I am my brother's twin. He is mine. From the very beginning, though all our years of childhood, through all the countless days of training in the martial arts, through the evenings filled with dreams of them, up to this moment, we have been and are.

Though we have experienced precisely the same training, we have each come to see and learn opposites. I have always been concerned with form, the proper movement, the proper stance. My training has taught me to see, to rely upon the foundation that is the form of the forms we learn. My brother has always cared little for form, believing that freedom from it is what allows development of self, of ki. The same training has taught him the true unimportance of form and the importance of what this form reflects. We have always been at friendly odds over our views: "If there were no foundation, the house we live in could not stand," I have often told him. "If there were no reason to live, what need would there be for house or foundation?"

Now, tonight, we are practicing kyuudou. I see myself in his eyes as he notices the target and lets it slip from his mind. I notice his stance is just slightly wider than perfect, his hanging arrow just slightly off perpendicular, his belt knot a bit off center. As he raises his hands to draw the bow to set his hara now, it is clear he knows what I am thinking. I hear his answer without words. The bow is drawn, the target smiles, the kiai rings as the arrow flies.

He sees himself in my eyes as I rise from seiza and walk slowly up to the target, now perfect rings in all directions from where the arrow lies. I know what he is thinking, what we are about to do. As my right hand reaches for the arrow, behind me I see his action without eyes. And knowing, still I wrap my fingers around the arrow to pull. His second arrow flies now; its head lightly shaves my forearm very slowly from elbow to wrist and dies embedded so near the first-born that feathers flutter together and touching, stop.

I turn now and, as the first drop of blood lets go of its home and falls without sound, my brother's eyes speak in unison with his words: "We are only able to interact this way because we are in harmony."


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