The following contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 5 of Classroom of the Elite, now streaming on Funimation and Crunchyroll.
The Sports Festival of Classroom of the Elite’s second season has been an outright disaster for Class D as Ayanokoji looks on with seemingly no intention of helping. Between Sudo’s hotheadedness, Ryuen’s dirty tactics, Kushida’s suspicious behavior and Ayanokoji’s higher-than-usual level of indifference, things look bleak as Class A and D’s Red Team has lost most of the big lead it built up during the morning events. Ayanokoji even admits to Karuizawa that he never intended for Class D to win the Sports Festival, leaving the suspicious protagonist’s motives a total mystery as he continues to place responsibility on an injured Horikita.
Sudo put Class D on his back as their most athletic student, while the eternally uncaring Koenji – shocker – refused to participate. Class D was noted as mostly below average athletically, but Sudo’s skill and cooperation with the Class A students allowed Red Team to build a large early lead. However, once Ryuen of Class C on White Team began his usual underhanded tactics, Sudo went from trying to impress his crush, Horikita, to assaulting his own classmates out of frustration. Now that he has stormed off after denouncing the Sports Festival, Ryuen has successfully removed both of Class D’s biggest weapons after Horikita was suspiciously collided with and injured by a Class C student.
Season 2 of Classroom of the Elite has been Ryuen’s time to shine, as he led Class C to victory during the Special Test on the cruise and is now leading White Team’s comeback in the Sports Festival. Using the chaos of competition, Ryuen is outright assaulting Sudo while feigning ignorance and claiming it to be the heat of the moment. Ayanokoji deduced that Ryuen has a two-pronged plan that, so far, is working to perfection. The Class C mastermind is sacrificing any events that Sudo is participating in and sending his most athletic classmates to other events to rack up easier wins. At the same time, he’s keeping his vow to destroy Horikita as a Class C student collided with her and injured her leg in what Horikita felt was a deliberate act.
Ayanokoji previously told Karuizawa that the Sports Festival was going to produce a traitor from within Class D -- and the fact that Kushida betrayed her group during the Special Test, despite being the VIP, made her the prime suspect. Kushida seemingly feigned ignorance when Horikita confronted her about the Special Test, and it’s probably not a coincidence that Kushida was the one who brought Horikita to the infirmary where Ryuen was waiting for her.
Ryuen told Horikita that the girl she collided with was going to tell the school that Horikita did it on purpose, all but confirming that her injury was part of his plan. At Kushida’s suspicious urging to settle this themselves, Ryuen offered Horikita a deal: give him 1,000,000 Private Points and beg him not to have his injured classmate report Horikita.
The Ayanokoji of it all is that, so far, Class D’s struggles seem to be a part of his plan to ensure they lose the Sports Festival. He previously claimed to genuinely want to help Class D reach Class A and told Karuizawa that losing the Sports Festival will empower them later. Ayanokoji wants Class D to come together, hence his winning over of Karuizawa to unite the girls, and now he seems to want Horikita to unite the rest of the class. That he has been going on about a traitor while admitting he doesn’t want Class D to win makes it equally likely for him or Kushida to be the traitor. After all, Ayanokoji turned in the event roster for Red Team despite knowing it had been leaked, meaning either he knows what Kushida’s up to and is using it to ensure a loss, or he leaked it himself.
Ayanokoji has been tough on Horikita during Classroom of the Elite’s sophomore season, from having Karuizawa rebel against her plan for the Sports Festival to explaining to her face like she’s a five-year-old all the reasons that she’s useless. Horikita is stuck between a rock and a hard place, seemingly unaware that Ayanokoji plans to throw the Sports Festival while Ryuen is blackmailing her for 1,000,000 Private Points.
As the afternoon events approach, Horikita has a lot on her plate as she must get Sudo to recommit while she sits out with a bum ankle and Ayanokoji is advocating for a loss. Classroom of the Elite just might have two Class D traitors operating independently of one another; Kushida appears to be working for Ryuen, while Ayanokoji may have allowed their roster to leak.