The Creation Theory
As most good things ours begins with a story.
The Shinto Shrine has seen better days. It looks as though none have inhabited it for centuries yet the decaying structure still stands, the cobblestones of the courtyard pitted and broken by water and growing plants. The growth of the trees and shrubs is wildly unchecked, giving the path to the shrine a cover of interweaving branches making sure that no light gets through. Standing yards before the old gate a tree leans heavily against a rotting torii making the old gateway creak and moan, sounding for all the world like the cries of the lost and damned.. The only thing not marred by age or eaten by time is a symbol set in the center of the aging door to the shrine. It is the symbol of yin and yang but it is...off. It has crimson and azure instead of black and white. And where the color of one would be in the other deep purple is instead, both colors slowly fading through the spectrum to the deep purple of the dot inside of them. The door swings open at approach, the great hinges silent as the grave. The inside of the shrine is a stark contrast to the decrepit outside. The inside is well looked after, polished dark wood floors absorb the meager light given off by candles and incense prayer sticks lit at an altar meant to honor two goddesses. One half is crafted from silver and sapphire, holding the soft pale glow and the gentle beauty of the moon. This altar is to the moon Goddess Tsukuyomi. The other half of the altar is made of gold and ruby, one boggles at how such an abundance of the materials was found to be used in the construction. The golden side holds a fierce radiant beauty like that of the sun. This altar is to the sun Goddess Amaterasu. Both show signs of regular use. But something more calls from deeper in the shrine. A door to the side of the shrine opens and the presence beckons. The room is empty save for a singular item hanging in mid air. A scroll.
The tattered scroll hangs on the air, waves of magic both holy and unholy coming off of it. This artifact is clearly not of this world but neither is it part of the restraining concepts of Heaven or Hell. The scroll burns to the touch, the paper so cold that it puts fire to shame with it's heat leaving burns on the unwary and the undeserving. The scroll slowly unrolls just enough for a careful reader to lean in and read the story of the pair that penned it. A tragedy and transformation. A desperate bid to escape the past:
Kami and Oto were born in Japan and abandoned as children. They spent their lives drifting from place to place, begging for food and water and shelter. Until they were taken in by a group of monks. There they learned to worship the Goddesses of Sun and Moon, Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi. At the monastery they learned to play their instruments, the shamisen and flute. When they finally left the monastery, no longer able to hold back their inner nomad, they spent several years struggling to survive and barely getting by even with the money they earned while playing.
Then they met her.
Her name was Misaki and she became their teacher and so very much more. She taught them all about the body, how to fight with it, how to please it. They lived with her and were happier than they had ever been. They finally had someone who loved them and who they loved back. It was like a never ending happy fairy tale.
But all fairy tales must come to an end.
Sadness, true bottomless sadness the kind that keeps souls awake at night wondering what could have been done what should have been done radiates more and more from the words. Then came that terrible day where it was all taken from them. They had gone to the city to buy the week's supplies for the household. They came across a young woman under attack by a number of shall we say less than reputable persons. Using the skills that Misaki had taught them, they chased away her attackers. As they began to leave the woman asked them wait. She didn't feel safe alone. So they took her back to her house and used the techniques of pleasure to make sure that the woman would sleep easier and be at peace. When they woke the next morning it was as though the flood gates of the heavens had opened, the pass home was flooded out and they couldn't return home. The words begin to jump and shake. Finally the water receded and they raced home, Misaki's safety the only thought in their minds. Only to find home was buried under rocks and mud. They spent hours calling her name and digging through it but found nothing. Nothing but the broken body of their teacher. They buried her as respectfully as they could. Leaving the one place they had truly ever called home.
Even now they are haunted by the memories that constantly dwell just beneath the surface. The feeling of the mud under their fingernails and soaking their clothes, the pain in their fingers as they finally digged till they were raw. Then the heart rending pain of seeing Misaki's lifeless and broken body....
