Year of the Boar, Thirteenth Month, Day 29.

 I know Suzuki is doing it on purpose so we all give up and stay in our beds where he thinks we all belong but I cannot deny that I do want to give up. Three days is all it took. Three. Days. My body no longer wants to do as it is told. My joints ache far more from this gruelling exercise than they ever did when I walked for miles and miles across the Kingdom. I suppose I do not have the blisters I had then but that is about the only thing making this any better than my travels on foot.

Suzuki is positively evil to us. He scorns our efforts and actually dared to call Kaede a 'puny little girl'. Yuika would have had him thrown to the wolves for that but Kaede merely grimaced and tried again. I gaped at her, wondering when she would tell him off for the disrespect but she said nothing. I managed to place my feet correctly once this morning which earned me a sniff from Suzuki which I supposed was his way of saying well done. Haru is doing the best of the three of us and seems to understand where her hands are supposed to go quite well; she got a nod out of Suzuki which seemed like high praise indeed.

I spent a long while soaking in the bath after our session today; thank the gods that Kaede allows me to use her personal bath house so I could relax my aching bones in peace. Kaede and I had a brief conversation while we bathed. She is preoccupied with the Solstice preparations so she says but I wonder if there is something else bothering her. I suppose that I do not know her well enough to understand whether she means what she says or whether I should interpret it in some other way. Time will tell, I expect. She did ask about the intel and I had to admit that I had not found out anything useful. I told her that I would keep trying but I could say nothing further without letting her in on my own secrets and that... I do not want to do.