NOVPUB"Why do you keep avoiding my gaze?" Sapphire's voice cut through the silence like a cold blade, too calm for someone who radiated such pent-up fury.
She sat cross-legged on a reddish rock, almost glowing in the flickering light of the Underworld. Her posture was relaxed, but her gaze… was not. Her eyes were fixed on the kneeling figure before her with an intensity that could have cut through iron. 𝔫𝖔𝔳𝔭𝔲𝔟.𝖈𝔬𝔪
Aphrodite, for her part, seemed anything but divine at that moment.
The goddess of love knelt on the dusty floor, her shoulders hunched and her hands resting on her thighs as if she were afraid to move. A swollen, purple welt throbbed in the center of her forehead, a lump so large it almost looked like divine punishment—which, technically, it was.
She had been gifted with such a well-aimed blow by Sapphire that even the echo still seemed to vibrate in the air. A goddess's head is hard to cause something like that, okay?
"Well..." Aphrodite began, not daring to look up. Her voice was thin, hesitant, and yet melodious, as if shame and charm fought for every syllable. "...it's hard to look directly at one of the greatest beauties in the world when that beauty is staring at me like she wants to rip my skin off."
She tried to smile, but the side of her face was still throbbing.
"And you know… I'm bisexual. Which only makes it worse. It's hard enough to keep my composure, and here you come, perfect, angry, with this aura of death… Honestly? A little exciting, a little terrifying." Despite trying, Aphrodite had apparently… already accepted her death and was toying with it with her flattering comments, flirting with death in this way.
Sapphire didn't respond immediately. The silence lasted a second longer than Aphrodite would have liked.
The goddess swallowed hard, seeing that her chatter wasn't working, but she insisted; after all, the tension was worse than facing a "God King" directly. "Besides..." she continued, looking out of the corner of her eye, almost childish. "...you gave me that bump last time because I... cough... flirted with you. I learned my lesson, okay? Love is consent, not audacity."
Sapphire crossed her legs again, just to look even more seductive. Her eyes, a sharp green, narrowed—but there was something there. An almost smile, a hint of irony hidden between the anger and judgment.
"And yet you still flirt, even if indirectly." Sapphire said with a very small, imperceptible smile.
Which, of course, basically released a gigantic weight from Aphrodite's shoulders, who sighed, defeated.
"It's a professional vice. But... I swear, that wasn't my intention. Now I'm here, with my head throbbing, kneeling in the dust, being judged by a beautiful, cold, and extremely dangerous woman... This sounds like one of those sensual nightmares that mortals usually have about you, you know?"
Sapphire arched an eyebrow, slightly surprised—or perhaps just amused by her restrained boldness. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.
"So tell me, Goddess of Love..." she spoke in a low, hissing tone, as if speaking directly to Aphrodite's heart, "...have you truly learned your lesson? Or are you just afraid of being struck by another? Besides, what are you doing here in the Underworld?"
Aphrodite was still kneeling, scratching the bump on her forehead with the care of someone holding a crystal that's about to crack. Sapphire continued to stare at her with that mixture of divine judgment and threat of imminent violence.
"Okay... okay... I'll explain it properly," Aphrodite began, her voice trembling, looking to the side as if searching for an imaginary exit in the flaming horizon of the Underworld. "It's just... I didn't plan anything, I swear. He showed up. Vergil showed up. And he wanted to talk to Persephone, then blah blah blah blah and more blah blah blah, we were going to exchange contact details— and it hit me!"
Sapphire narrowed her eyes. Her presence grew heavier.
Aphrodite stammered. "L-Like, he really touched me! Not in a... lewd way! But... oh my... it was— it was just... a touch! He just grabbed my hand, okay? BUT—" she raised her arms theatrically, as if she were on stage—"I" CAME!"
Dead silence.
Sapphire didn't blink.
"Like— like as soon as he touched her! Bam! I exploded! No one has ever done that! I mean, I've never done that stuff, you know, but it happened!" Aphrodite put her hand to her forehead, almost collapsing. "It was embarrassing because I got the whole floor of the flower shop wet, but... it was epic, it was... it was transcendental!"
Sapphire slowly rose from the rock. Her feet hitting the floor of the Underworld sounded like execution hammers. Aphrodite immediately fell back to her knees, raising her hands.
"No! Wait! It's not what it looks like! I know what you're probably thinking—like, he touched me, and I snapped, and then I grabbed him, like, 'Come with me, you hottie,' BUT—no! That's not it!"
