This is a continuation of 'MY PROMISE', I'd suggest you read that
first, as it will be difficult to understand this without reading MP.
all characters are copyrighted by whoever owns them, and it ain't me.


                                     Acting


        I walk home, licking my perverbial wounds, and reflected on my day.
I went to school, fought, lost, and spend the rest of the day lying.  Home,
I see it's large visage looming ahead of my feet, and here, here is the
place where I can be myself.  No lies, no hiding, no nothing.  Just me.
        I enter the house, and walk to my room.  Lying there on the bed, I
reflect on my life.  How much of it was truth and how much was lies?  I ask
myself.  How much have I lost just to satisfy honour?  Have I gained
anything?  Heh, starting to sound like that sister.  My life, what good has
it brought?  Why do I do what I do?
        I sit on my bed, trying not to feel the two cracked ribs, witnesses
to my day at school.  Around and around the thought goes, and I have yet to
find a satasfactory answer.  How did he find me?  The one who holds my
honour in the balance?  If I find the answer to that, I can find the answer
to my question.  I close my eyes, I'm so tired.  I can't even escape the
thought here, the world of dreams.  Why do I do what I do?
        I wake to feeling of something warm on my chest.  Opening my eyes, I
can see that it's her.  Her, who also has a part to play.  Her part is easy,
just chase after him, but do it in such a way to drivev him away.  I
remember her practicing, for hours on end, the perfect laugh to scare him.
I must admit, it works, even on me.  The warm thing is a cloth; she's
tending to my wounds.  Her, the one who had to turn her high intellegence to
Chemistry, Medicine, and botany to make her part belevable.  Her, my sister.
Why, oh why, did I do it?  Why did I swear to help him?  What have I done?
        Answers.  I need answers.  Where do I get my answers?  Where else,
but the scroll?  The scroll that ruined my life, her life, all lives
involved.  I lever myself out of the bed, feeling every injured muscle cry
out in protest.  I ignore them as I set my mind on the job at hand.  How
ironic, the focus I use to make my lies convincing, is helping me in real
life.  Why did I do it?
        Walking to the locked door, the door that hasn't been opened in
years.  The slim piece of paper hanging off the door, just hanging there,
mocking me. I don't lie everyday of my life, it says.  Not even
acknowledging it's presence, I reach out to the little box sitting on a
shelf beside the door.  Running over my fingers, I allow myself the moment
to reflect, and then focus myself on the job at hand.  Again, the lies are
helping me.
        Reaching into the box, I pull out the rusted key that has lived
there for years innumerable.  The rough metal sitting in my hands, the one
thing that can answer my questions for good.  I slide the old thing into the
lock, and like two lovers that haven't seen each other in years, they hook
together, and hold on.  A swift twist of my wrist opens the door that has
been lock for centuries.  Everyone wondered why my family always lived in
the same house, and the reason was this set of stairs infront of me now.
Air, fresh air, hasn't been in this room for so long, that I'm afraid the
paper will crumble with my touch.
        At the bottom of the stairs, I find what I'm looking for.  I bend
down to pick it up, and my wounds scream in pain.  Laughing to myself, I
realise that I have a secret far more massive than the one I spin lies for.
The fools, they think that I'm a simple Kendoist; they think the she is only
good with weapons.  They don't even realise that we know so much more.  Part
of my answer, I realise.  My family has an art of fighting that goes back,
to before recorded time.  Over the eons, it's evolved to it's modern form.
I use this family art to make myself the best Kendoist out there, while HE,
he walks around figuring himself to be the best in the world.  If I were to
put my sword down and take him on, I would probably win.  He doesn't realise
how lucky he is that I have to lie about how good I am.  Why do I do it?
        The scroll, the explainer is waiting for me.  It's age-old words are
gleaming at me as if they were printed just yesterday.  I spend hours there,
just sitting and reading.  Reading about how my ancestor, the best in his
time, was loosing to a pack of hired ronin.  He would have been killed
because he didn't teach his art, when a stranger appeared and defeated the
adversaries, saving my ancestors life.  My ancestor was very much answerable
to honour, and honour demanded him to thank the stranger.  I swear to serve
you, and your children, and your childrens children, and my entire line will
live by this promise.  
        We was raised to belive in this ideal, in this promise.  My parents
had been raised that way, and their parents, and so on.  She and I hold
honouring that age-old promise as more important than our lives.  I never
thought that I would have to honour it, but the decendant of the stranger
found me, o so many years ago, and he held me to that promise.  There is my
answer.
        I made the promise, and I do what I do, to satisfy my honour.  My
life is of no consciquence,  Our lives.  The only thing that matters is
keeping the promise.

end