I was praying to Nio "Please let Touko be guiding her to the other stone... Please let her have this."
Then it was very beautiful that that was exactly what happened and when she opened her eyes Touko was congratulating her with that glorious enchanting smile. That was really great.
But in the end, Nio couldn't even allow a love confession to pass without making Touko look weak (implying that others aren't) and like a failure as a human being.
It's significant that Sayaka says: "Don't look down on me." And right after that, she is the one looking down on an imaginary Touko that Nio wants to be seen as needing Sayaka to be able to get up.
The purpose of the imagery is clear in its implication that dark-haired women aren't allowed to feel or be of even average strength or confidence, but other people are allowed to feel better than them.
Oh well, at least Sayaka finally managed to tell Touko how she feels about her, and Nio didn't take from Touko the insight she should by rights have about Sayaka's feelings.
She wants us to see Touko as someone who can so easily be read by the people close to her then it's only fair that Touko can just as easily read Yuu and Sayaka.
It's barely acceptable that she couldn't read developing feelings for her because she didn't want Yuu to develop those feelings, but I'm glad she was allowed to be at least able to read Sayaka's feelings for her. Still, it is the bare minimum. By rights, she should have been able to be aware that Sayaka loved her the way Nio wants her to be and not the person she wants to be. Since she is able to do all the things she does in spite of her background though, her being "weak" is very much up for debate. Not that that will ever come up in the story.
So it's a nice confession chapter which was sadly tainted by the strange obsessions of this industry.
It could have been even worse.
I'm curious for the next chapter, and it's nice the story isn't finished yet, but it's another letdown that Nio in this case too felt the need to go by this industry's tropes and dictates and didn't continue the story by focusing on the other very lovable characters of this manga while showing us Touko and Yuu as a lovey-dovey couple as their center.