The scroll seems to trail off, a smattering of dark stains covering the page tears and ink having bleed as one. The writing continues though the hand has changed. It is erratic wild...maddened
Years were spent roaming the world, searching unendingly for some way, any way to bring back their beloved. They made deals that they still regret to this day. They did things that would make the most soulless of daemons shudder and cringe. All in the pursuit of the one person in the world that had made them happy. Without her they had no core. They were adrift and dead inside. They cared not for others and stole to live on, killed when anyone or anything got in their way. They searched and searched, their bodies slowly aging and the years taking from them the vitality they had once had.
But it was all in vain...
They returned to Japan, their bodies broken and their hearts empty. They visited the grave of Misaki, tenderly touching the marker as they knew that even now they would never be able to join her in the afterlife. What they had done no goddess would forgive. So they made a vow. Carving the words into their backs with the aid of a tattoo artist. But there was no ink used. No anesthesia applied. They bit their tongues as line by line the kanji were written in acid upon their backs.
We vow to never rest until we have atoned for our sins. Until we are found worthy by our goddesses to be accepted into the afterlife. This we swear by fire and water. By earth and air. By the void that connects them all. We so swear.
And so they left the marker the people behind and searched for more. They tried every way they found to become immortal. So that they would never die and would continue on until they were forgiven by their goddesses. Years passed and still they found nothing. Then....one of the beings whom they made a deal with came to collect. They refused to give the payment and so were punished by this powerful being, who even now haunts their darkest nightmares. They had the one thing they cherished most stripped from them. The memories of Misaki and the time they had spent with her.
They thought themselves incapable of feeling more pain. They were never so wrong...
Their quest continued only now they sought power as well as immortality, power enough to conquer the demon and reclaim that which was lost, no matter the cost. Their search took on a maddening desperation and neither can remember, or would divulge what had occurred if they could, what happened. All they recall is finding a ruined shrine. A shrine that held answers and that in later centuries became their home. Within were ancient scrolls of powerful transformative magic. Their very presence warped space and time around them. Kami and Oto knew it was their last chance. So they underwent the rituals described within. Spending a year and a day forging weapons of unspeakable power. Kami brought into being a physical incarnation of water's mercurial temperament, Swiftflow a yumi made of a strange blue metal, flexible as wood but stronger than steel. Deep blue leather wraps the middle and rabbits are inlaid in silver across the length of it, leaving little ripples in their wake, as if they were hopping across water. Oto put to form the pure unadulterated fury of the raging inferno, Firefang a katana inlaid with a golden wolf, haloed by flames, sheathed in a red scabbard. Red leather wraps the hilt. Upon the blade the visage of a enraged wolf, it's teeth like shards of fire.
With these weapons forged the ceremonies were complete and the twins spent the next nine years in utter agony as the transformation took place. Taking each atom of their being and slowly changing it into something more than human something that had never been seen before. As the end of the ninth year approached their minds slowly returned from the unending agony and they found themselves on the floor of the shrine only...it was no longer in ruins. It had changed inside as much as they had. A place to mirror their new forms. They had become Hifu shifut?. Rare beings that were neither god nor demon. They had become skinshifters. As unending and unlimited as time itself. They had gained a power but at a price that only became clear after the deal had been struck, the ritual completed.
They would be forever denied the peace of the human afterlife.
They wept for days and days praying to their goddesses for guidance. Finally after the twenty first day answer came in the form of a wolf and rabbit. These two emissaries told the pair of the desires of their goddesses. While they were no longer human they still had to fulfill their vows. They would be able to redeem themselves in the eyes of their love through their deeds on earth even though they would never stand at her side in the plains of the afterlife.
And so began their endless quest, a race with no end a book with no beginning...
The scroll rolls up, slowly coiling back in upon itself until it returns to it's original state. Tears formed and ran down one's face even as they read, one quickly flees the room, stopping only to light an incense prayer stick at each alter. The wind howls around one as they leave, biting a chill into one's flesh as surely as the scroll had embedded a sliver of ice in one's heart.....