While the group goes out for dinner, Ayanokōji excuses himself to go to the toilet, but actually goes to confront the girl tailing him, Class A's Kamuro.

Horikita was disturbed but Kouenji caught his bluff as he knows that Ryuuen wouldn’t do something with an audience this big.After the eventful meeting at the beginning of the story, we see Ryuuen’s hunt for the mysterious, string-pulling mastermind “X” of Class D reach a boiling point. Watching him grow (definitely slowly but surely), you can’t help but feel a sense of satisfaction as he changes from the tool his father created to something else. Manabu's purpose was to get Ayanokōji to do something about Nagumo, and him permission to use the siblings (Manabu for the council and Suzune as the face).

Ayanokōji doesn't really care and proceeds to knock him out as "Unfortunately for him, there was nothing there. 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 reveals that he only tailed the more prominent people in Class D to mostly signal that he's watching them. The man is revealed to be Kiyotaka's father, who wants his son to drop out and has already prepared the necessary documents, only needing Kiyotaka's consent to go through with it.They are now irrelevant as he could finally continue his way of life upon first arriving at the school. The pleasant smile Sakayanagi wore disappeared and after some wordplay, it was revealed that he was accepted due to Sakayanagi's judgment. The group suspects that Class C is self-destructing internally due to their seemingly stagnant and even regressive growth. Ayanokōji candidly states that he would never take control so that people won’t pester him further in the future. Additionally, he was also aware of how Hirata was her pseudo-boyfriend through prior experiences with like-minded people.