Feeling the tears stain his shirt and listening to his wife's strained voice, the young man's face darkened as he gritted his teeth in anger.
All his life, he had received affection from no one but Aphrodite. He was hers, and she was his.
Aphrodite was his everything...
And now there were narcissistic Chaos Gods who wished to take everything from him. His wife, his life, and his... child...
The young man now had a choice to make.
Would he choose to leave his everything and escape, or would he choose to stay behind and die?
The answer was obvious.
"Aphrodite," the young man said with a softened voice as he cupped her cheeks and wiped her tears. "You know I can't leave. You know that."
"No!" Aphrodites screamed as she let go of her husband. "I know that you don't want to leave, not that you can't leave!"
Even though her expression was ghastly and contorted in anger, the young man's smile only grew fonder. "You know I can't leave you," he repeated.
Aphrodite exploded in anger as she threw her hands out and gathered Chaos Energy, causing her soft pink hair to wildly flutter all over the place. "I don't care what you want anymore!" She yelled as she prepared to tie her husband down by force and send him to the Mortal Realm.
The young man's expression became affectionate to a level bordering on insane infatuation. "You know I can't leave you, but you also know that I have to leave you," he said as he activated something inside him, causing a bright flash of white light to burst forth.
"!!!"
Aphrodite's divinely beautiful face immediately lost all color as she instantly knew what this light around her husband meant.
"Noooo!! You can't!! I refuse to lose you!!!" She frantically screamed while bashing her hands against the light. "I will give myself up!! J-Just please, don't do this! Do-Don't d-do this," she pleaded as her voice broke down, her body following right after.
"Y-Yes," Aphrodite answered, her voice strained.
She cupped his hand as if she were terrified to let go, and slowly, she began to open her eyes. She wished with all her being that this was just a nightmare and that everything would be fine as soon as she opened her eyes.
"You know the names I proposed?" Asked the young man, his voice more distant than before.
While still in the process of opening her eyes, Aphrodite lightly nodded. "I-I remember," she said.
The young man leaned in closer, passing through the light barrier as if it weren't even there. "Well, I didn't want to tell you this before, but I liked yours more," he said jokingly. "After I'm... gone, I hope you choose the ones you picked for if the baby turns out to be a boy or a girl."
Aphrodite suddenly shot her eyes open, anger contorting her features. "What are you talking about—"
As soon as she viewed her husband's appearance, her eyes lost all life as she fell to her knees and weeped. She cried harder than she had in her entire life.
Aphrodite was the god of love. She wasn't meant to cry; she wasn't supposed to be crying.
And yet she was...
The young man retracted his hand from the bawling beauty, slowly watching as his hand's bones melted until nothing was left.
Piang.
His hand snapped off at the base, and the rest of his arm followed not long after.
"I must look like quite the freak, huh?" He said laughingly. "This is a terrible way to look when saying farewell, but it's not like I had many other options."
Aphrodite was completely unresponsive to everything her husband was saying. The image in her mind still haunted her, and for the rest of her life, that image would be imprinted into her mind. Acting as a scar that she would never be able to forget.
....