Denji made sure to stick to the less visible areas of the city as he ran through; he wasn't exactly inconspicuous, he was a small kid with large oil burns on his arms. He would be pretty darn memorable if witnessed, so he kept a good distance between himself and public areas.

It was only after he broke into a run that he realized if he took too long, then that Curtain would disappear. 'Why am I heading for it anyway? I'm pretty sure whoever put it down would kill whatever they planned to kill. But if they died, then what chance would I have against it?'

Regardless of his concerns, he managed to reach the edge of the Curtain without finding any other hotspots for Cursed Spirits. He took a moment to catch his breath and to take measure of his Core, it felt like it could last for at least another half-hour.

Gathering up all his courage, he stepped through the black veil. The first thing he heard was the explosion of a loud bang from a gun being fired.

"I wonder why you keep trying, it should've been clear from the first shot that you can't penetrate this shell."

Through the light ringing in his ears, he also heard the faint sound of a female's tired voice.

"Shut up bitch! If you're so protected then how come you're keeping your distance, huh!?"

Followed by a loud shout of a male's angered voice response.

'Fuck, they're pretty close.' Denji forced his Core to slow down, fear almost overwhelmed him but he held it down and slowly snuck forward. As he walked, he carefully ejected CE out his feet and into the ground, he needed to lower his presence if he wanted to remain hidden.

A light clap. "Congrats, you aren't a complete idiot. This Cursed Shell Technique's defensive power is dependent on distance, so the further my opponent, the stronger the shield. If you get up close it's as thin as paper."

Denji was close enough to the conversation that he could hear her clearly, he also felt her Curse Energy spike up after she finished talking. The depth of her CE amount was staggering compared to his own, like a glass of water compared to a swimming pool. 'No, no, I'm probably exaggerating, but it's definitely massive compared to my reserves.'

"Tch!" The man clicked his tongue. "Ya' think you're clever huh!? I'm not falling for that bait! Watch this!"

Making sure to not step on any loose twigs, or rustle and branches, Denji peeked through the gaps of a few trees so he could see the confrontation.

The man, a scruffy fellow with dark hair in a dark gray suit, pulled out three simple wooden dolls from his jacket. "These are my Cursed Kokeshi! Each one of them is haunted by a woman and our unborn children! All three of them are linked directly to me, meaning I get the Cursed Energy produced from them!"

The man's CE amount grew large, but its depth didn't change much, in fact most of it was simply flowing off of him. It took a moment for Denji to comprehend what that man had just said. 'Is he saying he impregnated three women, and then killed those pregnant women and their babies, just so he could get a more CE? And now he isn't even using it effectively, fucking bastard.'

"Yikes, hard to imagine that any woman would sleep with you, let alone three different ones." The woman, a bottle blonde dressed in a loosely buttoned black suit, was holding out her hand flat with her palm facing her chest. "What? Did you pay them? No, wait, I can't even imagine any woman agreeing for that either. So, that only leaves rape. I guess that was the only way you would ever lose your virginity."

The man growled and his CE surged up, so did the CE that was being transferred from the dolls as they shook in his grip. "Fuck you!" He tossed aside the gun he was holding and withdrawn something else from his jacket, a mummified animal head. "Come forth: Inugami!" He shouted and most of his CE was drained away.

The dirt beneath his feet exploded as a large dog, taller than the man that called it, emerged. Its skin was wrapped tightly around his bones, and black drool dripped from its large fangs.

Denji almost looked away, not out of fear, but rather because it was too sad to look at.

"Witness my Inugami! It's a special technique passed down my family for generations! By raising a dog with love before starving and killing it, then infusing its corpse with years of Cursed Energy, we become able to summon a personal shinigami! And it's immortal as long as its skull is intact!" The man raised the skull in his hand up high.

The Inugami's CE increased almost tenfold after the man stopped explaining his abilities and how much of a disadvantage he had put himself at by having the skull exposed during battle.

Denji felt pure hatred replacing all the fear he had about his situation. Animal abusers were always high on his list for most hated individuals.

"Are you done yet?" She asked after a light yawn. "I understand you need every bit of power you could muster, but it's pretty unsightly to watch someone struggle so energetically to survive."

"Shut up! Shut up, you fucking bitch! Ya' come into my town and fuck up my operation! You should thanks the fucking heavens if you die today! If you're still alive after this, then it'll be as an amputated cumdump in a whore house!"

"Ha, operation." She chuckled. "I hardly think leeching off a small-time group of loan sharks to harvest Cursed Spirits from people could be called an operation. That's like calling a walk up some stairs an exercise. Though maybe that could be true for someone of your size."

The man's face turned a deep purple and the veins on his forehead looked like they were about to burst, but he didn't blow his temper. "Nice try girlie, but I've been in the game long enough to know when a small dog is barking loudly."

