Spy Kyoushitsu Vol 13 - Grete! Really? It has come down to this Klaus?

Volume 13 of Spy Kyoushitsu honestly surprised me both in a good and in a bad way by finally delivering the truth about the whole Nostalgia Project, with Veronika's involvement and why the original Homura team ended up dismantled by Guido. Basically, it addresses the entire premise of the series, but somehow it felt a bit "forced".

The story starts with Nike and other spies explaining Veronika's past and what the Nostalgia Project is. Veronika, the new leader of Homura, was a young girl who had the power to control the minds of most people, causing her to become a living weapon for her country, killing thousands and thousands of enemy soldiers and allowing a minor country like the Din Republic to survive in the war against the Galgad Empire. Her heart quickly dried up, and she ended up becoming a ruthless killing machine.

How Homura came along: first as three members, Guido, Veronika, and her teacher, and then adding the twins and the rest of the characters. The whole "we're family" suggestion from Veronika, everything was woven up to prepare for the inevitable drop when Veronika revealed her own plan.

Having Klaus on the cover of the volume was a clear signal of something going wrong, but surely wasn't expecting all this happening all of a sudden.

I'll be honest, Veronika looks amazingly good. I always imagined her as a mid-30 woman, but here she looks not much different than the heroines.

The Nostalgia Project is a project made by multiple countries to develop nuclear weapons and create peace through the risk of mutual destruction between countries. The main three would rule the world, and everyone else would be powerless to rebel against them because of the inherent risk of being bombed. Wait, am I talking about fiction or the real world here?

Regardless, it is revealed she wanted to take over the Nostalgia Project, making Homura the owner of the weapons and using them on the empire as a way to show the risk and assure peace. Guido is against it because of the implied murder of millions of innocents, and the two clashed to the point that Guido decided that murdering the rest of Homura was the best approach to stop Veronika, as she had grown to love them over the years.

Once this was revealed, the team had to decide which side to take, making it clear that any of them not voting the same would spell the end of Tomoshibi. The girls all voted for achieving the Nostalgia Project; Klaus voted against, so from this point on they are enemies. Nike dies against him almost immediately, and then he disappears.

It's been so long reading about the stories of these girls that they feel a bit like family to me as well. Hopefully we can get to a satisfying ending for all of them.

Yes, the finale of the series is clearly setting up to be the moment when the girls are able to overcome Klaus for the first time. The issue is that there's a lot more that gets revealed in the "special epilogue" that reopens threads and makes the thing muddier.

Veronika, before dying, reveals to her teacher about another secret weapon, way deadlier than the bombs, with a project called "Naraku Ningyou" (the doll from hell) that is being developed by the Din Republic. No details are given about its content, but she is entrusting her with something related to it. Back in the present, Klaus takes over the remaining "Snakes" operatives, and we get the reveal of the organization built by Veronika named Cherubim.

Now, I'm not against the "nuclear bomb" plot, but I definitely expected something more after all the secrecy and the various inter-country spy cooperation. All my hopes are now on this "Naraku Ningyou" thing to try and spice things up, but what can be riskier than nuclear bombs?

My beloved Grete gets her own CG, but considering the situation I feel girl is always getting the short end of the stick in these developments way more than the others.

Klaus rejecting Grete in that horrible way was kind of terrible; he could've simply said no in any other circumstance, but literally rejecting her right after killing Nike and leaving everyone? Even if he had his circumstances, damn, that's harsh. The poor girl will take time to fully recover. I really like Grete as a character, and I really hope she gets well soon.

Thea becoming the new leader of Tomoshibi seems fitting because of her connection with Homura and Veronika, even though I'm not fully sure she's up to the job yet, even with the time skip. I would say "Grete will support her," but the poor girl needs to recover, so it's kind of...

I'll read the next volume soon. The cover features Thea, and it'll probably reveal more information about what exactly the girls are going to fight against—maybe even a few more relaxing scenes with the heroines adapting to the new power structure. These last few volumes have been way too intense.