Having decided that you have a good chance of finding them in the shopping center - though you may have to make some embarrassing trips into clothing and girly stores - you continue toward your original destination, though with goals a bit different than the shopping you had planned on this morning.

As you expected, the shopping centre is teeming with people, fully three quarters of them teenaged girls. But despite hours wandering the mall and looking - and taking a little time to shop for some manga, though not bothering with the arcade - you don't manage to see any group of girls that resembles the four you saw earlier.

You're searching in a more deserted corner of the mall when you get the feeling that you're being watched. Stopping and looking around reveals nothing out of the ordinary, but the feeling just won't go away. Finally, after starting back toward a jewerly store, you feel a pretty solid blow to the back of your head, causing you to see stars. Before you can react, a second blow shrouds your vision with darkness, and you collapse into oblivion.