She took a deep breath, eyes wide, looking like a teenager trying to explain a bust-up to her mother.
"I... grabbed his leg, okay? But only because I was in an emotional and physical collapse! I didn't even know he was going to the Underworld! When I saw it, I was already hanging on to him, and POOF! I came with him. By accident!"
She started beating her own chest, as if she wanted to expel her shame with slaps: "But then he touches me, and my body goes into a nervous breakdown! This isn't even magic; it's... it's TORTURE! It's nature's dirty trick!"
Sapphire took a deep breath and slowly turned her back. "You're more of a virgin than when you were born, Aphrodite."
Aphrodite let out a muffled scream, as if she had been slapped in the soul.
"Take it back! TAKE IT BACK NOW!" She screeched, jumping up in a jump that was as clumsy as it was theatrical. "I am the Goddess of Love! Of Sex! I have cosmic titles, universal certificates, and MILLENNIUMS of experience! I was sculpted by lust itself!"
She beat her own chest with Olympian indignation.
"MY body is the most trained in the cosmos! I am the reference! The goal! The ruler by which all bodies are measured!"
Sapphire just raised an eyebrow, visibly bored, which only inflamed Aphrodite's existential outburst even more.
"That was a transcendental physiological accident, okay?! I'm a virgin for practical reasons!" she screamed, pointing her finger in the air as if she were in a divine court. "No man can have sex with me! They DIE before foreplay! Literally! The heart can't take it!"
An uncomfortable silence fell for a second. The echo of Aphrodite's words resounded like lightning striking in slow motion.
Sapphire narrowed her eyes, assessing Aphrodite from top to bottom.
'Hm... Could I handle Zeus? ...' she thought, her expression turning dangerously neutral. 'If I kill Aphrodite now, maybe... maybe he won't even notice. Or maybe he'll be grateful. Is it worth the risk?'
She gripped the handle of her weapon lightly, the coldness in her eyes indicating that this thought was not an inside joke but a real calculation.
Aphrodite, however, continued her own emotional show, completely oblivious to the risk of imminent death:
"Do you know what divine frustration is? Centuries of men exploding with passion — literally! You should know, since until recently you were also a Virgo, man, life is hard, okay? I've been sexually frustrated for hundreds of thousands of years."
Sapphire took a step forward. Just one.
Aphrodite stopped talking immediately. Breath sucked in. Pupils dilated.
"Go on," Sapphire said, her voice softer than poison in wine.
Aphrodite swallowed, then laughed nervously, taking a half-step back.
"...Actually... I... I've already said too much, haven't I? Haha... How about a glass of mead to cool off? I'll buy!"
[Meanwhile… with Vergil]
"I'm so tired…" Vergil murmured, his voice hoarse with exhaustion. He threw himself onto the couch with the weight of someone carrying worlds on his back.
The leather sank beneath him as his head fell back, his eyes closing for a moment. Around him, Viviane, Ada, and Katharina slept peacefully, as if protected by some silent blessing—or by sheer exhaustion after suffering so much murderous pressure.
Vergil leaned toward each of them, with unusual care for someone so powerful, almost as if he feared breaking them with a thoughtless gesture. He placed a soft kiss on each of their foreheads, his fingers resting briefly on their hair, as if that touch anchored him to reality.
It was then that her presence made itself felt.
"This is the first time you've lost control." Sapphirothy's voice cut through the silence like ice cracking underfoot. She stood close to the wall, arms crossed, her posture as rigid as the blade of a sword about to be drawn.
Vergil didn't need to look to know that his mother was watching him with eyes of judgment and something deeper—something that even she wouldn't admit to feeling.
"This wasn't supposed to happen."
He opened his eyes slowly, the soft red light of the Underworld dancing in his irises.
"Don't look at me like that." His voice came out firm, without hesitation. "You know very well what's happening."
The air between them grew heavy, as if the room itself were holding its breath. The tension was almost physical. Neither of them moved a muscle, like predators studying each other, both too wounded to strike first… but ready to strike back.
Sapphirothy narrowed her eyes, her jaw clenched.
Vergil stood up slowly, the heat of his body still permeating the couch. He stood facing her, and for a moment, time seemed to slow down before what was about to happen.
"If I had held back any longer… I would have tried to kill Aphrodite," he said quietly, as if confessing his own humanity.
