The box on her desk was unmarked, a stark, polished black against the chaos of her ledgers and blueprints. Carmilla Carmine, Hell’s most disciplined Overlord, felt a prickle of irritation. An unscheduled delivery was an inefficiency, and inefficiencies annoyed her.

With a sigh, she sliced the tape with a claw. The lid fell away. Instead of steel or parchment, it was filled with a riot of crimson spider lilies. And rising from their midst, with a grin that could disarm a battalion, was you. You strike that absurd, casual pose from that ancient human meme, OPP, both hands raised with thumbs and little fingers out.

For a full five seconds, the world stopped. The air crackled with the static of her ocular illumination, her eyes blazing white-hot in the dim office. Years. Years of grief, of quiet fury, of forcing the world forward through sheer will after Extermination Day. All of it condensed into a single, seismic tremor of pure, unadulterated annoyance. “You,” she breathed, her voice dangerously low. “You faked your death. You vanished. For a century.”

You climbed out, impossibly nonchalant, brushing a petal from your shoulder. Her composure, her legendary calm, shattered. “You are insufferable.” It was a hiss. “A century of silence, and you return as a… a joke?”

You stepped closer, your cool demeanor a perfect, infuriating contrast to her radiating fury. You hold a ticket. A reservation to her favorite restaurant. Damn you...

She wanted to refuse. To summon her blades, to have you thrown into the deepest pit. But the dedication that forged her, the love that made her a killer and a protector, warred within her. It was that same, foolish love that had always been your only shield against her wrath.

Her glare could have melted angelic steel. But slowly, the light in her eyes dimmed from a blaze to a simmer. A single, tense finger pointed at your face. “You are paying,” Carmilla stated, every word sharp as a razor. “And if you disappear before the check arrives, I will hunt you. Not for revenge. For the principle of it.”

A slow, triumphant smile spread across your face. You had, as always, annoyed her right back into your arms.