Hifumi & Maria Hideout: Best use of everyone's skills and experiences. The weakest choice in case of an attack on Ciel's group is the Nest itself since Rose will need protection.
This is also kind of why I dislike splitting up here.
Had one of the two vote wins, we'd enter the battle with a full deck instead of relegating two of our allies to investigative tasks that don't quite suit their strengths.
With Hifumi in our shadow and Maria being the major muscle, we would have a fairly powerful core for defense if we get attacked, while also having more heads to figure things out if we missed something during the investigations.
Personally speaking, I'm leaning towards sending Hifumi alone into the hideout (with a special note telling him to be careful just in case) to investigate things and see what's up. He's the best at entering there with stealth and exiting it before anyone notices.
I don't think Maria will be too problematic during the Nest negotiations, as long as she isn't about to go FULL DON mode and break a taboo.
I don't think it matters in this case.
It probably doesn't since Maria isn't a full Don-level idiot (I hope), but it would be nice to know which district we are in, to prepare for the inevitable war crimes or some shit.
If it's District 9 as I assumed based on the last chapter, then we are entering completely unknown territories here with I-Corp.
Like, T-Corp's color erasure is a
really crucial piece of Nest culture that could make one's eyebrows shoot through their hairline the first time you see it.
We don't even know I-Corp's singularity in our case, which could really hurt us going into it unprepared.