Kabuki Scarlet Prologue-Inception {Edited}

Introduction
The night was dark, thick with foreboding, deep sense of indistinguishable depths as a small shadow skittered across the alleyway, darting out of the light just as soon as your eye could catch the movement, making you wonder if you’d seen it at all.1

The shadow was a man named Kabuki. This Kabuki 'Jame' Scarlet was an ‘evil’ man, though evil is a relative term. In society’s terms he might be defined as wicked, malevolent, or even immoral, but he did what he felt was right. He almost never showed his face, only a blood stained kabuki mask. That was why he earned his name. See, Kabuki was a killer, but it was for all the right reasons.2

I’m going to tell you his story. It probably started with Dante Alighieri in the 1300’s, when he wrote ‘Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate’ or ‘Abandon all hope, you who enter here’ as the gateway to Hell. Out of this literature was born this man who was no longer a man. Out of this was born Kabuki Scarlet, the punisher of all who wrong the world with their sins of excess, or lack thereof. You know the ones. You see them every day, reaping the world with their lust, pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, and gluttony.3

He liked to taunt people, and stalk them before he killed them. He was patient, but liked to toss a bit of creativity in once in a while. He loved to play with them, play with their minds. He loved seeing them suffer. He followed the seven deadly sins. There was no religious belief behind his intent, merely an all-consuming want to rid the world of this kind of malevolence. Sometimes, evil must be fought with a different breed of evil. He targeted people with these sins in excess, trying to make the world a better place for people, though his acts may seem foolish or even clownish. Do not mock him, laugh or overlook his message.4

These are the Seven Deadly Sins, as defined by many writers, and originally, the Roman Catholic Church, but Kabuki paid no mind to the religious hoopla about it. He cared about what these things, these festering sores were doing to the world. They ruined a life like his, corrupted him, and turned him into a man who fought so no one else would have to endure what he did as a child. He knew he was guilty of wrath, a deadly sin, but he did not use it on punishment toward innocent people; it was punishment for the people who made the world the sordid, reeking place that it has become. Some say wrath is divine retribution for sin; in this ideal he believed in first and foremost, above anything else he could even hope to live for.5

Jame
Kabuki Scarlet wasn’t always a killer. At one time he was actually human, with feelings and anguish and love. Kabuki was once Jame Aldaine. He was once a child; he was once innocent and free. He was once loved and hated. He was once able to feel and care about his own life. That was before he grew up. His family began to hate him for one reason or another and he them in return, and he lost his innocence like the spin of a dime.6

Jame was usually a pretty quiet child in school, when he went. He rarely made friends and kept to himself. He was quite timid for some time, until he managed to learn how to fight back against his father. He always learned, however.7

When he was old enough to understand that what his family was like wasn’t normal, he became more curious about what made them different.8

At about the time he could understand the teachings, the young man became obsessed with the seven deadly sins at sixteen. Reading into the scripts of Dante Alighieri and Thomas Aquinas, he became fascinated.9

He discovered the Seven Deadly Sins while doing research for a school project and although they were connected with God and the Gospel and he’d never grown up with a religious background, the sins intrigued him. It was then he realized he was caught in the throes of these sins, caged like an animal. The sins were like a disease inside every one of his family members. He spent hours and days thinking about them and how they polluted the world, and not just his family and he resolved to rid the world of such putrid diseases.10

Over the course of a couple of years, he’d become obsessed with these sins, watching his family get worse every year, the sins manifesting within their existence, and he merely watched.11

He had an abusive father who was always dipping his hand in the money jar. He had an apathetic mother who never did anything for herself. He had a brother who was severely overweight; Kevin was always envious of him, the ‘pretty boy.’ Last, but not least, he had a sister, and what a sister she was. Annabelle was always sleeping and strutting around, proud of how beautiful she was, and how many men she could get with her beauty.12

Wrath. Greed. James Aldaine. Sloth. Elaine Aldaine. Gluttony. Envy. Kevin Aldaine. Lust. Pride. Annabelle Aldaine. In that order, the seven deadly sins ruled his family life. Let me tell you a bit about them, both the sins and the people that possessed them in excess, much like the sins themselves imply.13

James Aldaine
James Aldaine was the epitome of a bad father, in his son’s opinion. It seemed he only cared for himself, and no one else. The wrath that lit up his flat green eyes was a sight to behold. His son never understood this until he was assigned that fateful school project, and from then on he was hooked.14

