15th of the 9th month, year 44 of the crimson moon
-Vass's POV-
The ridge loomed like a wall of jagged stone and smoke. From the dunes, we could see it, a dark, irregular line marked with bamboo palisades, sandbags, and the glint of rifles trained on every slope. Somewhere among it, Kaizen's men waited, calm in the chaos, and we were walking straight into their fire.
I tasted salt, sweat, and the metallic tang of fear in the air. My boots sank into sand turned red from the morning's blood, and the stench of cordite clung to every inhalation. Around me, my squad moved in staggered lines, rifles up, heads down. The men were quiet now—too quiet—faces pale, eyes darting. Even the sergeant's jaw had a tightness I hadn't noticed on the landing craft.
"Keep moving! Don't bunch up!" the sergeant hissed, crouched low beside me.
The first wave of fire hit. Bullets tore through the sand ahead, kicking up clouds of dust and grit. A man in my squad went down screaming, one shot to the chest, his rifle tumbling from limp hands. Another staggered back, clutching his shoulder, face twisted. I pressed forward, rifle up, heart hammering in a rhythm that matched the staccato crack of enemy fire.
I tried to keep my breathing steady. I had to think, had to move, had to survive. Every step was a lesson in keeping low, keeping moving, keeping aware. But the ridge was merciless. Every inch forward cost men. Every glance up showed rifles, machine guns, and slits where snipers might have been hiding.
"Cover left!" someone shouted.
I whipped my head, spotting a small clump of rocks where three of our men were firing back blindly. I followed suit, squeezing off rounds at the flashes of muzzle fire I could see, hoping my bullets found flesh, not just sand. One did. I saw a Yamatoan soldier jerk backward, collapsing behind a palisade.
Then a shell landed too close, and the world erupted. Shrapnel ripped through the air, cutting down a man in my squad who had been crouching beside me a heartbeat before. Blood sprayed across my helmet as I dived sideways, stomach slamming into the sand.
"Fall back! Fall back!" someone screamed, but no one moved fast enough. Too many of us were pinned, too many of us already stunned by the storm of fire.
We tried to push again. Climbing the slope was like moving through a wall of knives. Every step brought the risk of death. My chest burned, my legs shook from the effort and fear. Men ahead fell like dominoes. One of the younger marines, barely out of training, froze halfway up and went down to the side with a scream that echoed over the ridge.
I shoved forward, hands gripping the rifle, mind running through everything I knew about angles, cover, timing. None of it mattered. We were at the mercy of the defenders, and Kaizen's men knew the terrain better than we could. Machine guns sprayed our flank, rifles picked off the slow, and grenades rolled down, forcing us to dive for cover in craters or behind rocks.
Morale fractured. I saw it in the eyes of the men around me—the ones who hadn't been shot yet. They hesitated, glanced at each other, muttered under their breaths. Some shouted curses at the sergeant, but he was shouting too, trying to keep the rhythm of the attack alive, trying to push us toward the ridge.
But every attempt forward was punished. For every foot we gained, we lost another man. Some screamed. Others swore silently and kept moving. I didn't have time to mourn. I just kept my head down, rifle up, and moved in the gaps the explosions left.
The sergeant barked orders I could barely hear over the chaos: "Grenade! Throw it on the palisade! Move up!" One of the men lobbed a shell, but it hit too short, spinning harmlessly in the sand. A Yamatoan soldier rose, shot him clean through the chest, and went back into cover.
We reached a small dip, maybe a slight plateau. Ten of us were left. Ten out of thirty who had started from the dunes. My hands shook from adrenaline, blood, and the cold terror of knowing how close death had been. The sergeant pressed his palm to my shoulder.
"Look at me!" he shouted. His face was pale, lips tight. "We're not done. We can't… we can't stop now."
I nodded, but the fire in his eyes didn't reach mine. Around us, men were crawling, dragging the wounded, trying to get to relative safety. A sniper took out a man thirty feet ahead, and I saw his body twist and go still.
We tried again, forward, into the teeth of the defense. The slope was steeper than I'd realized, the sand loose and sucking at our boots. Every second felt like eternity. Another explosion ripped apart the ground to my left, tossing earth and rock into the air. One of the remaining men screamed as shrapnel tore into his leg.
By the time we hit what we thought was the crest of the ridge, we were exhausted, wounded, and demoralized. The Yamatoans were waiting for us in prepared positions: firing pits, hidden bunkers, and cleverly angled machine guns that cut off the few paths forward.
We stopped. We froze. Our momentum had vanished, replaced by the knowledge that this ridge would not fall today. The sergeant swore, spat into the dirt, and looked over the remaining men. Eyes were wide, some glazed. Hands trembled. We were pinned.
I crouched low, rifle shaking in my grip. I could feel it—the creeping realization in every man that we might not make it through this. Some began whispering, others just stared, swallowing the bitter taste of fear. Casualties stacked up too quickly, and every push forward felt like it was bought in blood.
