Originally Posted by
Kraco
Which is precisely why the princess told him to avoid extra duels serving no purpose. It's not like he could have fought without giving any hints to the audience, especially since he apparently still wanted to win and the opponent was the number 1. Actually that quite funnily shows how self-centered Ayato is: He hasn't even bothered to check out who are the strongest contestant in his own school, yet he's eagerly butting in when he sees strangers arguing. So, in fact he's not at all interested in who he's (supposedly) helping or why, he's just satisfying his own testosterone powered need to interfere.