A WHILE BACK

Watching Virus disappear into the darkness of the night, varying degrees of anxiousness had covered both Amara and the golden beauty's faces. While this sense of distress was more intense on Amara's face, the golden beauty didn't appear to be that worried due to her unwavering confidence in her master.

Still, she couldn't stop an unpleasant feeling from rising within her heart. For some reason, the golden beauty had a bad premonition regarding this entire situation.

…

Sometime later, watching the intense battle between the man and the beast at the far distance, Amara couldn't help but phrase with anxiety, "Do you think he'll come back safe?"

She had just seen Virus getting slapped away once again. To be honest, Amara was shocked silly witnessing how strong Virus actually was. Although they were too far from the scene and she could barely see shadows of a man at the far distance, she could feel how powerful he was.

"Definitely!" With an assuring smile, the golden beauty didn't hesitate to respond.

"I-I really do hope so." Amara's eyes were clearly red at this point. It seemed she wasn't as confident as the golden beauty indeed.

Unwilling to take her head off of that direction, Amara had just vowed to keep watching the fight until the very end, when all of a sudden, she was startled by a sharp cry beside her, "Ahhh!"

Startled, she turned around only to witness a golden beauty who was grabbing her head with both hands as she yelped in what appeared to be extreme agony.

"W-What's happening to you, Bella? Why are you screaming like that?! Are you feeling unwell somewhere?" Extremely alarmed, Amara's eyes went wide open as she grabbed the golden beauty's hand.

"I-I don't know… m-my mind… it feels like it's about to burst. Like my consciousness is about to be invaded and shattered apart, Arghh. For a while after we took off from the hotel, I-I've been feeling this way. I-it was a simple light headache at first… but it got more intense as… as time passed. Ahhhh!" By the end of her explanations, unable to tolerate the pain once more, she screamed even louder.

It was clear the driver was also frightened out of his wits remembering Virus' gun which was pointed at his head. He couldn't imagine what his fate would be like if Virus came back and something bad had happened to one of his precious companions. Therefore, very concerned about his own life, he suggested, "H-how about I take you to the hospital, miss?"

Catching the question, a sharp glint went through the golden beauty's eyes at once as she uttered in a determined tone, "You'll be going nowhere until Aizen returns! Do you hear me? If you put a single finer on the steering wheel, I'll kill you." Even in this situation, the golden beauty's number one priority was still Virus. She couldn't even imagine a case where he came back wounded and no one was there to receive him.

She would rather die than for that to happen.

Just as she had this vague sensation of being on the absolute limit of her strange state while gritting her teeth and crying from time to time, abruptly, all of that pain vanished. As if it wasn't there, to begin with.

"Ah, the pain… it's gone." Surprised, she notified Amara.

"Eh, what was that… how could a pain just appear and disappear on its own?" Amara was even more confused by this chain of events. Nevertheless, she was relieved it was no more.

"I don't know either…"

…

Several minutes after the disappearance of the sharp needle-like affliction, just as the golden beauty was feeling relieved about her strange headache, the pain returned.

"Ahhhhhhhh!" And this time, it was even more intense and horrifying than before! This forced the golden beauty to scream reverberantly while grappling her head with both hands as she rolled around on the seat of the limousine.

"What happened? Does it hurt again?!?" Perturbed right out of her wits, Amara questioned. Internally, she was praying nonstop so nothing would happen to her before the return of Virus. Because she could not even envisage the consequence of a situation where he came back and something unspeakable had happened to her.

Because if she had learned anything from her stay with the golden beauty and Virus in these past few days, it was the fact that the golden beauty was surely the closest person to Virus in the entire world. She was the woman that he cared the most about, even if it didn't show itself that much.

It was to the point that she was certain if Bella said she was second on the matter, let's not get near someone saying first, no one would dare say third even!

And now, Amara had this strong urge that the consequence of something indeed happening to the golden beauty was something that the current her couldn't handle at all.

No, let's not talk about the current her, she had the feeling the entire world might not be able to tolerate 'that'.

Accompanied by those thoughts, uncontrollably, an image of the entire planet bursting apart flashed through her head. 'I mean… think about it, he's the chairman of the fucking Virus Industries! What if he decided he no longer wanted to sell the temporary cure of the Mutated HIV to the world due to his grief or something… wouldn't the entire mankind go extinct then?' Her heart was trembling at her own concept now.

"Should we just take you to the hospital? Please, Bella, just say yes, if Aizen came back and something had truly happened to you, that would be very bad!" Insisted Amara out of concern.

"Ahhh, NO!!! We're not going anywhere until he returns!" Of course, she was adamant about persisting in her decision while rejecting sharply.

"O-Okay! Don't talk then, just try to preserve your energy and last until he returns, then we'll take you to the hospital together!" Realizing she was not going to budge and change her mind, Amara could only concede.

Soon, the throbbing pain which felt just like being pricked by hundreds of needles right in her brain vanished again before returning sometime later.