Heilewelt: this is definitely a redo – I cleaned it up, shortened some things, added some things; worked on it enough to post a chapter (or two) a week after this. Chapter Seven will be up later! Thank you for remembering it!

Rainbow D. Jay: Thank you!

Part Six:

Caution: There Are Unruly Souls

The quartet silently followed the trio of ghost hunters as they spoke excitedly about their earlier captures. Sanji fell back a few steps when he remembered a detail.

"We can't get in," he reminded Brook low.

Brook shrugged his shoulders. "There's another way around it."

As the trio entered their apartment, Brook signaled for the others to follow him. They swept through the apartment next door. They passed through various rooms until Brook stopped at the very back of the bedroom, facing the wall. Hands on his hips, he surveyed the surface until he reached out to the top left corner, tapping on it.

"Why is he so tall?" Tony whispered to Zoro curiously.

"Probably because he told many lies," Zoro said with caution. "Instead of remaining a human, he turned into something freakish and disliked. You should consider what could still happen to you if you aren't telling the truth."

Tony frowned at him with consideration while Sanji rolled his eyes mightily from out of Tony's sight.

"Here's one," Brook said, rapping on the spot. He thrust an arm out, noticeably hitting a barrier. He slapped the spot a few times, his arm sinking further and further in until he was braced against his shoulder. "Those scrolls are posted by stickies from the back, so they're rather easy to remove from the wall when pushed upon at a certain point."

Sanji nodded, but looked at him thoughtfully. "How were you able to arrive here if it isn't part of your routine?"

"The occupant that lives here requested for their assistance in drilling these holes into the wall for her curtains," Brook answered cheerfully. He poked his head in to check out his work, then repeated his actions earlier. In minutes he crossed into the room, then waved them in. Ussop's room was a cluttered mess – there were books, posters and equipment lying around various surfaces. Atop of a desk that looked as if it had been picked up from the street, an elaborate computer set-up was visible, surrounded by battered journals and piles of photographs. Brook had removed the scrolls and tossed them onto a pile of discarded clothes on the floor.

There was mirrors visible on nearly every free area that wasn't covered with a poster –the discomforting feeling of being held in place made the ghosts retreat back against the wall. The reflective surfaces shone brilliantly like spotlights, causing more than one arm to shield their eyes.

"That hurts," Sanji said, surprised. "How is that happening?"

"Mirrors are a pain," Brook agreed. "We can't actually see ourselves in reflective surfaces. Not that any ghost has any reason to look at themselves in the afterlife. I can remove a few but not all to be noticed."

"We just need some time here to figure out what this guy wants," Zoro said, crouching so that the reflections wouldn't bother him. Tony sat next to him, hugging his knees. "Now, Tony, start from the beginning."

Sanji clasped his hands to his face as he sat down, Brook following suit but having a difficult time remaining underneath the lowest hanging mirror. "You're so gentle and kind, Chia Pet! You relate to children so easily! Were you not in the same grade?"

Zoro reached over Tony's head to shove him. "Shut your piehole, Culture Club."

Tony snickered at their snarls, then began to fiddle with the end of his gown. "Well, I was sick you see? But I didn't know I died. I just thought they were moving me to another room. When I sat up to look around, there was a man already pushing me onto an elevator. We went downstairs and he pushed me into a room full of lockers. He left me there and I couldn't say anything because I had never been there before. I was a little scared."

Brook winced at the thought of a child waking up in a morgue.

"So I got up to go ask a nurse why I was in there, but I didn't know where I was. It was like a basement, or something. I was there all by myself. It was very quiet," Tony added. "I didn't see the elevator, but it was a long hall with all these doors to it. So I turned to the left because one of my doctors said to always turn left if I ever got lost upstairs. It took me awhile until I found some stairs, and when I came out, it was really dark and foggy. I thought the hospital was on fire!"

"That must've been very scary," Zoro said. "When we were there, it was pretty dark with nowhere to go. You were very brave to continue looking."

Tony nodded. "It was also very quiet. No one heard me when I called out, and I could see, like, shadows of people? But they couldn't see me. This is when I grew so scared that I didn't care to look around too closely because I wanted someone to hear me. And someone did – that spider."

Sanji and Brook shuddered, clutching themselves.

"He came out from the shadows, saying my name. That's how I knew it," Tony then said defensively. "He had an ugly voice. He told me I was in his home and he didn't want me there. I turned to go back the way I came but I couldn't find the door. I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off, saw one and went through it, and he came after me. All those heads were screaming at me to run away, and I did. Those people in front of the hospital were in the way, and when the spider ran into them, he started eating them! But there was so many – I got out of there and remembered that my grandfather's home was by the store, and that's where I found you guys. After you left, the spider was calling for me from somewhere. He said your names, and said he wanted to eat you, too. But he kept telling me to 'bring it back', and I don't know what he was talking about."