"Is that big dog your way of compensating for something?"

"I know you don't have any bite. Cursed Spirit Manipulation, right? I knew from those snakes you used earlier, so I also know you don't have anything stronger than Grade 3!" The man laughed. "You can't have anything stronger because your High Council doesn't want a repeat of that brat from Tokyo that went wild last year."

'Was that Geto? He's the only person I know of with that technique. Wait, I doubt a random background character would have that ability, so who is this?' Denji used a small amount of CE to reinforce his vision.

The blonde woman, who had red snake-like pupils, sighed. "Can we just end this already, I hate the outdoors."

"Haha! I've seen through you, haven't I? My Inugami is at least Grade 2, maybe even Grade 1! He's unstoppable after everything I've done, my Kokeshi, my revealing Vow, and the risk Vow, and he has even feasted on Cursed Flesh from the Gun—"

"Snake: Bite!" Akane Sawatari swung her arms out and clasped her hands together with her fingers interlocking. A long white snake had suddenly materialized, shot across the large distance between them, and bit clear through the man's neck, interrupting him.

After his knees collapsed to the ground, the man's head bounced off the ground once before it came to a rest.

"Snake: Swallow!" She released her hands and then clasped them as if she was giving herself a handshake. The long snake swiveled in the air and swallowed the mummified skull midair, the Inugami exploded into dust. "Feel free to consume the rest." The snake then swallowed the wooden dolls.

'He's dead. He's dead.' In a single instant that man was beheaded, and killed. Death, he hadn't ever seen it so clearly and up close. Not even killing Denji's father had felt like this, that had been a dream he struggled to accept, but this was undeniably real.

Denji tucked himself behind a tree as the man's final moments played out on repeat. Fear was unconsciously being channeled into his Core.

"You should've told me that sooner, idiot. I almost missed out on another chunk. Hmm?"

He felt a sharp wave of CE wash over his back.

"What? Is something feeling hungry? Come on out, my snake could go for another snack." Her words were followed by the sound of twigs breaking as she got closer.

Denji forced out every last bit of his Cursed Energy and shut off his Cursed Cores, unbearable pain erupted through his body but the undiluted fear of death stifled his screams.

"Ha, coward." Akane's voice sounded a little bit muffled, as if she had turned around and began walking away.

'Leave! Leave! Leave! Leave!' A single thought burned through the pain.

"Yoo-hoo~ Sawatari Senpai!"

A lighthearted and upbeat female voice called out playfully as it entered his hearing range.

Akane sighed. "Did you finish clearing out the remaining Cursed Spirits, Shinnojo?"

"Yep! All done, can I get a reward now?"

"Ah! S-stop get off me!"

"Aw, c'mon it's just a hug!"

"What it is, is annoying and uncomfortable. Anyway, let's hurry back to Kyoto, I don't want to catch fleas or something out here."

"What about the rest of them?"

"The rest of what?"

"Y'know, the yakuza."

"Oh, forget about them. We were sent to deal with the Curse User Unit they had going on, nothing more."

"Really?"

"Yeah, don't forget that we aren't cops or heroes, our job is to eliminate Curses, that's all."

"Oh, okay."

"Shinnojo, you're a second year already, you can't let these types of things get to you, especially not during battle. The guy I was just fighting was using the souls of unborn babies as batteries, and that isn't even scratching the surface of how deranged some Curses could be."

"Loosen the screws, huh?"

"Ugh, you really shouldn't listen to that guy, all the drinking has rotted his brain and given him permanently bad breath."

"Oh yeah, I found an empty box with some Demon Flesh residuals, but I didn't find the actual flesh."

"Ah well, they probably sold it; even Curse Users know it's suicidal to use that stuff."

"I guess, so is there anything else that needs to be done?"

"Not unless you want to chase down a Cursed Spirit through this forest, it was probably Grade 5. It was nearby a while ago but fled after I noticed it, I'm pretty sure it left behind a large residual."

"How weak was it exactly?"

"It would probably shrivel up if it entered a densely populated area."

"So it wouldn't even make up the cost of summoning my Osaki."

"Drop the Curtain when you're done, Shinnojo."

"Jeez, I'm coming, I'm not that eager, oh and you're graduating next year, can't you be a good Senpai and call me by my first name already."

Another sigh. "Let's go already, Himeno."

Their voices faded away in a happy chatter.

Denji was frozen stiff with tears streaming down his face.

After the black dome disappeared, an imaginary hand reached through all the pain and fear, and it gripped an imaginary ripcord, then with a heavy yank it revved up his Cursed Core. His brain turned to mush as if it had been blended in his skull, everything pertaining to his negative emotions were sucked up for fuel in an instant.

With everything gone from his mind, he was left with pure euphoria.