And above it all, Kaizen's men seemed impossibly calm. Every shot they fired, every grenade tossed, was measured, efficient, and lethal. They had the ridge. They had the high ground. And we were crawling into it blind.
For a long moment, I wondered if we'd even survive to see the next wave of landing craft. The thought of retreat crossed my mind—briefly, dangerously—but the sergeant's voice cracked across the ridge, pulling us back to the fight, pulling us to try again despite the slaughter.
I gritted my teeth, pressed my back against a rock, and tried to steady my shaking hands. There was no glory in this moment, no sense of triumph. Only survival. And the knowledge that this ridge was a death trap, one we would not conquer today.
The ridge seemed impossibly high, impossibly lethal. The bodies of my squad lay scattered, the sand stained with blood and churned into red-brown mud. Every direction offered nothing but fire and death. But instinct kicked in—the same instinct that had kept me alive in countless fights before this impossible one. Freeze and die wasn't an option.
I ducked behind a jagged rock, chest heaving, rifle ready. A small group of us—seven men, maybe eight—were left, faces pale, eyes wide, hands trembling. The sergeant was down a few feet away, clutching a deep wound in his leg. I scanned the slope.
The Yamatoan fire pattern had a rhythm. Short bursts, then a pause, then sweeping shots across the left flank. They weren't expecting anyone to fall back in an organized manner—they assumed we were trapped and would panic. That assumption was about to work in our favor.
"Listen up!" I hissed, keeping my voice low but sharp. "We're not dead yet. There's a path down the ridge to the west—it's less covered. We move on my mark, we move fast, and we don't stop until we hit the lower dunes. Got it?"
Eyes flicked at me, a mixture of fear and hope. Nods. That was enough.
I waited for the moment in the enemy's firing pattern—the brief pause between bursts. I counted it in heartbeats. One, two, three… then we rolled forward, low, fast, using the rocks and dips in the ridge as cover.
A grenade bounced near our feet. I kicked it toward a fallen tree trunk, and it detonated harmlessly to our side, showering sand but leaving us alive. One man stumbled, and I grabbed him, dragging him along.
"Keep going!" I shouted, though my own voice shook.
We made it a dozen feet before enemy fire raked the slope again. Bullets tore into sand around us, kicking up small clouds of debris. A man went down beside me, screaming. I didn't stop—I yanked him forward and rolled us both into a crater, using it as a temporary shield.
This became a rhythm: dash, dive, roll, fire, repeat. Each small movement, each heartbeat, was a gamble. But we kept moving. The enemy fire was precise, but the terrain was treacherous enough that even precision had limits. Rocks, craters, fallen men—we used everything as cover.
Somehow, in the middle of this chaos, I found a window. The Yamatoan machine gun nest on the western flank had fired, then paused to reload. That split-second was all I needed.
"Cover me!" I barked. Two men crouched near me opened fire, suppressing the nest just enough to draw attention away. I lobbed a grenade, the arc perfect, the explosion tearing through sand and timber. Smoke and debris filled the air.
The gunners went down—or at least ducked—and the remaining men in my group surged forward. We pressed down the western slope, using the ridge itself as partial cover. Sand poured beneath our boots, but we moved, crawling and rolling, hearts hammering in sync.
We weren't safe yet. We were still under fire, still exposed, but the path to the lower dunes was within reach. Every step was agony, every breath burned. But the rhythm of survival carried us forward.
I glanced behind. The ridge above was still a death trap, but our retreat wasn't chaotic. We had a plan, and we executed it. The sergeant groaned behind me, but he survived. One man had a shattered arm; I dragged him along with one arm of my own.
Bullets whizzed overhead. Another grenade landed just beyond our cover, tossing dirt into my face. I wiped the grit away and pressed on. Every man was breathing hard, terrified, but alive. And that counted for more than anything else right now.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of sand, smoke, and gunfire, the slope began to level. The lower dunes spread before us like a temporary sanctuary. We dropped to the ground, gasping, hearts pounding. The bullets still came, but at a distance now—less accurate, less relentless.
We had made it. Seven, maybe eight men out of thirty, but alive. Alive and ready to regroup, ready to fight another day.
I pressed my face into the sand, tasting salt, sweat, and dirt. I didn't know how much longer we'd survive, didn't know if the next assault would be worse, but I had bought my squad a chance to live. For now, that was enough.
The sergeant coughed, pain etched deep in his face, and I leaned over him. "We made it down. We're alive. That's all that matters."
He nodded faintly, eyes narrowing as he scanned the ridge above. "For now," he muttered.
I looked at the surviving men, their hands shaking, their breaths ragged, but their eyes still burning with some stubborn spark. I realized then that the battle wasn't about glory. It wasn't about taking the ridge today. It was about surviving, adapting, and using whatever advantage we had to fight another day.
And somehow, in the madness of Shirojima, I had adapted. I was still standing. Still thinking. Still alive.
For now, the ridge had beaten us. But tomorrow… tomorrow we would fight again. And I would be ready.
- - - heart <3 ? - - -