Note: Scene is based off from 7th Volume/Ten EP 4.

Spying was too harsh of a word to Anri.

It implied some kind of malicious intent, the kind where a controlling person would stalk their partner all day around the city to see if there was anyone who posed a threat to their relationship. Certainly she wasn't the possessive type, nor was she in a relationship.

She just so happened to be walking around one day when she had spotted Shizuo at a local temple. With a bunch of women.

Okay, mild exaggeration.

One woman and three girls, to be exact. Anri definitely recognized the little girl to be Akane from a distance, but she had trouble in identifying the rest of the group. The other two girls looked to be around Anri's age, maybe slightly younger, and wore black and yellow, polar opposite clothes that suggested they might be related. (Actually, she might have seen their faces around Raira.) The sole woman—another blonde, but her hair seemed far more natural to the point of being a foreigner—was the only one whom she truly didn't recognize, yet somehow the adult raked a chill up her spine; she felt as if they had met before, but not through a very pleasant bowing.

It didn't look like a total harem, though. Shizuo's boss Tom was there, too, but to be honest—Anri didn't pay much attention to him. Soon enough, the blond man and his shorter pal left, leaving the girls all alone. It didn't make sense to Anri to run up to the men and say hi; her naturally shy persona made her assume they were in the middle of work, in addition to her instinct nudging her not to reveal herself to the woman.

She darted closer to the trees and camouflaged under their heavy shadows, then darted to the temple's side upon sensing that the girls still hadn't picked up her presence.

"Are you a friend of Shizuo onii-chan's, miss?"

"I deny being friends with him. Shizuo and I are merely colleagues, nothing more."

All of a sudden, random thugs sprung out at the temple's entrance, and already Anri was willing to blow her cover with the urgent tint of her blade, but stopped when the woman immediately pummeled her foes with ease, alongside the other girls who had proven themselves to be more than capable in fending off their kidnappers. The thugs skedaddled and Anri sighed in relief, easing the blade back in now that there was no harm done to them.

But then she heard more of the continued conversation between Akane and the woman.

"Shizuo Heiwajima is my prey. Eventually, I will crush him myself. That is a fact."

"You... You can't! Shizuo onii-chan is gonna get taken out by me!"

Huh? What was she hearing? Why were they talking about killing Shizuo? Why did Akane want to kill him even though he had saved her life? Why did the woman's voice sound so familiar?

"Shizuo is mine."

"He is not! You can't lay a finger on Shizuo onii-chan, all right?!"

"Why fight for him when I can love all of you..." Saika whispered; therefore the blade could share all their violent love for the bartender.

But for Anri, she felt something strange. They were arguing about who gets to kill him, alarming her greatly, but the way they spoke about it... they were acting like they... owned him?

Competed for him?

A savvy observer would've shouted out the obvious, but Anri simply couldn't wrap her head around the ambiguity of the triangle. A far more confident version of her would've chewed Akane out for saying something so absurdly ungrateful, while warning the blonde not to harm Shizuo or risk mind possession.

Instead, the lone girl inwardly chided the silly bickering and ran off. In her radiating red-worded body, a small tinge of green seeped in the middle of the flow.

If Saika had a face, it would smirk in amusement. Was this what humans called jealousy?