The Marine Demon's War Diary

War at Marineford Part 3

POV: Tanya Von Degurechaff

With her new mission in mind, Tanya took the direction of the bay, according to the orders given by her superior. She was perfectly opposed to this order, but there was nothing she could do about it, as soon as she challenged the admiral's order, she knew she would be accused of insubordination. So she kept a low profile until her request for transfer was considered.

Tanya was so engrossed in her thoughts that she instinctively made her way to the bay. She had reached a part of the western wall that was no longer the focus of the pirates' attention and jumped off the top of the great wall. Before doing so, she had prepared her bodybuilding spell so that she wouldn't kill herself by touching the frozen ground.

She checked her map one last time, where her objectives were marked, and then headed in their direction. The girl moved in such a way as to avoid contact with the pirates. Engaging in a fight at this point would be a death sentence.

The area was completely occupied by pirates. No matter where she looked, she could not find a friendly face, proof that the HQ plan was already in motion. The blonde girl felt a lot of resentment towards her superior who had no qualms about sending her into harm's way, despite the orders of their common superior that imposed a collective retreat of the troops.

"This kind of hothead with power in an army is a real cancer that can eat away at any state body from the inside. It is all the more disturbing when the army is involved. This man held in his hands thousands of lives of people who had joined the Marine. Such a waste of human resources is totally unthinkable. With such working conditions, I would much rather be on the Rhine front, at least there the officers had a modicum of consideration for their soldiers."

When she arrived in front of the first two DenDenMushi, she noticed that they were positioned on an abandoned ammunition box, probably left by the soldiers during their retreat who had not had time to take everything with them.

The infiltration to this position had been more complicated than expected. The large number of pirates left only a few opportunities for movement and did not allow her to move as freely as she would have liked. This strong presence had made her journey much longer than she had imagined.

Once the two devices were stowed with the others in her bag, she turned around and took the same route she had taken earlier. The movements of the enemy troops were far too random to anticipate anything. The cannon fire did not allow them to organize themselves properly. Their only option was to rush headlong towards the breach in the huge wall and hope that none of the cannonballs fired would cross their path.

Not wanting to be spotted, because being the only Marine member still present in the bay and trapped by the huge indestructible wall, without any possibility to get reinforcements. Tanya spotted a thin crack in the ice that appeared to be the junction between the east and west walls. The numerous explosions caused by cannon fire and Whitebeard's large-scale attacks must have weakened the huge ice surface in the bay. The bay was not deep, but it could allow a child to hide in it without any problem.

Remembering what she had seen on the map, she decided to take the passage created in the ice. The only drawback to this route was that it took a detour behind the formation of Whitebeard's pirate ships, which would cost the girl considerable time in achieving her goal.

She checked one last time behind to make sure no one was following her and then she entered the crevice, her Luger in her right hand and a dagger in her left hand that she had retrieved from an armory on the western wall.

Once inside, a great cold took place almost instantly. The surrounding ice was colder than normal, probably due to the fact that this ice was generated by Admiral Aokiji. Anyone trapped in the ice would most likely get a slow and painful death. The deeper she went into the crevasse, the more complicated the advance became, as the path became more and more cramped and made Tanya's skin come in contact with the frozen wall. She felt as if her skin had come into contact with a blazing fire, the cold burn very painful.