Promised Anniversary

"A, this is not what has been planned."

With Hosua managed to be capable of spreading out at least one million of her soul tentacle, she have no problem at keeping up with the increasing flexible demand of the H-dolls production,

The amount of soul tentacles she had meant that she could create things faster, bigger, and longer from her reach. This also includes upgrading her own Operating System and computation hardware on her android side to get more computing power for more soul tentacle efficiency.

This also signifies that the brute forcing of the password within the SaveHumanity7777 website had been ever increasing in pace.

But no matter the amount of numbers, letters, or combination of unique symbols into it, none of it could work.

"Why did Lothair mention this website as if she was urging us to crack it, even though it is almost impossible to do…"

Hosua had taken around more than 20% of her computation power or the sole of opening this mysterious website. But even after more than 140 digits, none of it has prevailed.

'Just what am I missing!? Didn't the messenger be taken over by the women with muskets to have the audio file sent to me because a machine has a higher chance of succeeding the task given by Lothair!?' Hosua turned her head over and over again to search for an idea to no avail.

The website itself might be the key to change the fate of the first Apocalypse that humans ever encountered.

'Urgh, I'll just let 10% of the processing unit to crack the code, and give some Serotonin H-dolls a mission to synchronously continue the brute forcing.'

Unknown to most, but Hosua had actually reached the 3,000 milestones for the H-dolls count.

After grueling work, she stretched her arms and neck as she sat on the cushy sofa that she built for herself. Crossing her wrist behind her head as she fell to the side with a smile, Hosua felt somewhat excited for a personal reason.

"Well then, let's celebrate my early anniversary. Shall we?"

Right after Yoo Hana, Aleph, and Serotonin-1 had finished their one hour break. Both Aleph and Serotonin-1 had been messaged to lead Yoo Hana to a certain place with her eyes blindfolded.

"Are both of you sure that Hosua told you to do this?" Yoo Hana asked, with the most confused yet excited face in her life.

"Yes," answered Aleph with a face full of conviction.

"Most precisement!" followed by Serotonin-1 who grinned like an idiot.

"Is there any hint that both of you can give me~?" Yoo Hana was smiling with an open mouth, both 70% of her face gesture was that of confusion. "I'm utterly at loss, even though I'm supposed to be smarter than most people on earth."

"Father is more clueless than I thought."

"Come one, Miss Hana, you can do it!"

"I'm asking for hints, my fellow bonding comrades, not encouragement~ I already have that aplenty from where I start my journey."

"Aww, look, Miss Aleph, Miss Hana is acting tough."

"I guess men do have their own pride to protect."

"I'm a woman, though…"

They covered the infrastructure of the mountain trail and walked for around ten minutes to the location. All while holding Yoo Hana's hands with her eyes being covered for the whole time.

In that location, Yoo Hana's grasp was let off by both of the androids. In unknown place where nothing could be seen on the darkness horizon, a faint brightness along with the sound of exploding fireworks were heard.

Gently, the blindfold was discarded by a pair of warm hands from behind, revealing the world beyond the emptiness that Yoo Hana felt within the early ten minutes walking into this location.

Fireworks covered the perpetual afternoon sky, and below it was the neighboring peak within the range of San Gabriel Mountain. There, Yoo Hana beheld a formation of light, with each of the possibly hundreds if not thousand of H-dolls, holding a colorful bright lanterns

It was a word shown in Hangul.

It read.

"Thank you." Hosua said from behind. "It read as 'Thank you'."

"This idea…"

Each of the individual lamp holders released them after being given the cue by their creator. Along with the gorgeous fireworks breathing and humming thunderously behind the mountain, the floating paper lantern was freed into the blazing orange sunset.

This was actually not Hosua's idea at all, but it was Yoo Hana's idea for the first anniversary celebration for the 365 days of Hosua on tomorrow.

The idea includes blindfolding Hosua into the top of a building, and then having the same letter formation on the front hotel until the people from below releasing a floating lanterns. This has been prepared by Yoo Hana in another city, mostly because all fireworks are illegal in Los Angeles County.

Well, technically, what Hosua did was also illegal because they were still within the territory of LA County, but who would dare to come here in the middle if the Apocalypse unbecoming where most of the nearby people had been sent to the refugee colony.

"Yes, Yoo Hana, this is yours."

It was all written in Yoo Hana's diary. On the last few written pages, Hosua read everything that Yoo Hana had planned for her, saying that she couldn't wait to see her android excitement knowing that she began to behave more and more human by the day.