"Fuck man, that sucked." He pushed himself off the ground. "I probably would've been killed there." He walked over to where the man had died, nothing remained. "I guess that snake ate everything, oh but look at that." Denji took a few quick steps to the side, and then he picked up the discarded handgun. "Score."

'Hmm, so that was Akane and Himeno. I guess she had been an ex-devil hunter, so it makes sense. Ah, but so, it's CSM characters —not just me— in the world of JJK. Now isn't the time for thinking, it's the time for action.' His Core felt as if it would give out at any moment. 'Let's hunt a Cursed Spirit and level up or die trying!'

[Binding Vow - Resolution: Activated!

Effects: Increase all Stats by 150%. Objective: Hunt a Cursed Spirit and Level Up.

Time Limit: 4hrs. Failure: Death.]

"Cursed Energy Reinforcement!" And then his euphoria flooded through every cell in his body.

A giggle broke through his lips as he shot off the ground and ran towards the mountain.

The amount of steps he took in between each heartbeat was lost in him, and then everything went white with bliss.

…

...

...

"Uarg!" He was suddenly vomiting. "Ha-gak!" He was doubled over and clawing at the ground as he choked and vomited. Through his squeezed eyelids, he saw red, pink, purple, white and yellow. He suddenly began suffocating, something large was lodged in his throat and it couldn't get out, desperate fingers clawed at it until it finally popped out.

As if a dam had ruptured, a torrent of fluids and squishy bits were spewed from his mouth. As he caught his breath, he finally opened his eyes all the way. Organs. It had been his organs, blood, bones and flesh, that he had just expelled from his mouth.

Frantically his hands patted down his chest and gut, his tattered remains of his clothes were soaked in blood and bile, but he was unharmed, not even a scratch was on his skin.

He was Denji, this fact finally returned to his mind and he calmed down. 'What the fuck just happened?' He staggered to his feet and looked around. He was surrounded by densely packed tree stumps, they were sliced at awkward angles. Then he noticed something lying at his feet.

[Cursed Weapon - Kazakama Claw: Nogama (Rank: 1 - Quality: 5): What was once a sickle had been transformed into a Curse Spirit, but after the Curse was killed it still retained some properties it had while possessed.]

The Cursed Weapon was resting in a sea of blood and flesh.

Denji's entire outfit had been ripped to shreds, and so had his body, but apparently he had managed to defeat this Kazakama Cursed Spirit and heal up before he could die.

He felt like hyperventilating as he stood amongst his own viscera, he funneled his panic into his Core and grabbed the weapon off the ground, he tried to place it in a pocket, but he couldn't find one. His shorts too had been torn up, leaving him wearing something akin to loincloth.

'Great. Wait, fuck, where are they?' He began to frantically dig through his own flesh and guts on the floor, desperately searching for his items. He found his father-turned-lighter pretty quickly, but he couldn't locate the small yellow bead or red horn amidst the carnage. 'Fuck, fuck, okay man, think, uh, uh, oh duh.'

Denji tried searching for his items by spreading out his CE, but after getting an inch from his skin he lost control of it. "Fuck!" He yanked desperately at the imaginary ripcord to his Core and began soaking the entire ground with his CE in a last ditch attempt to find his things.

In just a few minutes, his Core calmed down and he still hadn't found them.

He slouched down against a tree, CE was still drifting off his body without control. 'Fuck, I even had that whole thing about being family or some shit, and now that was pointless.'

His disappointment began fueling his Core, but it was nothing compared to the longing he was feeling.

He had loved his dog, then it died. He had loved his mom, then she died. He had loved his father, then that man fell apart and killed his son.

Denji didn't have a dog who he would grow close to and hug every night. Denji had never known his mom, she died giving birth to him. Denji had never known what fatherly love was, and then that man was killed by his son's hands.

He, Denji, just wanted some sort of connection to help him through this world.

From the Cursed Energy drifting off his body, he felt something slither up and enter. It felt gross, but he wasn't in the mood to panic, he might as well die right now anyway. Then he felt like his heart was being torn out. "Fuck!" Just as he began surging his CE to sever and squash whatever was trying to rip his heart out, he stopped.

[Cursed Spirit - Resentful Parasite: 'Tsutsugamushi' (Rank: 2) seeks to use the 'Cursed Object - Demon Flesh: Blood Horn (Rank: ?)' and 'Sub Cursed Core - Twisted Soul (Rank: 1 - Quality: 3)' and the current environment to Evolve!

Allow? Y/N]

'Uh, yeah, yeah! That's fine.' Although he really liked having a back up CE generator, he would gladly part with it for whatever this was.

He felt his Sub Core detach itself from his soul and be pulled along as the energy that had slithered up his body retreated. Denji also noticed the sea of carnage converge into a single pile, he also sensed the excess CE he had dumped everywhere be pulled in.

