Disclaimer: ONE PIECE DOES EXIST! AND IT ISN'T MINE, IT'S ODA'S!

"What do you mean by that?!" Nami screeched, slightly nervous. She became suddenly highly defensive and sour, the medium in front of her was saying things that couldn't be true, at this point, she was half-expecting him to burst out laughing saying it was a joke and half-expecting him to have a mental breakdown in front of them. She looked back at Ace behind them only the eldest brother wearing the most serious expression she ever saw him wear and looking at Luffy with a supporting but vacant stare.

"I can talk to ghosts. I can see them." Luffy said in the same monotone voice. Ace's eyes squinted slightly, making him look awfully distant and judging of the little group of teenagers. He was staring at them to make sure they wouldn't hurt his little brother in any way, making them a little bit more nervous.

"Are you Sanji's mother?"

"Mrs. Sora, do you think-"

"Like... my mother?" Sanji said softly. It would make sense. Everything started to make sense. Back then, Luffy had been chatting with his dead mother in the living room. On the porch of Usopp's house, he assumed Luffy had been talking to Kaya and he knew about Kuina because he probably met the girl already and spoke to her more than once. Everything odd about Luffy started to be less of an enigma and more of a boy who had only been scared of being hurt if he was to be rejected. From his own experience, he knew how hard it was to be secluded and all his suspicion and distrust slowly started to transform into fondness and sadness for the shorter raven haired teen.

"Yes... She is a lovely woman." Luffy answered with a soft smile.

"Are we suppose to believe that?" Nami said, her voice trembling. She didn't want to think Luffy was lying, but her emotions were getting stronger every second.

"I don't get it... do you see them like... Do you talk to them? Did you... Speak to Kaya that way? Can I tell her something now? Is she here?" Usopp's confusion turned into hope. Suddenly, death wasn't the end anymore, it was a new beginning for some people they knew.

"No... she crossed to the other side. When we talked last month, she was saying goodbye." Tears gathered in the curly haired teen's eyes. "So... Kaya is gone... for good." Luffy nodded slowly, letting the boy swallow the news. To his surprise, Usopp smiled, his face still drowned in tears.

"When we were talking, on the bench, she was sitting next to us, right? She was actually there, right?" Usopp said softly as he looked at Luffy.

"She was."

"Thank you..."

It didn't help the fact that Nami was still scowling at him. "I still don't think you are saying the truth."

"I can prove it," Luffy said as he smiled at her. His eyes were still red and puffy, but he had a warm and comforting smile on his face.

"How would you do that?" Usopp asked. He was getting curious about Luffy's ability, but now that he really thought about it, his legs were shaking at the idea of ghosts hanging around them all the time.

"I could... Huh... Sabo? What should I do?" The young Psychic turned to the blond. Out of him, Ace and Sabo, Ace had always proven he was the smartest. At the mention of that particular name, Sanji's eyes squinted. He had heard it before.

"Sabo is very nice. He is always there to help. He worries a lot all the time too."

"He's my best friend."

Outlook Sabo

The name on the tombstone in the cemetery. So, he was here right now? There was an actual ghost around them at this very moment?

"You could show them your psychic telekinesis thing?" He answered.

"Good idea, but it wouldn't help prove he can see ghosts, blondie." Ace replied at the spirit, gaining himself a few odd looks from the others.

"Wait for a second... First of all, There is a ghost here? Right now? And second... Ace can see ghosts too?" Usopp said, shakily.

"Actually, there are three spirits here right now. Second thing, Ace can only see Sabo, I don't really know why though." Luffy said with a half pout. He would brush it off as a mystery if he wasn't so curious about the origin of his, Ace's and Sabo's (well, former for the blond) special ability. He still couldn't understand what was different between them and the rest of the world. He didn't know what had differentiated him and Ace to make their abilities so different.

The rest of his friends seemed dumbfounded.

"Three? Why is there three ghosts here?" Usopp said in the same cowardly tone.

"Idiot, we are in a cemetery, I am surprised there aren't more than that!" Nami said as she hit the curly haired teen atop his head. She had seemingly stopped feeling like the situation was totally impossible now, she even was starting to consider Luffy might not be crazy and was telling the truth.

"Right now, there is only Sabo, Kuina and Brook. Brook is the one who talked me out of jumping off the reef!" They all looked at the happy looking teen in something akin to shock and sadness. Ace and Sabo had seen and/or heard of a lot of spirits who had pushed people to kill themselves, poltergeists who hurt and sometimes killed people, however, they had never heard of one who had saved anyone from killing himself like the violinist had done. Brook didn't even know Luffy. Said skeleton-spirit started playing softly.

