It has been a week since Saki joined the mahjong club, though Nodoka is still distant to her. Nodoka plays a game by herself with all the tiles exposed and takes notes, but she is still unable to attain a plus/minus zero score like Saki who can do this flawlessly. Hisa and Mako go and sign up their club for the national qualifiers for high school students. Saki wins a game against Nodoka, Kyōtarō, and Yūki, who is depressed that she cannot possibly win when playing against both Saki and Nodoka. In the next game, Saki lets Yūki win, which makes Nodoka angry since while Saki did it so that everyone can have fun, Nodoka can only have fun when Saki is playing at her best. Saki makes a promise with Nodoka to shoot for the nationals, and the two finally become friends.

The third round starts and Hisa puts to work her strategy of sticking to the bad waits in order to get the big scores, knocking off Kazekoshi's lead. Hajime Kunihiro helps gain a slight comeback while avoiding her slight-of-hand habit. Meanwhile, Nodoka wakes to find that her penguin is missing and leaves Saki to go look for it.

Momoko continues to put the pressure on Tomoki and Hisa keeps racking up strong plays, while Saki is still unable to use her usual strategy. Saki remembers her training using online gaming, and uses what she learned to pick out Momoko's tiles, finally allowing her to play a rinshan kaihō to win the match. In the final round, Hisa goes against Mihoko, Tōka and Yumi, Nodoka goes against Kana, Jun and Hajime, Yūki goes against Mako, Tomoki and Momoko, and Saki goes against Kazue, Kanbara and Yoshitome. As everyone battles their hardest, Yoshitome does well to block off Saki in the east wind round, but soon the south wind round comes and Kazue starts to make her move. However, Saki retains her smile and pulls out more rinshan kaihō moves to win her match, placing third and qualifying for the nationals. Nodoka wins her match and qualifies in second and although Hisa wins her match, Mihoko is overall first place.