He studied his father carefully, thinking over the connotations of the sins of wrath and greed, watching his father’s avaricious little hands grasp at everything he could, bringing it close, and it disgusted the teen.15

Jame never made enough money when he worked according to his father. James even forged documents so he would be ‘old enough’ to work. He was thrown into the work force at fourteen, to help make his father more money.16

His father got worse, getting two jobs so he could afford things, and count his money, hoarding it all within his little cubicle of living. Whenever he was interrupted, he’d go into a vicious rage, often hitting whomever interrupted him, or whatever was closest.17

The victim of said fits was usually Jame, who by now had adopted the name Kabuki, because Jame was a shortened version of his father’s name, and he didn’t want his father’s name; he felt it was incomplete, and a reflection of the sin. To him, it was a disgrace. James Aldaine was a greedy man who had an addiction to punishment. He began to hate the man with a sinful wrath himself, though he contained it rather well. He didn’t let it get the best of him, though he fully intended to use it for retribution, but not out of his own anger…well, not completely.18

One day, Kabuki grew tired of being treated the way he had been for eighteen years and he stood up to his father. He had gotten fired at his latest job and hadn’t bothered to go out right after and find another for his father’s useless habit; he felt it wasn’t worth trying to please the other man anymore.19

‘You’re a good-for-nothing screw-up, Jame!’ his father shouted, holding broken credit cards in his hands; his youngest son had snapped them in half easily, one by one, just moments before, maliciously. Kabuki grinned, but it soon faded when heard the blasphemy of his name on his father’s lips.20

‘Jame isn’t my name anymore, and I’m not a screw-up,’ Kabuki snapped, his azure eyes sparkling and crackling angrily as he cracked his knuckles, gloves over his hands at the moment. ‘You’re the screw-up. You don’t even know how to raise a family,’ the teen challenged, and watched the fire lick at his father’s green eyes with an almost satisfied smirk.21

‘Oh really? Then what’s your name, kid?’ James jested. Kabuki leered at him again, a low growl forming in the back of his throat as he tried to fight back the anger that was threatening to overcome him.22

‘My name is Kabuki Scarlet, and if you haven’t noticed, I’m not a kid,’ he retorted, tossing his long black hair off his face.23

‘Kabuki Scarlet, huh?’ his father taunted. ‘Where’d you get that bullshit name from?’ The teen’s eyes narrowed further, incensed by his father’s taunting, though not quite rising to the occasion.24

‘None of your business,’ he shot back, walking into the kitchen, trying to escape the fire within him as he looked into his father’s eyes.25

‘It is too my business, child,’ James said, following the teen into the kitchen. ‘Maybe if I hurt you, you’ll tell me.’ Kabuki took a deep breath as James took a few steps toward him, and just as his fist was going to connect with Kabuki’s face, the younger man threw his elbow into his father’s gut, knocking him backward. 26

The man looked startled for a moment as he doubled over, and Kabuki just grinned at him, eyes glittering a bit maniacally. He bit his lip slightly when he watched his father rise, but he set himself in a position to knock any impending hand away from him.27

Unaware of this, it seemed, his father lunged forward. That was a bad idea, Kabuki thought with a grin.28

As the larger man lumbered forward, wrath in his eyes, his son leaned over impulsively, grabbed at the counter and threw up his hand, plunging a kitchen knife into his father’s stomach. The wrathful man staggered backward, his hands going to the wound, the blood flowing profusely out of his body, a look of shock bleeding across his father’s face. Kabuki should have been alarmed, but instead he merely grinned.29

‘That’s what you get,’ Kabuki sneered and walked a few steps away, before his eyes trained on the knife embedded in his father’s gushing abdomen; his maniacal expression widened as he leaned down, grasping onto his father’s hair lightly, pulling his head up. ‘Wrath ends only in bloodshed, didn’t you know that? I’m not sorry it ended this way.’30

Elaine Aldaine
Elaine Aldaine was the opposite of her husband, merely taking up space on the family couch, laughing mindlessly over something the television, or shouting at one person or another, normally Kabuki, to do something for her. He didn’t like the fact that he was being used because he was the youngest and therefore the most ‘fit to do her bidding.’31

He always wondered what the story behind her laziness was, and he found the answer in the word ‘sloth.’ It was a deadly sin, to be idle, and the teen understood why. It was driving him up the wall the way he watched his mother do nothing that would help or better anything. She was useless, and to Kabuki, that was a sin in itself.32

