Kirei is the power of the body, the power of hard work.
I kind of like kireishi. See, you can’t choose to be a saireishi or a parreishi, not really. To have sairei, you have to be born with it. You must practice to use it properly, but you either get it or you don’t. It’s all genetics. As for parrei, sure, you can choose which god to worship and you can even choose whether or not to become a priest. But you still can’t choose to get parrei. If you become a Light priest on a Light world, you assume you’re going to get parrei, I suppose, but that still is nothing like kirei.
Kireishi are the mightiest warriors. They train all their lives. Their bodies first and foremost, but their minds too. A person can get strong without kirei, and plenty do, but kirei takes the body to an entirely new level. There are physiological limits on the body that kirei can be used to move past. There are stories about kireishi running faster than a hoverbike or jumping up to a third-story window or similar feats.
The kireishi are secretive. You can’t teach yourself kirei — or at least, no one has so far. You need a master to guide you, to show you how to go from an amazing athlete or warrior into a kireishi. The kireishi guard their secrets jealously, and only a handful of people get lucky enough to have the chance to learn kirei. While individual, fully-trained kireishi go out into the galaxy, most of them cluster together in one spot. That’s where they live and where they train new kireishi.
Kireishi must be Neutral. That has nothing to do with the gods, but everything with the kireishi themselves. The masters insist on a person being Neutral. If you aren’t, they won’t train you. The kireishi, the masters say, must be independent operatives, beholden only to the kireishi vows (which include being Neutral). Kireishi will work for the Light, the Gray, or the Dark, but only on a short-term basis.
It isn’t that much different from a person dedicating themselves to a god and becoming a priest. Kirei instead dedicate themselves to their art, to one another, and to staying Neutral. It feels different to me, though. Maybe I’m just romanticizing it. If I could choose, I think I’d like to be a kireishi.
