Yeah, you have a point. Really, I'm glad that Kagami didn't suddenly pull a 'Yuu is suddenly a mastermind' sort of thing and is instead sticking to his guns of 'Yuu has no idea what he's doing, but he sure is doing it'. I wasn't expecting that Yuu would suddenly become a mastermind or anything, but I was a bit worried that Yuu would suddenly have some half-baked plan in mind that would just work out because he's the protagonist you know? I'm much happier to see that his plan is to not plan and let Mika, who is way better at this kind of thing, do it. Sure, it's a bit concerning since Mika's just in the dark about the interworkings of everything as Yuu is, but it's a much better alternative.

And, before I dive into the rest of what you said, I'm happy to see them finally trying to set outside of the role of being a pawn. Outside of it showing some character growth for Yuu (kinda), it reflects Guren's story. Yuu and Guren have always had parallels, but Yuu is finally starting to step away from being a pawn, something Guren (arguably) has never really been able to do. Guren tried his damnedest to stop being a pawn in his story. He even also took the approach of 'either we achieve our goal or we die trying', but, in the end, he failed on both accounts because he cared too much. Maybe you could argue he's no longer a pawn with his current resurrection goals, but I'm specifically referring to Catastrophe at 16's story when I say this. Yuu is now essentially in that same position, but I have a feeling that, unlike Guren, he'll be able to break free from his role and actually achieve his goal. It's a very good 'the student surpasses the mentor' type thing. It'd be interesting to see if it's just because Yuu has more protagonist powers than Guren (a.k.a there's no particular reason Yuu succeeds when Guren failed; it just be what it is), or if it's because, unlike Guren, Yuu is able to sacrifice people more easily. As Yuu alludes to here and we saw last chapter, Yuu apparently has no qualms in killing(?) people he considers friends and has called family before. That could certainly play a role in Yuu taking a different path than Guren. However, you didn't really bring any of this up so this is a huge digression from your ask. Sorry about that! Moving on.

Say what you will about OnS, but it always fits in time for little character moments like that. It's fun to see.

To be honest, I don't have much to add to your last paragraph there as yeah, it's an interesting way to read that part of their argument and I can relate. I'll tackle the last bit of it though. For full disclosure, I feel I should say that I don't personally ship YuuNoa, but have no problems with it. If it became canon I just wouldn't be surprised bc that's how most stories like this go. But now into what I intend to say.

Mmm. Honestly, I do think applying "the baiting word" (I've never seen anyone avoid saying it so that made me laugh. thank you truly LOL) is a fair thing to do if that were to happen. The word does get used maybe a little too liberally as fans hype themselves up for a possible gay romance a bit too much sometimes (and I am very guilty of this myself. Don't get me wrong. I too wear my rose-tinted 'no one is straight' glasses at all times), but OnS is pretty heavy-handed with the subtext sometimes, whether it means to be or not. There are a lot of things I could point to with this, but the most glaring one was what happened in this chapter with comparing Yuu's feelings for Mika with his feelings for Shinoa. It's not even something that's exclusive to this chapter, though I don't think it's been this blatant before. Really, the amount of times the love that the protag (I'm grouping Guren in with this bc what he has going on with Mahiru and Shinya is incredibly comparable to what these three have going on) has for their best friend is compared to the love they have/should have with their LI is too great to count. For Yuu in particular though?

Numerous straight romances in shounen (other genres as well, but particularly shounen) feel forced due to the protag having more chemistry with the male (or female if the protag is not male) cast than their straight LI as romance is usually more of an undertone/side thing than the focus (though there are more reasons than that that I won't get into for length purposes), but usually, there's some build-up even if it's a poor excuse for relationship development. For Yuu and Shinoa that's not really the case. Yuu has never shown romantic interest in Shinoa, so it shouldn't be a surprise to see it confirmed here. Any romantic moments from them are only portrayed/seen as such from Shinoa's perspective, so I'm inclined to agree with you that it'd feel very off at this point in time for Yuu to end up with Shinoa. The story isn't over, so there's still time for feelings to build on Yuu's end of things, but right now? Yeah, there isn't anything there for Yuu. His feelings for Mika, romantic or otherwise, are stronger than his feelings for Shinoa.

But I do feel it's worth bringing up that, just because Yuu doesn't have romantic feelings for Shinoa rn doesn't mean MikaYuu will be canon. Who knows, we might end up with Yuu with no one (which would make more sense than YuuNoa at this point in time).