Luffy's friends were shocked for another reason. Luffy had talked about death like it was nothing. They had just realized now how much Luffy had lived through hard circumstances. Nevertheless, Even if he wasn't showing it, the young teen wasn't completely indifferent in the face of death, he was just not afraid of it anymore as much as before.

"So... you are saying... Those spirits haunt us all the time?" Zoro said thinking of the time he saw Kuina defending him against his drunken father.

Luffy chuckled. "It's really funny how you all get so surprised about this when you are hanging around spirits all the time." He chuckled. "Kuina is always following you, Zoro, everywhere you go, it's actually kind of cute." Kuina's face reddened.

"Shut up!" Luffy giggled softly at her reaction. Zoro only looked down, be it in embarrassment or in sadness wasn't clear as his eyes were stuck in an unreadable expression.

"So... When you found my mother's... body... She..." Nami said in a low voice, bringing her hand to her face.

"She asked me to find it, yeah. She didn't want you and your sister to suffer any longer because of Arlong." Nami smiled weakly. She didn't want to cry more, however, she was starting to think what Luffy was saying was the truth. It was hard to believe, but Luffy was sincere.

"Where would a dead kid go once he accepted he died?"

Vivi dreaded as she recalled the words spoken by Luffy's father. She turned around to face Ace with distress written all over her face.

"What did Dragon mean when... he said Luffy was... dead?" All eyes turned to the blue haired girl. They could all recall the sentence Dragon had spoken as well. Back then, it hadn't really meant anything to them, but knowing Luffy's ability now, it seemed there was a deeper meaning to it they still couldn't understand.

Ace looked down at Sabo, then at Luffy. Sabo seemed as troubled as him, lost in his thoughts. The phrase had undeniably startled him to a point he wouldn't be able to talk to them for a few minutes like he had drifted in his own little world. Luffy, on the other hand, was biting his lips and tugging at his shirt without really making eye contact with any of them. Seeing this reaction as an indication he actually knew what Dragon had meant, Ace stepped in front of the younger boy and put his hands on his shoulders, looking at him in the eyes. When the boy didn't look back at him, Ace took his chin to force his gaze to lock with his.

"Care to tell us what you know?" Luffy frowned in confusion.

"You don't remember?" The younger boy's eyes were vacant as if all emotion he could muster had been sucked out of his very being. In that moment, Ace could only recall one time when he had felt an undeniably terrifying and cold wave of distress wash over him a long time ago as he had watched Luffy's unmoving and lifeless form.

"You mean... When you almost drowned? How can you remember that? You were two!" Ace could never forget this particular moment. It had been traumatizing for him to see Luffy in such a state. Unmoving, pale and sickly cold. He still had nightmares about it sometimes, but only Sabo knew about those, even if he didn't have them as often anymore. After it had happened, it took a while for them to stop, but the nightmares came back after Sabo died. He had been convinced back then that he had been cursed. everyone around him was dying, one at a time. Nevertheless, Luffy hadn't died back then, the proof was that he was alive and breathing right now. He wasn't intangible and invisible like Kuina or Sabo, he was there.

"I wasn't breathing. I am pretty sure my heart stopped at some point." Luffy said without any real emotions in his voice.

"What are you guys talking about?" Zoro asked.

"When Luffy was very young, we went to the ocean and he was drowning after a wave had pulled him away. We were pretty sure we had lost him back then." Ace said with melancholy.

"Well, what does it have to do with what's happening right now with Luffy's father?" Sanji couldn't really get how an eleven-year-old incident could still be affecting Luffy's relationship with his dad.

"Everything." Ace, Kuina, and Luffy perked up, leaving the rest of them confused about the brother's sudden move.

"What do you mean by 'everything', Sabo?" Ace asked with a guarded expression. Usopp, Nami, Sanji, Vivi, Zoro, and Nami started staring at the empty spot beside Ace and Luffy were the two brothers were staring. The blond spirit gulped, his eyes still unfocused and trembling. Ace had taken Luffy in his arms at this point like he was trying to shield him from this mess.

"Sabo's right... My... father started looking at me differently after that day... That's the day I became a medium." Luffy said as he thought back to the words Dragon had told him.

"You stopped breathing for a minute. We couldn't get a pulse. When I pulled you out of the water, I was certain you had lost your life. However, a lifeguard got you breathing again, but it was too late. The damage was done."

"You don't? You have to die to be able to see other ghosts, Luffy. You died. You should've stayed dead. It would be less trouble for me, your mother, Ace and everyone you know. I still don't get why Ace still bears to be around you, you shouldn't even be alive."

