Looking through a selection of fruits, Ritsuko was currently trying to reason with the seller about the price, furrowing her brows a bit "They weren't this expensive last week. What happened?" she huffed a bit. Despite it only being herself and her father living together now, she still bought a lot of food due to the fact that ever since she could remember, she'd always had a large appetite. Another unknown trait of her parasitic type innocence she wasn't yet aware of. But it was a trait she'd always had, so she never thought anything of it. However due to this, and always buying a good amount of food, she also always tried to get the best deals. She wasn't stingy, but she also wasn't about to be ripped off either. The shopkeeper hardly seemed to care, only offering her a shrug and a grumbled response "You know with all the deaths lately, I gotta make sure I keep a living while I got it, y'know?" he huffed out in a gruff response, causing the girl to frown a bit and furrow her brows at him "Are you complaining the recent deaths in the town are affecting your sales?" she scoffed a bit "How selfish" she muttered the last part under her breath, putting back down an apple she had been examining "Honestly, disease or whatever it is, maybe being more generous in your prices could save some people from succumbing to illness. If that's what this is" she commented, annoyed with the older man.<br/><br/>Everyone was rather uptight lately though. Everyone was on edge, whispers and rumors around every corner of every street about who's going to die next, what the cause is, what kind of unknown disease it is. Ritsu herself didn't understand how it could be some illness spreading...but she also didn't know what else it could be. A murderer existing in this small, nothing-town seemed highly unlikely. Nonetheless though, she kept her father inside, rather protective over him with his recent depression with the loss of his wife. She didn't want to lose him too, and take the chance he become victim to whatever it was that was going on in the village. Of course, she had no clue that she'd already failed in protecting the last bit of her family, and he was essentially already a walking corpse, having died just days after her mother a few weeks ago. She had no clue she'd been harboring and caring for an akuma all this time.<br/><br/>Sighing to herself, she tried to rub the growing fatigue from her eyes as she headed back in the direction of her house, heading out of the market as she carried the food she'd bought that afternoon to bring back home. As she was heading out of the market, she didn't realize that she was being followed by man, who didn't to entirely fit in with the crowd. As he followed her, it was as though he was fixated on her. The man, actually a level 1 akuma hiding in its human skin, was focused on the presence of innocence that it sensed coming from the girl, its instincts kicking in and urging him to destroy it. It wasn't until Ritsu had rounded a corner, now further separated from the group of people shopping in the market, did she realize she was being followed and that something was wrong. As she turned around to face the man however, it's face had already started to tear apart where a large machine like gun appeared from a face.<br/><br/>Upon seeing the image of a human face tearing apart to reveal something far less human, Ritsuko couldn't help but freeze in horror. Rather than screaming out, her bag of food slipped from her frozen hands and crashed to the ground, contents spilling everywhere. She hardly cared about the food in that moment, barely recovering herself in time to move and run before she got attacked. She didn't know what that thing was, but she was smart enough to know it wasn't good, and had ill-intent. As she ran down the street and around another corner, this time she couldn't suppress a slight scream in surprise as a second akuma had appeared, cutting her off and stopping her in her tracks as she stumbled to a quick stop.