As Akane reached the convenience store, she pushed the doors open and looked around. Immediately, she was struck by something a little bit strange: There didn't seem to be any employees around. There was another girl, white-haired and dressed in the uniform of the more high class private high school that was some distance away. But no-one behind the counter, or anything like that... Indeed, there wasn't a single other person in the shop at all. For a few moments, the redhead simply looked around in confusion. Had they just... forgotten to flip the sign around to say they were closed or something? This just didn't make much sense to her... And she needed to buy those drinks for her family. It was a little bit frustrating and weird, to say the least.

"... Haah, there has to be [i]someone[/i] here..." Akane comment, mostly to herself, as she scanned the shop. It's not like there was anywhere an employee could hide, it wasn't a particularly large place. Well, aside from the back room, but why would everyone be back there anyway? The schoolgirl began to consider just picking out her items and leaving behind the appropriate amount of yen. But... what if someone else took it, or something like that? Akane frowned to herself. This was really weird.

... For that matter, she hadn't seen many people nearby the convenience store either. She'd seen quite a few people on her way there, but then as she actually reached the shop... well, there wasn't really anyone to speak of. Was something going on? Had there been some kind of accident here and they had to make everyone leave? But if that was the case, why hadn't she seen any police or anything, either? This was weird...

[hr]

The fairy frowned.

This wasn't good, there was a candidate right around here and... something bad was happening. It was one of them, right? She was sure if it! In which case, she had to reach that candidate as quickly as possible, because there were some people to rescue!

And she had to do it before the Negari caught her... sure, there might be other magical girls around, but still!

The convenience store where her target was located was just below...

Melody took a turn and headed downward.