NOVPUB"I don't want to be murdered by the... Heavenly Demon just because I was, you know... an idiot." She laughed nervously, her eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights of a hellish chariot. "So, please. Let's pretend nothing happened. You can walk out of that beautiful door, without any explosion, without any curse, and I'll stay here... alive. All right? All right."
She backed slowly up to the counter, stumbling over a broken vase, keeping her smile stretched like a mask. "If you want, I'll even give you a bouquet. Of apologies. With thorns. Mine included."
Vergil looked at the woman, who began to shrink back to her 'sweeter' form of 1.57 meters. While clearly smiling, she was desperate to get rid of him. Although she was extremely interested to know who he was and how he had endured the Divine Temptation of the Goddess of Love so lightly.
"P-please go..." She asked politely, almost expressing it.
"I'm sorry to inform you that it's not going to work out, Miss Goddess of Beauty," Vergil said calmly, "Seriously, I almost caused an apocalypse just by coming here, so you're going to have to help me, you know? Sapphire might get nervous." He smiled.
"N-don't joke about it..." She stammered.
He then analyzed her... despite being a goddess, she was quite... fearful, right?... "I thought something would happen like 'You can't find her beautiful, you can't have desires for her, and that's impossible. After all, she's the goddess of beauty. In other words, she's the ideal beauty for everyone...' but you're pretty anti-climatic, aren't you?"
Again, he mocked her beauty... Of course, she was nervous. Very nervous. Not just at the fact that her charm wasn't working, but at the fact that this boy had managed to reach the top of the world. That is. Sapphire.
"Are you a eunuch?" Aphrodite questioned.
Absolute silence fell over the place, as Vergil simply froze without saying a word... In fact, he couldn't, he was too shocked by the statement.
"É...?" Vergil had never been so afraid of a word as he was now.
Thinking that he hadn't heard her correctly, Aphrodite repeated it again, this time a little louder... "Yes... I mean, to endure my presence you should cut off your dick, cut off your balls and become a eunuch." She said.
"That's the only way you'll be able to escape the charm of the goddess of beauty." He added with a crooked smile... "Actually... I'm dying to know what you did to avoid falling for my charm." She said, turning her face away.
The question made her blush... yes, she blushed just for asking something... Why is she... so innocent?...
A being who had no lustful desires, or beings who had no need to reproduce, a being who thought the goddess of beauty was ugly, only strange beings like that can nullify the effect of Aphrodite's Spell.
"....." Silence overtook the place once again.
A long sigh came out of Vergil's mouth, releasing hot steam... was it his anger materialized in gaseous form? well, I guess I could call it that.
He really was nervous.
Very nervous.
He took a breath, counted to three... and spoke.
"Goddess Aphrodite, my name is Vergil Lucifer, I have come here to fulfill a request that Paimon." He was respectful so as not to continue the conversation in a much more 'tense' way.
"Ah? Of course, what do you want?" She answered in a very positive way, which surprised Vergil a little. 𝒏𝒐𝒗𝒑𝒖𝒃.𝙘𝒐𝒎
"...?" He didn't understand the change, wasn't it very easy? After all... just a few seconds ago... she...
Of course, she understood his discomfort. "Speak up, I can't deny something given the position you hold with that... Never mind. I just don't want to be her target."
"Goddess Aphrodite... do you know how I can find Persephone?" Vergil asked bluntly, his voice as firm as a blade.
Aphrodite blinked slowly. For a moment, it seemed as if he had asked for something as absurd as the password to Olympus.
"Huh?" she grimaced, almost comically. "You want to meet Persephone? The Queen of the Underworld, little gothic flower of Hades?" she snorted in disbelief. "Okay, give me a second..." but she said quietly, "you couldn't have threatened me with the fucking celestial demon."
With a calmness that was completely at odds with the weight of the name he had mentioned, Aphrodite slipped her hand between her breasts - with zero shame - and pulled out a golden cell phone, set with rose-shaped rubies. Yes, she had a cell phone in her cleavage.
With delicate fingers, she dialed a number as if she were ordering a pizza. "Hello?" a hoarse, aged voice answered impatiently.
"Hello, hello, Charon, my favorite little boatman! How are you, my pond angel?" she said in a high-pitched, excited tone, waving her foot like a bored teenager at break time.
