Oh good, Micchi can get a nosebleed from SAN damage in a safe environment.
I get the impression that Micchi staying in the dark another volume is important; she has to confess (and maybe
confess) to Aizawa without the confidence of knowing what she is to Aizawa. Maybe Micchi can handle Tear's evidence she already knew Aizawa but I don't see Micchi investigating her own past yet.
Kasumi on the other hand is oddly positioned to be the only one other than Karasuma with a solid idea about what's happening. It'd be a bit refreshing to use her as an anchor character for working out the mystery considering no one else is able to.
- Her girlfriend has a supernatural sensory syndrome where she's not making any damn sense. She's not insane, rather Sayaka has proved kind of reasonable for someone who never slowed down to accept criticism about her sensory lifeworld. Where people stretch, fly, pass through walls, are hunted by dark entities, sneak into operating others bodies like bio mechs, and all that other normal mundane human stuff.
- Karasuma and Tear aren't present. And they're on their own quest, which nicely modulates the kind of on fire no brakes panic that the idol plot line has become. This is yuri mystery not slasher.
- And Micchi is more interesting as someone slowly coming to terms with evidence instead of someone quickly processing revelations about herself. She can learn but the pacing won't let her act confidently yet. I could be wrong, she is trying. But the wards have been so forceful that I think we need more wind up before she can manage to say "I see you, Aizawa-san". If Micchi isn't forced to accept major revelations this next meeting, and her current growth stays without inserting a new arc, maybe as soon as end of this volume.
- No one else is reliable.
So that's my expectation. Micchi won't be able to process 100% of the next meeting, and Kasumi is unwillingly promoted to lead detective / breaching the masquerade for us readers. Which is maybe a bit super extra helpful to readers who want to be kept up to date without explainer pages.
Kasumi had always been the intelligent girl grounding us in what supernatural looks like to a skeptic friend,
which is functionally impossible now. This is her volume to put together the basics in ways Micchi probably can't, and not because Kasumi wants to but because she's seeing a lot of what we're seeing (AND can tell it's not mundane). This is inescapable if Kasumi needs supernatural guarding for the foreseeable future.
I know this isn't exactly a new view of what Kasumi's new role is, it's more that she's about to breach the masquerade so to speak.
Now I'm psyched about the next chapter. Does this meeting give as many answers as it can? Or does it raise more questions, keeping Micchi's gradual growth a bit longer before crisis changes her?