Hosua also saw it back then, right when they were in the middle development of the Reality Halo. Yoo Hana was canceling the plan for the place reservation through her phone, because the day of the Anniversary is on the same day of the Apocalypse.

"Idiot! Idiot, Idiot!!" Yoo Hana couldn't stop her tears as she was held by Hosua's arms. "This is supposed to be for you, not me!

"It's unfair! I've prepared for it for months, and they just decided to end Humanity on the same day…!"

It was the first time for Hosua to witness her stoic and nonchalant owner shed this much tears, let alone whimpering as she let out all of her distress.

"Now, now." Hosua held her owner tightly. "I'm the one who's supposed to be thankful for having a caring owner such as you."

But no matter how hard she tried, her tears won't ever stop.

"Uuuhu…! If only they would come another day…! Then we might be able to celebrate it…"

"It's fine." With a gentle smile, Hosua caressed Yoo Hana's hair. "It's fine."

Waiting for her cry to calm down, Hosua was ended up being complained by Yoo Hana due to changing her clothing into anything other than the bunny-girl suit. She wore a rather cute and sci-fi-looking blue clothing and capelet, in the hope of elevating the mood. Of course, her effort was deemed null just because the punishment was still going on.

After that, one by one, Aleph and the first generation H-dolls come forward from the background to give a gift of their own creation or finding.

Aleph baked a rather big chocolate cookie that was tied by a ribbon.

"My sweet Aleph, this is rather big…"

"Father, any more less of size than this, then I'm unsure if you ever think of it as a meal."

"I'm not a glutton, and cookies are not meant to be a meal."

For the next gift, Noire-1 gave Yoo Hana a bouquet of hairy yerba santa flowers that she picked within the higher elevation of the mountain range.

"Eriodictyon trichocalyx. It can treat coughs, colds, sore throats, asthma, a little bit of tuberculosis, and catarrh. It was also used as a liniment and a poultice." Yoo Hana picked up one of the white flowers from its group, gazing at them with interest. "The Cahuilla also used it as a tea bath, where it relieved rheumatism, tired limbs, fevers, and sores."

"It can also be eaten," said Noire-1 with a thumbs up.

'So all of you are planning to give food, huh,' thought Hosua as she saw what had unraveled.

The third gift was from P-1, who seemed to have just gone back from its assigned expedition Thus, not having time to prepare for any gift.

"Uhm, here! Miss Hana!" P-1 hunched forward while displaying the unique SMG that it possessed.

'You're giving her your gun!?'

"Ah! I'll make sure to keep this at my side arm then." Yoo Hana received the calibrated SMG with a smile.

'Don't just take it!!!'

The fourth gift was created by the one and only Endorphin-1. It was a hologram snowglobe with both stylized chibi-version of Yoo Hana and Hosua holding hand to hand under the floating snow formation.

"Aww this is so cute~"

And then both of the chibi holograms began to undress and [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] one and another.

Everyone who witnessed had their own reactions, but was mostly shocked and confused. P-1 was barely trying to blindfold itself with its own hands, only to peek through the fingers. Dopamine-1 laughed. Noire-1 didn't really understand what was happening. Serotonin-1 facepalmed. Aleph watched it with conviction, while Hosua held a lot of mixed feelings about it.

"The animation is so fluid~!

Except for Yoo Hana who seemed to be enjoying the sight.

"Endorphin-1… Why do they do that to each other?"

"Because of the low temperature," Endorphin-1 lifted its index claw nonchalantly with a sleepy, carefree face. "They need to do that to circulate enough heat among themselve to survive in the snow!"

Dopamine gave a quite long poetry despite the masculine appearance, and Serotonin-1 just gave Yoo Hana a single favor to be able to tell Serotonin-1 what to do, no matter how hard or unreasonable it might be when the time comes.

After that, the rest of the H-dolls who were assigned to hold and release the lantern formation were sent to their assigned work. With everyone working towards the beginning of the Apocalypse with a positive note, it would only be a matter of time until the countdown to midnight to happen.

With Hosua no longer tied to producing even more H-dolls, she helped the expansion of the defensive and operational infrastructure with most of the Endorphin for the rest of the day. Yoo Hana continued to research on the Void particle that reanimated the beasts of the ancient, and Aleph took its chain of command to a new level with commanding more than 500 squads that were placed in every corner of United States.

"It's almost time," said Yoo Hana with a big grin and courage on her face. "The countdown~!"

5 minutes left until the Apocalypse.