His mother stayed around the house, doing nothing but watch television all day, wasting away in a pool of alcohol and mind-numbing talk shows. She rarely ever acknowledged Kabuki’s presence, but he didn’t mind much. Elaine was no mother to the young, disgruntled teen. He hated her as well, but for reasons opposite to his father.33

The day he got rid of his father was also the day he exterminated the useless existence of the bitch he had called mother. He had to; it was a burning need in the pit of his being. She was useless anyway, in his eyes, and therefore had no reason to be there.34

‘What’s going on in there?’ his mother shouted, hearing the commotion from the murder that had taken place first. Kabuki ripped the blade out of his father’s stomach, causing him to convulse on the floor, bleeding to death, choking on his own blood; it was quite the beautiful sight, Kabuki commended silently as he shook his head and walked away. 35

He grinned and strolled into the living room, easily; as if nothing had happened and he wasn’t holding a bloody blade in his right hand, itching to drag the sharp edge over idle flesh. 36

‘Jame, is that you?’ came her curious voice, though it had a lazy drawl to it that grated on his nerves and he shuddered slightly, his lip twitching a bit as he walked closer, as if preying on his mother like an animal as he watched her with glittering eyes.
‘How could you tell?’ came his voice, calm and normal, quiet as usual, so that his mother didn’t know anything was amiss. She laughed slowly and he watched her head move slightly, the straw-like strands of her hair moving over the recliner.37

‘The way you walk, it’s different than other’s,’ she replied, not even looking over at him as her eyes were fixed heavily on the television, laughing slightly at the troubles on the conflict talk show. These were ridiculous to the teen and he moved to grab the remote from beside her, flicking the television off, waiting for the disgruntled reaction he knew would come. ‘Hey, what’d you do that for?’38

He laughed lowly as he heard the reaction he’d been going for as he moved away from the remote again, walking slowly, his back hunched slightly as he twirled the blade, as if debating.39

He came up behind Elaine and slit her throat with no trouble by means of the bloodstained knife, which surprisingly his father had kept very sharp, offering the idle woman beneath him no answer to her burning, now immortal question. He didn’t swipe it, he dragged it somewhat slowly across the skin, feeling the liquid pour onto his hands and he relished it. He heard choking sounds and leered with satisfaction. Quick, easy, and it probably hurt like hell. Well, good, he thought to himself.40

Kevin Aldaine
Kabuki was too perfect if you asked Kevin. Apparently, he was too faultless, and therefore envied above all else, a thirst for being the same almost overcoming his brother’s voracious appetite for all things edible. Normally, he would have basked in this different outlook from his father’s flawed opinion of him, but the fists weren’t exactly a welcome bit of the deal. It wasn’t like he relished being hit in the face or anywhere else for that matter.41

Kevin became slowly but surely rounder in the years going into his twenties. He stayed at home and watched his brother turn into a fragile, thin young boy and envied him more each day. He took to beating Kabuki numerous times, in attempt to maul his face, but it never succeeded. It only made the teen angrier, and by the time he was seventeen, he’d begun fighting back, giving his brother a hell of a black eye more than once.42

The older brother, like his father, possessed two sins: envy and gluttony. The teen understood envy, and knew it was easy to fall into, but gluttony just made the poor kid sick. Watching his brother made him have to turn away in disgust, lest he get ill from merely watching his brother engorge his waist size by inhaling whatever he could. It was nauseating to the very least.43

The idea for Kevin’s elimination had come to him one night staring at the ceiling of his small bedroom. He was twiddling his thumb, listening to the snoring of his brother in the room next to him, and the very sound was making him feel unwell. He sighed, the ceiling becoming overly fascinating until his mind drifted, for some reason, to poisons. He tilted his head a bit and reminded himself to go to the library in the morning.44

Kabuki remembered the next day and stole away from the sin-ripe house for a few hours as he looked up poisons that he could possibly use. He looked through book after book for odorless, tasteless poisons, but didn’t find anything for a few hours. He didn’t mind so much, however, since he was out and away from the house. His mind was working overtime until…45

Remembering the day he’d searched pesticides for hours to find the one poison he’d found in the books, he looked for the ingredient in countless mixtures of silent and deadly killers, finally coming upon the right bottle, he grinned ever so slightly, eyeing it and beginning to make preparations.46

After the removal of his parents that fateful day, Kabuki went back into the kitchen after dispatching his mother, skirting around the mass of blood seeping from his father’s carcass. He opened the refrigerator, and pulled out a small well-frosted cake, which had been hand-made by Kabuki, made with just enough strychnine, the odorless, tasteless poison he’d found through hours of research, to make the young man keel over within hours. He knew his brother would completely overlook the slight tinge of bitter aftertaste to get to the next bite of sweetness.47

