There was an enormous winged serpent with dozens of feathered wings, its body was covered in eyes, and its scales were the color of a forest at springtime. This immense being slowly entered into the range of my awareness. My first instinct was to strike it dead...I mean it was a monster reptile long enough to encircle several galaxies, with a mouth big enough to swallow clusters of stars. It was natural to feel apprehensive, especially now, while I had something to protect.

What stopped me from attacking, was the fact that this strange dragon was doing pretty much all that it could do, to broadcast an aura of peaceful intentions. Going so far with this broadcast, that it would have virtually been impossible for it to be some kind of trick. If you’re wondering how that’s possible, imagine screaming so loud and long that you can’t speak, or run, it was that kind of broadcast. An expenditure of psychic and spiritual energy that conveyed one’s sincerely peaceful intentions, by virtue of the fact that even if you wanted to start some shit, you simply can’t.

Still...I kept my vigilance. What if it somehow “was” a trick...What if there was something hiding in this dragon’s shadow. My knowledge made me wary. I knew of several ways that a being could hide another entity’s presence, essence, and temporal footprints within their own. I was already trying to develop countermeasures for most of those methodologies but my preparations weren’t complete. To make matters worse, if someone was hiding in this dragon, using it as a kind of living trojan horse, their intentions would almost certainly not be peaceful. In which case, maybe I should just annihilate this being after all.

Hah...Why is everything trying to kill us lately? I couldn’t help feeling put upon just thinking about it. I hurriedly prepared a series of causality-shattering existence-erasure spells. I’d found that nothingness was a powerful tool when dealing with beings that existed beyond the confines of life and death. One’s place on the mortal coil ceased to be of importance, once one ceased to exist. My empty-archive had taught enough about the things within our cosmos, for me to know exactly what I needed to do, to cleanly take most of those things apart. Erasing them along the axes of probability and fate.

I prepared for a fight, while I was also preparing to see what this strange dragon wanted. Then I heard a voice that I’d been dying to hear.

“Babe, I got this...You take it easy alright?” said Jacky...Jacqueline, my Jacqueline...That annoying woman who’d gone and left alone for...I don’t know how long. The woman I loved so much a certain worrisome part of my mind was already planning to figure out how to ransack the afterlife if she’d gone and died on me.

“You’re up!?!?” I said. My swirling nothingness pulsing, my countless stars of gathered data flaring.

“Yup…” said Jack. Sounding tired, but very much, her usual cocky self.

“Hmph….About damn time…” I grumbled. Suddenly noticing how jagged the edges of my mind had become. Suddenly finding my vision growing narrow in a way that it hadn’t done since I was mortal.

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“Tch,...This guy. In some ways, you’re even crazier than I am, my lovely…” mumbled Jack.

Tendrils of her nebulous darkness stroking his slumbering nothingness, as she extracted the tendrils of darkness he’d allowed to weave their way through his being. Removing the roots that he’d allowed to gradually sap him of strength. She found that there were few places where their true-bodies had become partially merged, realizing she probably wasn’t in any state to forcibly sever those bonds and finding that there was a not-so-small part of her that was okay with that. She liked the idea of them growing increasingly close, and increasingly inseparable.

Jilbert was supposed to be the steady, even-keeled, member of their pair yet it seems that Jack’s near-death state had thrown him into quite the tizzy. She wondered if he even realized where they were right now, or if he’d simply acted on instinct, thinking only of aiming for a part of the chaotic sea with enough energy-rich resources for Jack to recover quickly. Jack idly looked at the remnants of some unlucky god or devil’s immortal domain. She extended her gaze further and she realized with terrifying surety that Jill might have proceeded to directly ransack the shattered-world’s heavens and hells if the chaotic sea hadn’t been enough to fuel her recovery.

“Heh, I knew we were well matched…I just knew it...It would have been boring if it was only me that was a little bit off in the head, between the two of us…” said Jack. Chuckling. Her dark heart filled up with flaming butterflies.

This was the difference between simply being crazy and being crazy in love...Jack never understood why people didn’t get it. Tsun- without the -dere was just a person who doesn't like you. Kuu- without the -dere was someone who didn’t care about you. Sado- without the -dere was plainly an enemy. So why were people clamoring over random crazy bitches and calling them yanderes?

The words Yan- and -dere were put together for a reason. The “-dere” was the important part. The L.O.V.E... was key. Snagging yourself a random psycho and calling it your mate was totally missing the point of the fantasy, and setting oneself up to end up on a missing person’s notice. It felt like those people were simultaneously looking down on life, relationships, and the importance of mental health. All relationships will inevitably suffer from stress...and a good partner is one who can help deal with that stress in a useful fashion, rather than going off like a hand-grenade? Is a romance that’ll likely end in a murder-suicide that enticing? What’s the point if there’s no possibility of a happy ending?

Jack was living her happy ending. Even now when everything hurt so much that the pain alone would have killed most mortals 10,000 times, Jack still woke up with a smile. Jack was self-aware enough to know that she’d probably gotten very lucky in snagging her Jilbert. He drowned her in so much love, and care, and support that her jagged bits rarely saw the light of day and patiently helped her work through things when the jagged bits inevitably ended up being exposed. He was attentive and considerate without making a big deal out of it. He was aware of her issues and he did his best to keep them from getting agitated...Jack was equally delighted and dismayed to find that she’d been sitting on a ticking time bomb as well. One that would ruthlessly, mercilessly, and guiltlessly destroy entire universes for her sake…

It made her wonder how dangerous he’d become when they expanded their family a bit, and she and their other lovers, all started having children. She couldn't help looking forward to how wonderfully unhinged he would become then. She’d have to keep an eye on that. Choking play, and genuinely being choked were separate things. She’d have to do her best to keep her dear one from becoming something he’d never wanted to become.

Jack shook herself and focused on the moment. She realized her thoughts had drifted a fair bit. Fortunately, her little foray into the field of extremely mental-partitioning and ego-expansion had led to an extreme increase in her mental stats. What would be several decades of navel-gazing for a normal person, was just a nanosecond for her. Thus Jack was able to quickly recover, and coolly regard the green dragon that was approaching her and her Jilbert.

“Sup...What can we do for you this fine day?” said Jack.