It's hard not to miss Konatsu, because the scenes with Koyuki and Konatsu together really crackle--it's not just a "progress" thing, with me, anyway.
But the Kaede arc has been another one of those low-key subversions of expectations that I've come to value in this series. Usually a character like her is used mechanically at this point--i.e., she would just be a way to move the plot along by intervening in the relationship between the main characters (like Koyuki is asking her to do). Kaede finds that she can't bring herself to do it, though, for perfectly understandable reasons.
BUT, the whole thing makes her reflect on her own situation--what it means to be moving up while the senpai move on, what her sisters leaving has meant to her, etc. So we get some real character development that echoes that of the main characters without distracting from it.
I don't expect any real drama with her, even if the end of this chapter hints at it--as I keep pointing out, she's already in a committed friendship with Yamagishi.
