy in his pain and making him gag at their pleasure.

"Enough!" the Master called, and they backed away. He curled into a little ball on the floor, only then aware that he was sobbing raggedly. The man knelt next to him and placed a coil of the whip under his chin, tilting his face up. "Now you see the futility of rebellion, Schuldig," he whispered, his voice low and intimate. His mind was filled with sick satisfaction, making him retch again as he tried futilely to pull his mind away. "Do be a good boy now, won't you?"

He gestured to his henchmen, who picked up the sobbing seventeen-year-old by his arms, dangling him between them. "Do as you like with him, but don't damage him permanently," he instructed them, smiling beatifically at their captive. "Schuldig, I do hope this will be the only lesson in humility you need. You've been such a good slave this far, I'd hate to lose you."

He struggled as they dragged him over to a set of dangling chains, but it was useless. They were much stronger than he was, and he could barely think through the pounding of their minds on his. They wrapped the chains around his wrists and forearms, securing them with small padlocks that clicked shut with an awful sound of finality. They hauled the chains upward with some sort of pulley system, locking his ankles in place as well. The wrapped a third chain around his waist, adjusting all three until he was bent over at the waist at a ninety degree angle, his arms wrenched up painfully above his head and his ass stuck out for easy access. He continued to thrash about, unwilling to submit quietly to what they were doing, cursing and swearing at them in every language he knew.

They forced a ball gag into his mouth, pinching his nose shut until he had to open his mouth to breath. A leather hood was pulled over his face, zipping up at the back of his head so that it enclosed him snugly. There were no eyeholes, and he could see nothing but the black leather or the even darker insides of his eyes. He felt the harsh sting of a whip against his back, and gave a muffled cry as he jerked away from the pain.

Someone slapped him, then grabbed him roughly by the shoulders to hold him in place. The whip cracked over him again and again, until he could feel blood trickling down over his ribs from the open cuts. He screamed as something penetrated him painfully from behind, mind writhing away from the disgusting pleasure the men took in his agony.

Tears streamed down over his cheeks though he tried to suppress them, not wanting to give them the satisfaction. The man behind him rutted away, uncaring or perhaps even unaware of the tears he was causing in his lust. The pain distracted him from his efforts to build his wall higher, tearing away at the foundations he'd already laid and opening him to their influence.

He choked on the gag as the waves of lust slammed over him, bringing his cock erect and dripping even as he mentally begged for them to stop. The first man climaxed, sending another wave of sick pleasure through his system, and a second man immediately took his place.

He didn't know how many times they had him - at some point they removed the gag and forced him to take them orally as well - but it stretched on for an endless time. His walls completely destroyed, he was helpless against the onslaught of their lust, experiencing every jolt and twitch of pleasure right along with them. Distantly he heard them laughing, exclaiming over his body's reaction. Sickened, he tried to find the void, the blackness that he knew was out there somewhere to shelter him. He couldn't shut his mind off, couldn't escape the sensations pouring over him in suffocating intensity. Frantically he sought the dazed dream state that had possessed him for the last six months, but that too was denied him. All he could do was hang there, his body convulsing with pleasure even as his mind screamed his revulsion.

At long last they were finished, and he felt the last of them pull out of his ass with a sickening wet sucking sound. The hood was lifted from his face, the chains removed from around him as two other male slaves gently held him upright. The Master stood before him, tapping his riding crop against his thigh, a concerned paternal look on his stern features.

"Now, Schuldig, you've learned your lesson, haven't you?" The boy nodded helplessly. "You won't ever try anything like that again?"

He shook his head miserably. The man reached out and took a pair of silver manacles from another slave, and placed them over wrists rubbed raw from the earlier chains. He stared down at the circles of silver on his arms, and at the heavy chain hanging between them, and knew that he was looking at the end of his freedom, of his life. The person he had been before, whoever and whatever that was, was no more - now he was only Schuldig, pet and slave.

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