"I can't remember it perfectly, but when Dragon pulled me out of the water, I was standing next to Ace. I could see myself lying on the sand. I think... I think Dragon knows more about this than he lets on." Luffy said nervously.

The blond spirit traced a hand over his old scar over his left eye. He had gotten it so many years ago, it was even before he met Ace. Reminiscing this particular memory was always painful. It was as painful for him than when he would remember the priests and their exorcism methods, probably worse. Thinking about it now, he had died twice in his short life, if that made sense.

"We should... Stop sulking and go home. You came to get me, so let's get going. Thank you, Brook! I'll come visit you again!" The psychic boy said with a seemingly joyful smile harboring his lips. He wasn't actually in a happy mood and his friends could all clearly see he was still pretty depressed, but he was tired after this day and all he wanted was to sleep. The little group of friends, brothers, and spirits alike made their way back to the small apartment Luffy, Ace and Sabo could call home with some light chatter and saddened smiles. Nobody was really excitable at the moment with having someone close to them who had been one step away from committing suicide.

Sabo walked behind the group with a vacant expression. From everything he knew about Dragon, he could say without hesitating that his parents hadn't been as bad as Luffy's about his ability. Actually, they had never really known the extent of his capacities, more like they never believed it to be true, they only thought Sabo was strange in a way. After a few incidents where he had been attacked by a poltergeist during the night, they had started believing he was possessed by a demon or something like that. He would scream in the middle of the night and when a servant entered the room to check on him, his sheets were covered in blood even if no one else was in the room. Even if the windows and the door were locked, it kept happening. Of course, it wouldn't really change anything to do so.

They had brought him to different churches and different priests, nevertheless, he could only describe his experiences as torture.

Even though his parents, the priests, and his adoptive brother, Stelly, were nightmares to him, they couldn't be as bad as his actual nightmare. It was always as if he was experiencing his death. The details were so clear, the sensations were so realistic, he could even feel the sweat running down his back. He could feel his heart pounding in his ears. He could hear the sickening laughter coming from behind him as he ran. Even now, after all these years, once in a while when he 'fell asleep', the blond spirit relived the pain of this fateful day, the sharp pain of the knife being twisted in his lower abdomen as he silently screamed in pain. The agony he had been in as he fell to the floor and tried to pull himself away, crawling to the nearest safe place. The sadness he had been through as he reached for his phone and dialed Ace's number, begging him to not let him die alone.

He could also feel, once again, the fear he had felt once he saw the raven haired teen come take him in his arms and desperately try to stop his bleeding. He had seen this happen in his dream. Over and over again. Every time it ended with his death and Ace was crying, clutching his unmoving body closer to his heart. Every time he had seen this, he had been sad for Ace and mad at himself for leaving so soon, but in his real final moment, the fear didn't come from there, it came from death itself.

"Ace... I don't want to die... I'm scared."

Then... nothing. The scariest thing he had ever been through. Even if he had seen this play over a hundred times before, he had never known what came afterward. In that moment, where nothing existed, he had a choice to stay or to cross. His mind was empty. He knew exactly what he had to do. He had promised, after all.

"Sabo... We have to promise each other something."

"What?"

"We will never let ourselves become one of them."

"So you are saying we should cross to the other side before our minds go completely nuts so we won't become poltergeists."

"No."

"What are you saying then?"

"We need to cross as soon as we die."

"Why? It can take years, sometimes even decades or centuries before spirits turn crazy, depending on the person..."

"Staying here when no one can see you will only make us depressed. We never encountered a spirit who was happy, free. Spirits can't be free if they are still anchored to the world of the living."

The choice wasn't really as easy as it had seemed. As he thought again about the question of leaving or staying, Sabo remembered every time he had laughed with his best friend. Every time they had smiled together. Every time they had cried in each other's arms. Every time they had sit in a tree and talked. Every time they had watched the stars carelessly. Every time they had been free together. The blond had no memories of freedom without the freckled teen at his side. Ace, his best friend, his brother, had been his freedom.

So he had stayed.

To this day, he would still wonder if he had done the right thing. Every day he would look at Luffy and Ace, asking himself this very question. The two would smile at him and, suddenly, he felt like there wasn't anything bad with freedom.

Luffy was leading the group, followed closely by his older brother. He was walking backward, not really paying attention to where he was going because Ace was there to make sure he was okay. He was lively chatting with his friends, trying to convince them he wasn't lying about his other cool powers. The psychic had said he would show them back at the apartment, but they still weren't a hundred percent sure if Luffy was kidding or exaggerating about his powers.

Usopp believed him fully, he was saying, as one of the best liars in the world, he could very well know what was a lie and what was real, saying Luffy was saying the truth.

