Rikunai: Genesis

Prologue

"Is something troubling you, Akimicha?" A man wearing a black kimono said as he paced over to his brother, sitting next to him on the ground up against the trunk of an autumn-touched tree. A leaf fell from the tree and landed on the man's head. He gently brushed it off and watched as the golden leaf drifted to the ground to join its friends next to Akimicha.

"I'm just tired," Akimicha replied as he tapped his fingers ahead of him. White wisps of light came from his fingertips and gently flowed to a rock several meters away. His face softened and his posture loosened as he sighed, bringing the rock to him with his powers. "Why are you awake this early, Antachi?"

"I could say the same to you." Antachi chuckled and ruffled his black hair. The blue streak of hair running through it reflected daybreak, forming a shine on his silky, messy hair.

"I couldn't sleep." Akimicha fiddled with the rock in his hands, subtly admiring the smoothness of the structure. He looked to his other hand as he instantly took a piece out of the ground with his mind and molded it to be a perfect visual replica of the stone he had pulled to him.

"I thought you said you were tired?" Antachi stretched his arms out and yawned, admiring the beauty of their island, Rikunai. The distant ocean reminded him of the barriers around the forever isolated island. Well, not forever, as there were minor cracks that could be exploited in the barrier, but to anyone outside, no matter what technology or tactics they used, no one could detect or enter the island of Rikunai, about the size of the future state of California, in the Pacific Ocean. People would pass through one side and appear out the other side, and no one inside could escape, either. Antachi knew that they only created this barrier to protect their people from the outside world, a world that would undoubtedly fear and eventually hunt Rikunians because of the brothers and their descendants who could be powerful enough to level nations. However, he still wondered if it was the right thing to do. He knew that the settlers from Japan who colonized this land centuries before would never have their descendants meet their brethren again, something that made Antachi feel incredibly guilty, despite the extreme safety the barrier provided to them from the outside world and vice versa.

Akimicha fell silent as the rocks in his hands instantly turned to water. Electricity crawled through the spherical mass of water in his hand before it collapsed back into his hand like magic and turned into a blazing flame that somehow didn't burn his palish palm. The fire illuminated his green eyes as his white hair flowed in the wind. He ignored his brother as he quietly observed the flame.

"Akimicha?" Antachi leaned over and looked at his brother. Akimicha extinguished the flame and met his siblings' worried gaze.

"Sometimes you can't sleep even when you are tired." Akimicha simply uttered as he stood up, adjusting his white kimono.

"I see." Antachi warmly smiled and hopped to his feet. His smile softened as his gaze shifted to the ground. "That's not all, is it?"

"I'm fine, brother. I just needed some fresh air. I've... I've had a lot on my mind recently."

"Like Mokushiroku?"

"Yes." Akimicha shifted his gaze to the horizon as the morning winds billowed his kimono. "We have no idea where he is, and what he's doing with that monster he created. How could he even manage to accumulate that much Reiki into something like that?"

Antachi shook his head slowly and tried to put on a smile. Twenty years before this conversation, in 1348, the brothers discovered their ability to manipulate a substance inside of their bodies that they called Reiki. They sensed it in everything around them, from plants, other people, and inanimate objects, and even the air they breathed had traces of this strange substance that could exist in any state of matter. In people, it flowed almost like blood, providing life to cells in an unexplainable way. It could hold unfathomable amounts of energy within, enough to reshape molecules and create a myriad of different types of objects, energy, and general matter. The brothers were so far the only ones able to manipulate Reiki, well, besides him, but they realized this was likely because the Reiki inside of them was much different from a normal person's extremely low amount of it. For one, the brothers possessed many millions of times more Reiki than a normal human. Reiki was hyper-concentrated inside of them, and their muscles were lined with reserves that held this incredible source of power. For two, the Reiki within them was divine, connected to a higher power that they barely understood themselves.