There was a pause on the other end of the line before a tired growl echoed: "What do you want, you wretched virgin?"
Vergil's eyes widened. His supernatural hearing hadn't missed a syllable. "Virgin?" he thought in disbelief. "The Goddess of Love and Sex... a virgin?"
Aphrodite pretended not to care. Or maybe it was the kind of comment she'd heard so many times that it went unnoticed.
"Nothing much, darling. I was just wondering if you could check if Miss Persephone is in the Greek Underworld at the moment. Just a quick question."
On the other end of the line, there was the sound of paddling water, and a sigh like "why am I still answering that number?".
"Aphrodite..." Charon began, exhausted, "Thanatos is meeting with Hades and Persephone. All the gates are closed. No one goes in, no one comes out. But yes, Persephone is there... a bit upset, for a change."
Aphrodite arched an eyebrow and cast a suggestive glance at Vergil.
"Annoyed by what?" she asked, absent-mindedly cleaning her perfect nails with the tip of her little finger.
"Ah, the usual... inter-dimensional chaos, underworld shenanigans, the rebirth of entities that should stay dead..." said Charon dismissively. "Recently, a woman called Sepphirothy appeared again" it seems that even the abyss doesn't swallow her properly "and Amon has just proclaimed a fifth Demon King. It seems to have been a few months ago, but the information has only just leaked out."
Aphrodite stopped cleaning her nails. And turned her gaze to Vergil. "A-now I understand why I didn't know"
"Well, the news leaked out a few hours ago," replied Charon, the sound of the water becoming more rhythmic, as if he were speeding up the crossing.
"The new king is sleeping with Sapphire Agares, Stella Sitri and Raphaeline Baal, and to top it off, they're saying he's involved with the collapse of Alucard's vampires. Hell is... what do you say up there? On fire." He replied.
Aphrodite swallowed, her pale face contrasting with the natural warmth of her tanned skin. Her eyes fixed on Vergil as if he were a forbidden artifact, something that should never have been unearthed. The weight of the name Sapphire Agares still vibrated in the air like deaf thunder.
"A-ah, of course... of course," she answered the phone, her voice wavering for the first time. "What chaos, isn't it, my little sweetheart from the River Styx? And you're doing a wonderful job down there, really. Pride of place."
Charon let out a tired grunt.
"Aphrodite, did you call me to gossip or are you going to do something useful with this information?" he spat, the sound of the oar hitting the wood adding to his irritation.
Aphrodite narrowed her eyes at the emptiness. "Oh, oh, oh, Charon... you know I'd love to keep talking, but, uh... the store is on fire! That's right, fire! One of my mystical flowers caught fire and poof, look at that, everything's burning, it's crazy!"
She gave a nervous little laugh that sounded more like the choked meow of a cat with asthma.
"Blatant lie. I'd listen to any fire, Aphrodite. You forget who you're talking to, you bronze whore." Charon replied dryly.
She made a gesture with her hand, as if she were shooing away an invisible fly.
"Ahhh, Charon, what a sharp tongue! Look, I'll call you later, okay, my muse from the shores of death? Love!" And with that, she hung up on him.
Literally. She touched the screen with her index finger and threw the cell phone back into her cleavage like someone keeping a nuclear secret in their pocket.
She turned to Vergil with the most innocent expression she could manage in the midst of her blatant nervousness.
"He's such a grouch lately, don't you think?" he said, trying to sound casual as he picked up a fallen petal with all the solemnity in the world. "Anyway, as I was saying... Persephone. Yes, the little flower of the abyss. Ahn... good luck with that, see?"
"Is that all?" Vergil raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms. "Good luck? No portal, no guidance, no enchanted coin to get me through the fucking Greek Underworld? I need to see the fucking Persephone."
"Hey, calm down! You don't have to get all... apocalyptic on me, okay?" she raised her hands as if she were surrendering. "I can help, of course I can! But I need a little time... just a little... so that, I don't know, I don't become the next target of the heeled devil you've been eating!"
"I'm not eating anyone." Vergil replied without changing his expression.
She stared at him for two seconds and then muttered: "And you still want to convince me that you're not a eunuch..."
"What?"
"Nothing!"
