Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-27279375-20160210122236/@comment-25121259-20160210170512

By "first", that person meant that Takamagahara succeeded in utilizing Terumi as a stimulus to get things in motion (starting the doomsday), but they failed in "second" as in controlling and using him as their pawn.

Well, Takamagahara did admit that Terumi was kind of a maverick, while bragging to Rachel that they have a sure way of dealing with and/or controlling him (though they didn't want to reveal that method to Rachel). They still got owned (quite literally :P) though.