Title: Changlings
Author: Vashka
Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin.
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Rurouni Kenshin ficlet, Kenshin/Kaoru, in my Changling 'Verse for Ravyn€]

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Chapter 2: The Hunter

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Kenshin, his face impassive and breath steady, flicked the blood and gore off of his blade. Another monster down. Hundreds more to go. He smiled turned grim as his amber eyes squinted at the bloody carnage, inspecting the half-turned creature for signs of life. The fur covered, gangly limbs twitched in their death-throes, but there was no rise and fall of the chest, and there was a clean cut severing the beast's muzzled, half-furred face with his neck. Yup. Definitely decapitated. Mission accomplished.

Muscles still tense and twitchy with adrenalin, he swiftly turned to inspect the Vic, hoping against hope that she was still alive. Sheathing his sword, he willed his aura to soothing mode. He wanted her to be alive, he truly did, but he wouldn't get any information out of her if she was hysterical.

The sky-rocketing murder rate, the horrific rapes, the increase in numbers of Changed who immersed themselves in the animal never came back, it made the job of Hunter incredibly messy these past few years. And exhausting. Especially when the boss is the pre-eminent workaholic of the age.

Kenshin flipped his cell open to call the paramedics and the rest of his clean-up crew, but stopped mid-stride.

He blinked in surprise.

The victim was missing.

"Shit," Kenshin hissed. There was a pool of blood where he had pulled the wolf off of her, but nothing else. No clothes or other signs of Change, nothing.

Dammit, we need to get her in for questioning, for healing. I didn't get a good look at her. Mentally, he scrolled to his few memories of the victim. Small, long dark hair, pale skin… No identifiers. Dammit, dammit, dammit!

He knelt next to the small puddle of cool, rapidly congealing blood, quickly barking orders into his cell phone. On the cerebral, human plane of his brain, he registered Sano's indignant squawk, but on the primitive level, that feral place where his Cat growled and paced, he was stalking.

Instinctively, he knew that she couldn't have gotten far. The fight had not taken long, the wolf's crazed brain too drenched with blood and lust to stand any chance against him. He dipped his fingers into the blood, brought it to his nose for a long sniff. Closing his eyes, he allowed the Cat to remember her scent.

Salt, Spice, Jasmine and... Wood Oil? He shook off a surprised smile and took off at a sprint in the direction of the main campus dormitories.

His nose wasn't as good as Saitoh's, but he could track for short distances. Her scent quickly led him to a dumpster on the other side of the sports complex, where he found a pair of jeans and a sweat-soaked, bloody, blue T-shirt saturated with her scent. Rifling through her pockets, he swore creatively.

Chapstick, some change and a hair band. No wallet. No ID. Wonderful. And on top of that, she Changed.

Bringing the T-shirt to his face and inhaling deeply, he almost gagged on the overwhelming smell of garbage. Cursing her clever choice of location, he tried again to catch the scent of her animal form, but could not, as the scent of decomposing food was too strong on her clothing. Tossing the shirt back into the dumpster, he slowly walked the perimeter of

There. The fresh scent of… musk mixed with blood. There weren't any other recent animal scents nearby, and the scent was similar enough that Kenshin took a gamble and followed it off into the night. It took him on a circuitous path- over tables, under rails and on the roof of a few dorms, and just as he was about to give up hope, the scent suddenly stopped in the square middle of the dormitory quad.

He looked up into the tree.

When he was in his feline form, he could see in the dark just as clearly as the daylight. However, even though he retained many aspects of his Changed form while he was human, his night vision only improved marginally. Quietly, so as not to alert her to his presence he reached into his black leather jacket for his high-powered LED flashlight. Squinting into the black, he could make out a small shape moving in the branches. Aiming his flashlight at the blob, he hoped that the past hour hadn't been an elaborate wild goose chase.

The creature froze, eyes glowing madly in the sudden bright light.

Kenshin could feel his lips curving up reflexively. A small raccoon, its deep brown eyes wary and intelligent stared at him unblinkingly. As Kenshin watched, amused despite himself, it tried to hide its body behind a large branch of the maple.

"I know it's you. I want you to know that you are safe now."

The raccoon did not move.

"The creature that attacked you is dead. I'm with the Hunter's association, and we need to bring you into the station for questioning."

The raccoon did, what Kenshin assumed, was its best, 'look I'm not a Changling at all, I'm just an animal,' impression. Nonchalantly, it scurried to the end of the branch and back and studiously ignored his presence.

Kenshin laughed. "You still have your wallet in your mouth."

The raccoon seemed surprised by this, and spat it out reflexively. It dropped to Kenshin's feet. Flipping it open, he looked at the ID – Kaoru Kamiya. He swallowed. She's… really pretty.

He looked up to angry chittering. And found she had descended to a branch just above his head. Her dark eyes snapping, she balanced on the branch and held out her paws for her wallet.

"Nope," Kenshin said happily, "this is mine until you come in for questioning." As she angrily snapped at his hand, he noticed several nasty scratches on her back and flanks, still oozing, almost hidden by her fur. "And you need your wounds looked after. With the amount of blood you lost, you'll probably need stitches at least, if not a few units of blood."

The raccoon shrunk back in on itself, and Kenshin's heart ached a little at how scared and small it looked. He opened his arms wide. "Come on. We've got fresh clothes, showers and coffee. Will you trust me?"

The raccoon looked at him steadily for a long while, not moving. Just when he thought he would need to send for backup, her hindquarters bunched and she leapt into his open arms.

He looked at the shivering female in his arms and smiled as he walked to his car. "I'll keep you safe, don't worry."

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Notes: Wrote this years ago for Ravyn on LJ. Posted to Fanfiction at the urging of my friend kokoronagomu.