As she leaves, she lectured him for not having a basic level of self-awareness and needing her to point it out. When he and his goons decide to torture an answer out of Karuizawa, Ayanokōji decides it's finally time to step forward—if, that is, Karuizawa doesn't break under the pressure first!

He blames it all on Kiyotaka and claims that Matsuo would be regretful that the person who he cared, saved and sacrificed everything for showed no reaction whatsoever upon hearing the terrible fate that eventuated because of him. Ryuuen couldn’t deny his statement and agrees that if what he said was true, he would be utterly harmless. When asked if that was the reason he deserted, Kiyotaka replied that the nature of the White Room would never allow him to feel the words of 'freedom' and 'unconstrained', something even Ayanokōji couldn’t deny. He realised that Ryuuen's pawns have been following them around lately namely Komiya and one other henchman.Karuizawa feigns ignorance as she tries to figure out Ryuuen's intentions, with the latter remarking that she's a horrible actress. Ayanokōji denies and explains the entire situation, adding on that she could also be spying for Ryuuen. She explains how she’s aware of their entire ordeal and through fastidious elimination, it’s apparent that Kouenji wasn’t involved and X might not even exist.

She voices how she would make due with being Ayanokōji's decoy, surprising him of how accepting she was at that fact. She went on to congratulate them on their victory over Class C and reveals that Class B has lost to Class A by a measly two points. The group suspects them to be dating, with most of them thinking it was the natural process for being a high school student. Who would’ve thought, from the initial volume that Horikita would be willingly participating in figuring out ways to advance the status of Class D. Ryuuen only recently realized that Karuizawa was a pawn, because of the Karaoke incident during the Paper Shuffle Exam.That still leaves him with 10 possible candidates though one stood out the most since the beginning.