The reason I theorize Maki is going to die is just the straight up tonal shift with dealing with her, where before this update she was dealt with as being a generally kind of wacky but good natured person and the MC felt kind of bad about manipulating her (as generally the MC is more or less manipulating everyone, and the karma choices just decide if you're also a dick about it), this time around he's full on crushing on her. The way it's written seems to be a setup for her to be a
You must be registered to see the links
. Waiting on that heart wrenching death.
That said, it could be the chalked up to the writing being different/worse this time around, and that explains the tonal shift.