He went upstairs to find his brother in his room defiling a whole pizza by himself. Kabuki gave a laugh at the pathetic display, and his brother started, and the younger of the two fought the urge to recoil from the man in front of him.48

‘What do you want?’ he asked harshly, his mouth still full, and Kabuki smirked, saying nothing, but walking closer into the stench of his brother’s living space, breathing deeply beforehand as he held the cake perched in his hand with a slight tilt of his head.49

‘To offer a peace,’ Kabuki said sweetly, much like the cake in his hands, offering the food to his brother. He knew Kevin couldn’t resist the lure of something so sinfully sweet and sticky, so to play straight into his brother’s hand, the older of the two grabbed it and shoved his brother out of the room, beginning to gorge on it.50

Kevin offered a muttered, insincere, ‘Thanks,’ and turned his attention to the sickening morsel in front of him. Little did he know that it would really make him sick, and hopefully kill him.51

‘You’ll be sorry later,’ Kabuki mumbled to himself as he bowed out from the room. He waited outside for a couple of minutes before he heard his brother retching violently. He grinned and walked away from the horrid sounds.52

Annabelle Aldaine
Kabuki wasn’t lustful enough, or told Annabelle she was pretty enough; those were his sister’s complaints. She wanted him to douse her in counterfeit compliments, while her eyelashes batted ever so falsely, making him want to retch at the very thought. He did indulge her sometimes, with an acid tone behind them that burned her.53

Annabelle got worse over his teen years, putting numerous mirrors up in her room, surrounding her. She began bringing her men home to execute her lustful endeavors in her mirror-filled bedroom. Her clothing became less and less, and she became more catty, snapping at Kabuki whenever she got the chance. She had even tried to come onto him once or twice, to which he threw her off, once into the wall, which cracked under her weight combined with Kabuki’s growing force.54

That day, though, he decided to have a little fun with his dear, sweet sister before he killed her like he did the rest of his family. He heard her come home and he moved to stand by her bedroom door, watching her ascend the stairs as he left his brother’s room, hearing the choking sounds intensify then diminish.55

‘Hi,’ he said smoothly. She looked at him accusingly, eyeing him suspiciously before she returned his greeting with her own version.
‘What do you want?’ she spat. She could see Kabuki’s eyes flash madly and her brows furrowed in front of his eyes, confused for a moment.56

‘To give you what you want,’ the teen purred softly, his voice quite opposite to the look in his eye, and his sister gave a slightly surprised look to him, suspicious for a moment, before it seemed the lust in her black heart overcame the suspicion and she stepped closer to him, their lips barely touching. He whirled them around and pinned his sister to the wall, pressing his body against hers, hearing her moan, and he very nearly drew back. He smirked ever so slightly as he backed her into the bedroom, glancing at the mirrors with a menacing grin, an idea popping into his head. He backed her onto the bed, feeling her body arch under his and he growled slightly.57

‘Stay where you are,’ he purred again and she just arched her body against his with a breathless gasp. He rolled his eyes and moved to one of her mirrors, sliding two fingers beneath the glass and breaking off a piece of it. He grinned slightly and moved back over to her, sliding the piece of glass down her body, cutting open the sparse clothing as well as making a faint trickle of blood spring up, which he promptly licked away, watching her bend her body beneath him, moaning like the whore she was.58

Oh, the queen of lust and pride, bent to his will, giving into him. He loved watching it as she writhed beneath his touch, though he wasn’t turned on in the slightest. He chuckled lowly as he took her wrists into his hand, moving them above her head as he shifted above her, barely touching her body as the slick surface of the mirror touched her crotch, making her gasp in pain as the overly sensitive flesh below was split mercilessly. Finding he liked the sound, he moved it again with a slight snarl.59

‘What are you doing?’ she breathed, her voice laced with the pain as her hips bucked to try and get away from her brother as she asked the second question, ‘what do you want?’60

‘To break every bone in that ugly little body of yours,’ he muttered; he grabbed her wrist again with the hand not holding the mirror poised at her birthplace, pressing against it so hard he heard the satisfying crack of the break of her carpals under his thumb. He heard her scream, and it was sickly satisfying.61

‘Why’d you do that?’ she whimpered, once her long shriek was finished. He just gave her a deep grin, showing the depth of his menace as his long hair fell in front of his eyes, cutting the icy stare.62

