At the outset of chapter 15, I legitimately thought for a moment that Kaito was actually trying to recruit Naomi. I thought his reference to “a rehabilitation program” was the OFUs . . . but it didn’t quite sound right, and he was smiling a bit too much, using his power on lines that shouldn’t have needed it, if he were being honest . . . It’s actually a very tense scene to read, knowing that neither party can fully be trusted. This whole story has shaped up into quite a classical tragedy: Naomi absolutely could have been recruited and reformed, but Kaito’s ignorance of his community, and Tanner’s focus on the assassination, cut the agents off from pursuing that safer, simpler goal. From Naomi’s end, the second Kaito’s betrayal was revealed, she instantly relapsed into abusing her control of the narrative to stop them, instead of trying to communicate with them the way a fully-fledged character would. The whole chapter makes for quite a confrontation! And it’s rare to see a failed mission, so getting to read one is a unique experience! Your humanizing of Naomi throughout makes it all the more interesting, because even though she “won” from the perspective of a PPC mission, it’s still a bad ending for her, and not what she actually wants now.
Tanner has issues! I mostly viewed him as pathetic up until now, but his failure to even consider recruitment over assassination, plus the fact that he was hiding his inexperience within the department from Kaito, actually make him rather troublingly incompetent, rather than just having self esteem issues. I didn’t appreciate him dropping the B-word against a female character, either, though I get the feeling that was him trying to psyche himself up to be able to stab her? Still kind of gross.
The idea to have Naomi write a mini-plotline to get the remote activator from the airplane to the agents was an exceptionally clever one!
I take it the string that connected Kaito’s nose to Naomi is the mission itself?
—doctorlit, hi diddly ho neighborino