The Hall of the Rat King [Private]

Alastor's attack would barely dent the wall of rats that he was slashing at. A few of the rats would scream out in pain and die, something that was obviously uncommon for hollows. Normally, when they're killed they dissolve into the air as they travel to the Soul Society, but here they stayed in a physical form and fell into the water. Not happy that their comrades have been slain, some of the rats have redirected their attention to Alastor, launching at him with their numbers. He would soon be consumed by a wave of teeth and claws. One would sting, but hundreds would hurt considerably more.

Meanwhile, Chidori was currently stuck in between the wall and Rat King, who was trying his best to eat her. The only thing keeping him from doing so was the sword that was currently lodged in his head, entering from underneath his chin and getting stuck in his upper jaw. He left out a scream of pain and put his hands on the wall on either side of Chidori, trying to push into her as hard as possible. If he were to succeed she'd be nothing more than a pancake against the wall but it's not like she was going to be able to go anywhere because he was considerably stronger than her and if Chidori lost her footing then she will definitely be dead.

"Hey, could use a little help here!"

Tch. Look at that, actual rats. He had hoped they might've been familiars created by the hollow since he remembered reading about a category of hollows that used little extensions of themselves as their means of power. Servant Users.

"Stupid bullshit."

When they turned on him he bit his lip in frustration, it didn't sound like his partner was having any great deal of ease with the big guy. Well, when life gives you lemons you do something stupid with it.

"Hadō #31 Shakkaho!"

Ow. Ow. Ow.

Alastor sucked at kido, enough that the explosion of fire luckily did little damage to him other than burn his hands rather than straight up explode in his face. Being thrown a little back and hoping that he cooked a few of the stupid rats he tried to get around to Chidori, aw shit. It was looking at her like dinner was served.

Next stupid idea. Run towards it from the side, leap and bring it down to cleave the mask. It was an outstanding move.

Wow, Alastor was playing 4D chess it seemed but he put himself in checkmate.

As Alastor was approaching from the side, the hollow took one of it's hands from the wall and grabbed him with it. Luckily, this gave Chidori a moment to breath which she used to bring her zanpakuto out of it's head by dragging it out, towards her. This meant that the bottom jaw of the hollow was now split like a snake's tongue, something it was not happy about. It made sure she knew by releasing a blood-curdling scream before it slowly started to regenerate it's jaw back together. It wouldn't actually be complete for about a good 5 minutes, which let her know that he wasn't very skilled with regeneration. Now that she was away, she had to figure out what she was going to do next.

Following the lead of her partner, perhaps kido would be more useful here. Using her free hand, Chidori began to draw symbols in the air, remembering one of the few spells she learned back at the academy.

"Disintegrate, you black dog of Rondanini!! Look upon yourself with horror and then claw out your own throat! Bakudō #9, Geki!" As she finished the incantation, the hollow began to have a red glow and froze, letting out another small screech of pain. While he stopped moving, however, the rats had persisted, focusing on Chidori as they rapidly began climbing the wall up to her. She started her way over to Alastor, slashing at the hollow's arm to free him. Unfortunately, her zanpakuto got suck halfway through.

Big oof.

That's about the sound that came out of him when he was grabbed and had the wind knocked out of him. What a stupid hollow, why couldn't it just be a dumb one that focused on Chidori and lacked sentience or wit. How unlucky.

Double unlucky was when even after she was able to paralyse this hollow that the sword she tried to free him with got caught.

"This thing is stupid."

On the bright side he had a familial trait, if these Shihoin people could be cats well he was just hot. Literally. His frustration and desire to not lose to this hollow caused his body to heat up exponentially until it began to sizzle the hollows hand around him while it was paralysed.

"Let me go you stupid fuck."

Ever so slowly, the hollow loosened it's grasp on Alastor. The wasn't something that he expected to happen and honestly he just wanted to get away from him as fast as possible. Now that the hollow was slowed down, Chidori noticed that the rats had slowed down as well. This didn't really make sense to her but that's whatever, as it gave her some time to breathe and assess the situation. The rats were closing in one her, only mere seconds away from reaching. In response, she flash stepped backward away from them, now hovering over the middle of the opening.

"That's a... pretty unique skill. Where'd you learn to do that, huh? That a human thing or...?" Chidori stood in a defensive stance, waiting for the next thing to leap at her so she can stab it. The rats that were on the wall stopped moving, as if they were awaiting a command from their master to do something. It was actually pretty jarring and disgusting as they were all clumped together and still on the wall. Slowly, the hollow began to shake as the bakudo started to wear off. The rats started to do the same shaking movement as well, as if they were somehow linked to the hollow, though minimally.