Every remnant of human remains were cleared from the battlefield, not even a drop of blood remained on his body or the rags he was wearing. The large pile of organs, bones and blood, were condensed into a ball that continued to collapse into itself until it was the size of a baseball.

[Cursed Womb - Blood Parasite: ??? (Rank: ?) is currently gestating.]

"Take your time." Denji said to the veiny flesh orb as he picked it up, it seemed to suck in his CE from his fingers. 'That's fine, I constantly have an excess anyway, at least this way it's not going to waste.'

As he began walking, he realized just how foolish his decision to hunt had been.

He was lost in a mountain forest.

"Fuck."

…

...

...

Wandering hadn't really been helpful, but he had managed to stumble across the severed arm of a child. It was his. He really wished he had been even the slightest bit conscious during his fight, he might've really learned something.

Unfortunately, he was completely lost.

And he really didn't want to starve to death.

'Just in case. As a last resort.' Even if he couldn't bring himself to eat his severed arm, the disgust he was feeling did help fuel his Core.

It might've been just his imagination, but he was beginning to think that only focusing on using one negative emotion was tiring out his Core faster, so he was currently mixing it up. He hadn't had enough data to be confident, but nothing had gone wrong as a result, so he felt it was fine to keep trying.

Denji picked up speed and ran with purpose as his ears picked up the sound of running water, he bursted through the treeline, lo and behold, he saw a small clear water creek. 'Sweet!' He dashed over and knelt down, he cupped his hands and then he took greedily gulps of water.

It was pretty refreshing, although it wasn't the cleanest, it still tasted better than the rusty water Denji had been drinking at home. Now he just had to follow this downstream until he found civilization, he was pretty sure that was what he was supposed to do.

Still, he probably had some time to try out some stuff before he headed back, everything would be so much more complicated when he returned to the city. Out here, he at least had some peace and didn't have to worry about cameras spotting him.

So after getting his fill, he found a clearing and took a seat.

'What to do? What to do? Think! I have a magic thing, so I should do magic things. However, Curse Energy is pretty limited as far as magic goes. It's still a type of energy though, so I guess I should start there, it is one of the most basic moves.'

Denji tired to focus his entire CE into a single Circuit on his palm, but that was beyond him, so he focused all of it into the Coil in his arm. Then he held his arm out, his other hand gripped his forearm for stability, and then he flipped open the Circuit in his palm.

Instead of anything cool, like a boom, or bang, or even kabam, his CE just sort of drifted outwards. 'So that failed. Oh! I got it!'

He brought his hand that was leaking CE close, and with his other hand he tried containing and mixing the energy in his palm. Even though he could make it keep a rough spherical shape, the texture never changed, so it was like playing with smoke. 'I probably need to level up CE Manipulation if I want to fire off an Energy Attack.'

Since he didn't have any pockets, he had gathered the torn shreds of his clothes to tie his new weapon to his shorts. He couldn't figure out a way to bring up the details again, but he was pretty sure it had been something like 'Cursed Weapon - Kazakama Claw: Nogama' and then something about the blade being part of a possessed sickle or something.

The thing was basically a really long curved claw, the base was dull enough to wield without getting sliced but the tip could cut through stone. Denji decided to try infusing it with a little bit of Cursed Energy. He wasn't a complete fool, he knew he would eventually reach a level where he wouldn't be able to gain enough exp to level and heal up without some serious risks.

'Fuck!' His hands jolted in place, as if they had been tempted to reach for his pockets. "Fuck! I had a fucking gun!" He just now noticed he was missing it. "Agh! Fuck!" He held his head in his hands. 'That would've been super fucking useful. Relax, relax.' He took in a few deep breaths. 'I probably used it up during my missing fight, it was probably the only reason I'm alive.' He made up an excuse that he could accept.

As he stood up and tried taking up a knife fighting stance, he knew he definitely looked silly.

[Quest: Nature of the Night!

Mandatory Goal: Survive until dawn! - Reward: ???

Optional Goal: Kill a Curse Spirit x #! - Reward: ??? x #

Optional Goal: Don't take any damage all night! - Reward: ???

Optional Goal: Don't use Cursed Energy Reinforcement! - Reward: ???

Time Limit: 11 hrs - Difficulty: B - Failure: Death]

Denji had been too focused on his internal CE to notice before, but the Cursed Energy coming from the dark forest had skyrocketed after the sun had fallen below the horizon.

AN: I hope this chapter was good enough.

I'll answer any question as long as it doesn't spoil the story.

It definitely wasn't explained in this chapter, but Akane doesn't have the same type of Cursed Spirit Manipulation as Geto.

I hope no one is bothered by the fact I gave Himeno a last name, a quick google search will reveal how it fits her for this story.

Both of them are currently students at Kyoto.