Narratively, it makes sense if this is about where Aiko meets Nao.
And I reckon Nao’s take is to go “yep, that’s me!” and we get an arc of Aiko being hurt by this and realising that if Mao had admitted to it in the first place, that would have been a lie too.
and/or we get some Mao crisis which probably stops the manga from being published for a while so we get Aiko realising that she’s personally dealt a fatal blow to her goddess.