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Between the amount of plot resolved, the skipped OP and the rearranged ED timing, signs would indicate that 11 was the final continuity-relevant episode of Ookami-san and her Seven Companions, and that 12 is likely an unrelated “bonus” episode. While the ending seems to have disappointed many, I think the episode managed to do quite a lot, and recalled much of what made episode 05 such a dense and important experience. Its sudden conclusion, as well, was as deftly-executed as it was inevitable.

In short: the driving force behind the denouement of episodes 10 and 11 was not Shirou, but Liszt.

The most obvious evidence of this is found in Liszt’s brief appearance at the end of Ryoushi and Shirou’s fight. Liszt quietly steps in and brings the entire conflict to a halt; he refers to the fight as having been “sold” to Shirou; he then calls off the entire preceding conflict with a dismissive clap as if wrapping up a rehearsal. Liszt’s demeanor, and Shirou’s quiet acquiescence, only make sense if one assumes that Liszt has some significant degree of power over the situation.

This is foreshadowed, both subtly and obviously, throughout the developing action. During the sale, when accused of not helping, Liszt opaquely replies “I’ve been doing plenty of work myself”—the obvious implication is simply that his contribution to the effort has been off-screen; however, every other member’s actions are well-accounted-for in the preceding montage. In the rescue operations of episode 11, Majo and Liszt know exactly where to find Otsu and Alice within a very brief time period, despite their locations not being discovered on-screen at any point. Finally, during the assault on the front gates of Onigashima High, the narrator highlights this theory directly: “Those 30%-off loans are certainly coming in handy—I wonder if the president prepared them just for this?” We can infer from this that Liszt knew very well how events would play out, long beforehand.

The loan discount subplot itself should raise suspicions: much of the chaos and disarray that allowed Shirou’s kidnappings to work at all was generated by the sale, an ostensibly sudden measure on Liszt’s part which still manages to fit perfectly into Shirou’s scheme. Without the sale, characters who were preoccupied or unaccounted for and therefore easy to manipulate would have likely been in better contact, or better-prepared to respond to Shirou’s actions.

What this would seem to suggest is that the events of episodes 10 and 11 are not simply Otogi Bank’s reaction to a plot by Onigashima, but a facade being acted out unbeknownst to the majority of the players. And, as mentioned above, Liszt and Shirou’s demeanor in the concluding scenes would seem to indicate that between the two Liszt is the more likely mastermind.

Many scenes and interactions make a great deal more sense in light of this, such as the way Shirou and Ryoushi’s fight plays out: when Ryoushi finally lands a hit on Shirou, he seems ready to escalate the fight, grinning widely and saying “This means you’re prepared for more than that, right?” This could be dismissed as a simple action-scene cliché, but we could again infer from a literal reading that Shirou is for some reason forcing himself back to avoid actually injuring Ryoushi.

Moreover, Shirou’s various proposed motivations for carrying out this whole plot add up vaguely to a perverse desire for entertainment—”I enjoy watching people in despair”, “to watch your group fall to pieces”, “to see how hard you would fight for Ryouko” and so on. His only motive is the sadistic pleasure he takes in watching the scheme unfold—a complex, tightly-woven scheme whose elegance depends on specific actions taken by both sides.

The proposal that the driving force behind most of Ookami-san is controlled by outside forces is not new: in episode 05 Liszt explained at length that Onigashima High’s entire purpose as an institution was to cause conflict with Otogi High, and that the town itself was devised for the sake of producing brilliant students at Otogi. The ending animation, as well, is rife with imagery of theater (e.g. the opening and closing curtain)  and facade (e.g. the paper cut-out art style of the characters and environment). Finally, most of the events of the preceding request episodes were planned out in advance by Liszt, often with multiple intended goals outside the actual fulfilment of the request.

With all of this taken into account, it is not at all strange to propose that nearly every scene in the show deserves reading both as actual narrative events and as facades contrived by its characters.