Worked like a charm, always did in situations like this and once he was able to fall out of the hollow's grasp he gave a long sigh.

"Man, fuck this. Huh? It's just something my family do. Don't worry 'bout it, tell you later if we don't die."

Watching the scene but knowing there was only a few decisive moments available. He judged that to try and attack it while he was beginning to wear off the spell would probably lead to it breaking just at the last moment as they got close so he didn't charge it. Couldn't tempt fate now could he?

"Aight. What's your plan now huh? Gotta somehow get rid of these rats since they're just a bother."

"Plan? Oh, see, I'm not really a plan person. Up to now, I've been a 'hit it till it dies' kind of gal. From what I've seen, the rats seem to work on an order basis, so he tells them to do something and they do it. When they aren't given anything to do, they just kind of stop there. So here's what I'm think: just keep hitting the big guy, because once we take care of him we won't have to worry about the rats any more. Now, you must be thinking that the rats are just going to be stopping us from ever getting to reach him. They will, but that's just a risk we're going to have to take. If we both attack at the same time then we should be fine. There are only so many rats."

Chidori laid out her game plan to her partner as the hollow just sat there and watched. The rats began to swarm around the hollow, all of them moving clockwise around it while they were awaiting a command idly. It cocked it's head to the side in confusion, not really understanding what they were conversing about above it.

Attack at him together? That sounded stupid, they'd just get intercepted by the rats and if not them then the hollow itself could wipe them both out. Why did this rat king hollow have to be so bothersome? servant users were such a pain.

"Right. Whatever, let's just get rid of him and move on then huh?"

Taking up a stance to ready himself, on her mark he followed her lead and ran towards the hollow while going to attack from a side, hoping she was going for the other. All he needed was a single good swing so he aimed for it.

Chidori was honestly surprised by the fact that he listened to her so really. Normally, whenever she would tell men what to do there would be some pushback because they all, to some degree, strive on their pride and she could sort of understand that. It's just that, with Alastor agreeing with her on this kind of made her confident in her skills of being a shinigami. She gave him a nod and rushed towards the hollow, and the moment she moved he let out a blood curdling scream, the rats climbing on the hollow and staying there, forming a kind of armor. Then, it launched at them, but it would find that both of it's targets would move around it, as Chidori had planned. She was placed behind it and Alastor opposite her, Chidori raising her arms and slashing at the hollow only to find that her sword wasn't going to go through. She hoped that he partner was having a better time as she kept going, slashing at the rats. It looked as if when one died another would just take it's place, an almost endless sea of rodent to protect their king. Meanwhile, Alastor was having a considerably easier time than she was, getting off a few hits on the hollow itself before the rats would move back into place.

What if she...

Chidori took her free hand and placed her palm close to the hollow then focused on her energy. She visualized it flowing from her chest to her arm, then exploding from that point. As her eyes opened, her reiatsu exploding from around her forearm in the direction of the hollow, but the important thing to note was that the rats were immediately engulfed in her black flames. On her side, they rapidly started dying, the corpses falling to the floor and catching other rats on fire. While this was happening she resumed her assault, though unluckily for her, the hollow had decided that it should start going on the offensive. It lashed out at Chidori, swiped at Alastor, missed, and the turned around and lunged at Chidori. Barely, she dodged the attack but was scratched on her thigh. The hollow kept going and hit a wall, immediately recovered, and launched back at Chidori again. Once again, she barely dodged. It seemed like the hollow was fixated on her as it kept repeating these lunges over and over, and every time Chidori kept cutting it closer and closer.

She had to keep dodging. She had to be faster. Fast enough to live, fast enough to strike, fast enough to kill. Inside, there was a desire to live welling up in her, overshadowing her doubts of death. It kept growing and growing, until eventually, just before the hollow would have struck her in the torso, Chidori felt herself shrink am shrink. Her eyes wandered to find her zanpakuto in the air above her now, so she grabbed it with her mouth and brought it down on the hollow with great speed and force, cutting it right down the middle.

Glad that it's finally over, her paws hit the ground gracefully. Wait, what? Paws? Chidori looked down at her hands to realized that they weren't really hand at all; they were cat paws. She felt something smack against her rear and she immediately jumped, just to catch a glimpse of what was supposed to be a tail. Her small neck rotated her head to look at Alastor and she met him with a confused face.

"Well... this is new."

[EXIT]