I appreciated that Chihiro was fleshed out a lot more as a character, even if most of it came in the very last chapter. The theme park scene between her and Nao reads a lot better when you know more about her thought processes; I feel like a lot of her more absurdly villainous self-described characterisation turns out to be more of a bluff to try and scare Nao, rather than how she actually thinks. Like, I wonder if the actual reason for her going off with Shino was actually the more cliche shojo tactic of "If I pull away, maybe she'll be more motivated and come after me herself, and I'll be able to confirm her feelings without having to put myself out there and be vulnerable". If she had been more sensitive to Aoi's actual feelings, and realised how much she was hurting, I don't think Chihiro would have kept neglecting her.
From what I saw in the last chapter, Chihiro certainly seems like an opportunist, and she's pretty damn underhanded, but she isn't actually that effective as a schemer, and she does feel empathy for other people's pain. She feels pretty shitty when she realises how miserable Aoi felt after the "just friends/make some distance" thing, and even if she hid what she knew about their feelings, she still pushed Nao to go have an honest talk with Aoi, even though she knew they'd probably get together as a result.
Honestly, more than anything, she seems like the kind of coward who'd rather act mean and be hated than be honest and risk having her inner feelings rejected. Basically, if she was short, flat chested, and had improbably long twintails, we'd have seen right through her entire character in her first scene.
Anyway, I'm pretty satisfied with how it all turned out; happy Takemiya Jin endings are what make her tragic stories bearable, and tragic Takemiya Jin stories are what make her happy endings satisfying. Thanks for working on this, Divulge Scans.
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