Year of the Boar, Tenth Month, Day 9.

I decided this morning, that it was high time I took matters in hand. Things cannot continue the way they have been. I am starting to question my own sanity. Yuika is like a butterfly; her mind flitting from one thing to another without stopping, every fraction of a stick a different priority. This morning, she has taken it into her head that the upcoming visit by Princess Rani is little more than a plot by Shigeru to distract her while he invades Dying Crane.
Granted, it is the type of thing he would do but I highly doubt that Shigeru's sway reaches through the Seventh and into the Sixth... but I find myself dwelling on it as if it were a real possibility... I have spent the past few sticks composing a note to Kenji to see if he can find out what contacts Shigeru has in the Sixth, if any. It is quite ridiculous... Yuika is paranoid. I know she is and to find myself taken and carried away with her wild fictions, is nonsense. And yet... what if rather than being less than sane, she is actually a tactical genius with military insight that far outstrips any I might have...? What if ... she is right...?
And if she is... what then...? Why should I even care...? I have no allegience to Dying Crane and yet... something keeps me here. I cannot simply leave Yuika to Shigeru's mercy for he would have absolutley none... and if I left while there was even the slightest possibility I could protect her from harm, that would be entirely my fault. I do not think my conscience could live with it. How I ever came to be embroiled in all of this is beyond me but in the cold light of day, I suppose it is still better than being Mother's prisoner. I think though, that once Princess Rani has gone, I will go to Purple Lightning as Father told me to. Yuika could either come with me or not; by then, I will have installed Ryouko and perhaps found a second up here. Maybe I could even try again to persuade Nanami to come back even temporarily.