Hunter x Hunter 2011

[Splash!]

Besides, as much as I blame Kite for being careless, getting distracted, and losing sight of the real objective, I still think he was worlds above Uvo in intelligence... Uvo was, no matter how you look at it, a musclehead. Nevertheless, Uvo never lost his own way of living, till the end.

That being said, Kite was in a lot tougher situation than Uvo to begin with. He used his head for the most part, but ran into something completely unprecedented. Also, we never got to see Kite reflect on his actions before his death so we don't really know if he actually believed his decisions were wrong. Gon and Killua might have gotten cocky but Kite seemed to remain on edge as he kept mentioning this gut feeling of things not being right in his inner monologue. Who knows, maybe he would have separated himself Gon and Killua sooner if had come across something stronger earlier. Based on the quality of enemies he had encountered so far, he could have very well thought that the kids could serve their purpose in the upcoming confrontation (against lots of ants) and have been of some value. If Gon and Killua could handle themselves against a certain caliber of enemies, it was not a given that they would be totally useless. In fact, even now, having Killua live to tell the tale might in itself be invaluable to Netero & Co.

There was no way for him to use the sample of ants he had observed to predict something like Neferpitou. There is just too large a discrepancy and he can only plan based on the intel that he has.