‘To prove you’re not better than me,’ he growled, as he pressed the glass deeper into her slick flesh, making her scream shrilly again, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she seemed to be enjoying this. ‘You think you’re the best thing in this world. You’re a forced sore on the face of humanity. You hear me? You make this world worse than it already is! You all do!’63

‘And what about you?’ she attempted to challenge in a meek tone. He smirked at the pure fear and unadulterated pain dripping from her voice; he relished it.64

‘I just get pissed off because of the way you fuckers treat me, that’s what about me,’ he snapped quietly, muttering in her ear by this time. ‘No one should have to live as I did.’65

‘And what are you going to do about it?’ she asked, looking up at him. The menacing expression crossed his face once more.66

‘Kill you, for one,’ he replied factually, dropping the shard, grabbing one side of her jaw, the back of her head and swinging her head full-force into the pillow before she could do anything to stop him. He felt the bones give way under the force and he grinned, letting her go. She fell limp beneath him, her eyes glazed over with confusion and terror at how quickly her life had ended. He felt no remorse, only contentment as he pulled himself away from her, watching the bleeding slow, as he spat, ‘You’re disgusting. I never would have slept with you. Whore.’67

Family Ties
Now, to execute the last of this, Kabuki thought, walking out into the garage, away from the corpses he’d left in his wake. He had kidnapped a homeless sixteen-year-old boy, and had tied him to one of the pillars that held the garage up. He was struggling; how quaint.68

‘So, is there a reason you can’t find a place to live, anywhere?’ he asked in a soft voice as he entered the garage, and the boy started, looking up at his captive with wide eyes, and Kabuki bathed in the pure fear.69

‘It’s just easier this way,’ the young boy said nervously, and the teen’s lips picked up into a grin as he shook his head.70

‘That’s what I thought; you probably ran away because your parents wouldn’t buy you whatever the fuck you wanted, right?’ Kabuki accused, his young eyes glittering with the first signs of madness.71

‘N-no!’ the boy exclaimed, seemingly upset that someone had judged him like so. ‘They just didn’t love me anymore.’72

‘Mine never loved me, yet I stayed,’ Kabuki rebuked. ‘What good is running away? You just end up like this, kid. You’re selfish and you want everything to go your way.’ He smirked a little. ‘Emotional gluttony.’ It was as if he was justifying the impending death of the boy in front of him.73

‘Are you going to kill me?’ the boy asked, his voice almost a squeak. Kabuki nodded slowly, a deep chuckle bubbling in the back of his throat.74

‘Smart kid,’ he replied. ‘I’m going to torch you, leave my I.D. on you, and pull out all your teeth so they can’t trace your dental records, so they think you’re me. So I’m legally dead.’75

‘You’re twisted, man,’ the boy commented in a weak voice, Kabuki’s grin widened and he cocked his head to the side slightly.76

‘Thanks,’ he replied simply. He grabbed a gas can, and doused the boy with it. He was squirming, trying to get away. He slipped his driver’s license into the struggling teen’s back pocket with one slick movement.77

‘No, no, please!’ the boy begged, and it just intrigued the teen as he flashed a grin that barely concealed the menace behind the expression.78

‘Please what?’ Kabuki inquired, stopping a moment to look genuinely interested, but in his hand he had already sparked the lighter and lit the boy’s ragged clothing on fire. ‘Please don’t scream too much.’79

But of course, the boy screamed, up until his lungs and vocal chords were too blackened to make any noise, and at this point, Kabuki doused him in water, removed his teeth roughly and dragged him into the house, laying him beside the ragged corpse of his father.80

By this time, the screams had attracted attention. Kabuki grabbed a kitchen knife and scraped at the fingerprints with the dull edge of the knife, spilling some of his own blood beside the charred remains of the boy. He was beginning to attempt the removal of his fingerprints by doing this, though he knew burning would be much more effective. It would take a long time for them to disappear completely, but it was a step in the right direction he supposed.81

With this, he stole out of the house, and Jame Aldaine was pronounced dead with the rest of his family, as the clever teen had planned. Kabuki had become an apprentice to an old woman who dealt in witchcraft and other taboo things in the past few years. She knew him as Kabuki and nothing else. She died months after his family, and she willed it all to him, including an old estate, and a rather large trust that she never touched. He inherited everything, which kept him out of society’s eye, and well endowed with the bare necessities.82

This is the inception of Kabuki Scarlet.