Nami was a little skeptic about the whole flying part, though Luffy had said it was still work in progress. She wasn't convinced about the temperature manipulating thing too, but she could very well be wrong, she thought.

Vivi was thinking it was simply impossible, however, she couldn't believe Luffy would lie to them, making her forced to believe it was true.

Zoro didn't really care if it was true or not, nevertheless, he still thought it was kind of cool.

Sanji was thinking about when Luffy had lost his temper at one point when they had talked a while ago. The room had suddenly felt cold and the lights had been flickering. He and Luffy had exchanged heated arguments about three times in total in the last month, all about the same thing, but he had never noticed this kept happening until now.

Kuina was also a bit secluded from the group. She looked at her hands in worry, she couldn't stop trembling.

Ace was the first one to enter the apartment. He went to the table in the dining room and saw that a note and an envelope had been left behind.

'This is the check for the next few month, I will be back in February.
Dragon.'

After they had been assured Luffy's father had left, the rest of the group entered the house. Luffy immediately let himself fall on the couch with a sigh. He lifted his arm in the air and started moving it. His friends looked at him confused while Ace and Sabo rolled their eyes. In the kitchen, the fridge opened, a few slices of ham came out of it before the fridge closed back and the ham started hovering back to Luffy, who took it and started eating it.

The little group looked at Luffy with wide eyes and the boy chuckled.

"It's cool right?" The young psychic said gleefully.

"It's so awesome! Do it again!" Usopp said, arms raised in the air. Luffy suddenly had an evil smirk grazing his lips. He sat up on the couch and looked at Zoro who had decided to nap sitting against the wall in the corner of the room. His left arm made a motion toward the green haired teen, then the ceiling. Slowly, the teen lifted in the air until he wasn't touching the floor anymore. He woke up suddenly and started flailing his arms around.

"Put me down! What is happening?"

"Stop moving so much! It's harder to control if you move around! I could drop you!" The teen instantly froze. Sanji started laughing at the green-haired teen's misery until he was floating in the air too.

"Stop that Luffy! It's not funny anymore!"

"Yeah, cause you are a victim too, now." Everyone laughed and Luffy put them both down. The young psychic's arms flailed and he laid back on the couch before passing out, his mind completely exhausted.

"Is Luffy alright?" Vivi said as she looked at the sleeping raven-haired psychic.

"Of course, he is just tired. I'll make dinner, do you guys want to stay?" Ace said as he gently passed his hand through Luffy's dark locks of hair.

"I can make dinner if you want. I am a pretty good cook." The swirly browed teen said nonchalantly as he walked to the kitchen. Ace smiled as the others responded as well. He nodded and thanked him before he sat on the couch, taking his younger brother in his arms. It didn't take long for the older brother to pass out as well.

"Shouldn't we wake them up?" Usopp asked in concern. They had been invited to eat dinner at the brothers' apartment, but their two hosts had passed out on the couch. The curly haired teen wasn't sure what they should do.

"Let them sleep. They had a rough day." Nami said as she made her way to the kitchen to help Sanji out.

Vivi looked at them and smiled. She had never had any siblings of her own, but Ace and Luffy were simply endearing to watch.

"It's funny, at first I thought Luffy's big secret was that he was schizophrenic, completely crazy or a stalker. I couldn't explain any other way how Luffy knew those little things. Now, he seems so... Different. I feel like things can only get better since we know what's going on." Nami said to Sanji as she washed the vegetables.

"You want to know? Why does everyone want to know but never say anything themselves? You won't tell me your secrets since we started talking a few days ago, I won't tell you mine!"

"It can only get better... It won't make things easier though." The blond cook said in a low tone.

"Luffy doesn't have friends. He can't."

"Where would a dead kid go once he accepted he died?"

Dragon's smile was plastered in his mind as the man talked nonchalantly about his own son's possible demise. It was cold and almost filled with madness, sending a shiver down the teen's spine. Vinsmoke Judge, his own father, seemed like the kindest hearted person in the world compare to this man.

Chapter 14 is done! It took a while, but now the whole gang knows about Luffy. I know I haven't written about them for a while, but Marco and Thatch are going to be in the next chapter!

I will go into more details about Sabo's death in later chapters... There are a lot of things I didn't cover about Sabo's life.

If you guys have other suggestions for good stories to read on this website, I am totally open to your ideas! I feel like I read all the good stories and can't find new ones (even if I am probably wrong) and I want to know if there are any other out there That I would like. You can suggest your own stories as well, I don't mind, I just want to read good stories.

Thank you, Blackthorn Ashe, for your suggestions!

Until next time!