Back home, Lara wasn't just the muscle behind her super-team, she has a non-super talent for figuring out just what kind of person she's dealing with. It was grown out of her killing her first super-powered encounter, and not wanting her entire career to become a killing spree.





Of course she does. That's why Lara wouldn't attempt to change that perception until VV becomes really dissatisfied with it. As long as she's happy, Lara won't bother her about it, but if she looks for a way out, now she might have a friend to help her.

From Lara's point of view, she doesn't believe that she's *always* doing the right thing. Sometimes she has to do some pretty awful things to prevent bigger awful things. She doesn't believe herself to be better than VV, only following a different path. The attempt at friendship is because she sees that VV walks that path alone.





And that's where Chiaki's warning comes in. Chiaki knows what it's like being asked to do really distasteful things because the boss requests it.

If that did happen, Lara would be disappointed. She'd probably try to offer VV a way to turn the tables on whoever hired her. She might even convince Chiaki to get involved. VV probably knows what the Psychic Samurai is capable of. And it might work simply because Chiaki knows a bad contract when she sees one, and she *will* take it up with whoever made it.





Somewhat related aside:

This is related to the hidden story of how he and Chiaki broke up because they stopped communicating. They're both incredibly stubborn people.

Chiaki has a very mellow attitude toward things like reforming people, and believes it takes a lot of time and patience, and that you have to use a nurturing approach, and allow them to choose. And she's okay with that sometimes it just doesn't work. Hatman would find that way extremely frustrating.

Hatman would think more along the lines of that it won't happen unless you believe it will happen, and unless you get the other person to believe as well. That approach is much more brute force, and has a higher initial success rate just like a salesperson's. But then Chiaki would counter with "buyer's remorse" - unless they fully embrace it, they might revert to their previous behavior.

How that relates to why they broke up is Hatman became impatient and frustrated with her over something, and she eventually stopped telling him things to avoid getting him that way, which made him even more upset. Eventually they just lost the ability to communicate at all.

Of course true to their natures, Chiaki feels it was an unavoidable tragedy, and Hatman blames himself for letting it happen. Which means even their unreconcilable differences are unreconcilable.

Initially, though, they were together because they got a peek at each other's vulnerable sides, and it was a comfort for both of them to be together when no one else really fully understood them.





There's always *some* risk. It doesn't have to be getting killed, it could be simply the risk of being rejected and mocked, or Hatman or Yuki being very upset that she'd reach out to the "other side" like that.





Lara did think about that. She's not particularly worried about the Hooded Hood - not because she feels like she knows him, but because she feels like if he had a grievance he'd take it up with her directly instead of sending a squad of assassins after her.

The others, she's not particularly intimidated by them. But for the interests of keeping the peace, if she's confronted by them she'd try to convince them that she has no intention of harming VV.





That programming might be what Lara sees as "too eager to please her boss" and what makes Cath appear to her to be too fragile.





Lara might convince VV to meet there and get her to try Violet's special cinnamon spice coffee while she talks about what it's like working with all of those minions and henchmen.








He might not do that if he knows that even though she can't talk, she'll be thinking to herself that means that she was right. Also, I believe he finds it more fun listening to what kind of creative insults she can come up with.