At his puzzled tone, Zoro examined him. Tony was wearing a brightly printed hospital gown with a cartoon bear on them, so he wasn't sure what the boy could be hiding in it that seemed relevant to the spider's demands. His wrists and the inside of his elbows were bruised, and he lacked the ID band that Law had asked about. Everything about him was frighteningly bone thin and wilted, as if his body had atrophied to nearly nothing. While Zoro wondered what Tony's cause of death was, he wasn't going to ask – he thought it would be upsetting.

"Did you find anything while you were looking for the stairs from the basement?" Sanji then asked curiously. "Maybe you took something you weren't supposed to…?"

Tony shook his head. "No. Maybe he means my life? Because…I'm dead?"

The three ghosts shrugged. All of them quieted as Ussop entered his room with a heavy sigh. He shut the door and crossed space to his bed. Heaving himself down on it, he settled himself into a comfortable position. The ghostly quartet remained quiet for some time as he fell asleep.

Once Sanji was content with the volume of his snores, he whispered, "So, now what?"

"I don't want to see the spider," Brook whispered back, shivering.

"Who are these guys?" Tony asked curiously at normal volume, the three shushing him immediately.

Making sure that Ussop was still asleep, Zoro then explained, "They're ghost hunters. This one can hear us when we talk to him."

Tony gave him a look of awe. "Sweet!"

"I know, right?"

"I have a lot of things I need to say," Tony said, clambering to his feet to approach the bed. Brook grabbed him and pulled him back.

"Not yet," Brook said. "Not until we're sure of what we're going to do. He has the power to kick us out of his room. And if a monitor catches us, we'll be kicked out of the apartment and have to start all over again."

"What's a 'monitor'?"

While Zoro patiently told him, Sanji leaned over to speak to Brook. "But Ussop acknowledged us earlier," Sanji said.

"We have to be invited every time," Brook told him.

"We had no problem at the grocery store."

"Because he was continuously interacting with us, there wasn't a need for invitation. He also invited us to interact with the others, so all it takes is one invitation!"

"We're like vampires," Sanji whispered, eyes wide with astonishment. "Like 'the Lost Boys'!"

"I saw those things," Tony then whispered to the others after gaining information from Zoro. "The spider ate them. They squealed – like baby animals."

The three looked uncomfortable.

"So…what are we doing?" Zoro asked.

"Tony, it's important that you complete your task," Sanji told the boy. "Because you died at the hospital, you have a way into the light – "

"I don't want to go," Tony interrupted him firmly. "I'm not ready to. There's stuff I want to do. I've been sick for a long time, now that I'm somewhat better, I want to do things!"

"Trust me kid, it isn't worth it to stay," Brook said gently. "I've been around for centuries now, and there's a strong limit to what you can do in the afterlife. This is the most excitement I've had in a very long time."

Zoro and Sanji looked at Brook with some muted horror, then looked at each other. Their expressions turned worried, something they hid when Tony looked at them.

"Why?" Tony demanded. "When you're a ghost, you can do a lot of stuff!"

"Not a lot of it," Sanji said. "We can't go outside of places we'd visited the day of our deaths unless we're with someone that's already been out there. So it isn't as if we can wander all around the city on free will like we would when we were living."

Zoro looked at him with a puzzled expression. "Then you didn't die on impact if we were able to make our way from the grocery store to the hospital."

"I already told you I was body dead, but not brain dead. Pay attention!"

"Ugh, sometimes I filter your annoying voice out so I can save what's left of my brain."

"There isn't much left of it," Sanji agreed, causing Zoro to hit him with frustration.

Tony frowned. "But all the movies I watched when grandpa was gone, they showed ghosts doing all sorts of stuff. So now that I'm a ghost, I want to do that sort of thing."

"Listen, we were told that if you are able to go into the light, you are reborn to live again," Zoro said. "The sooner we can return you, the faster you can be reborn."

"Isn't that something?" Brook said with a sigh. "What about the rest of us?"

"Prove it!" Tony challenged him.

"We watched the doctor push souls into doors," Sanji said. "Those doors will take you where you need to go, and since you're guaranteed a push, you get a redo!"

Tony sighed noisily, causing the others to shush him as Ussop stirred. "But I want to haunt people!" he complained, Ussop lifting his head as Zoro clapped a hand over his mouth. The man looked around suspiciously as he wiped drool from his mouth. He sat up, looking around his room for the source of the mysterious sound that had caught his attention and relaxed his shoulders. Reaching up to scratch his head, Ussop didn't see anything out of place but he wasn't looking in the right areas. He rose up from his bed and left the room, the four breathing out easy.

Brook look at the others. "I'm sure it won't be too much trouble if we give him a chance – ?"

"NO," Sanji denied, arms in an 'x'. "Have we forgotten about that damned spider?"

Tony groaned.

"While I've seen my share of things, this sounds like something I have no experience with," Brook warned. "These guys have taken me to places haunted by monsters in their own standing, but every one of them is different! This spider thing – while we shouldn't necessarily fear death, the fact that it is capable of something worse than that makes me very reluctant to allow you two to let Tony have fun!"

"You were the one that was going to let him!" Sanji snapped at him.

Brook chuckled while Tony looked at Sanji with a frown. The blond said, "We're taking you back to the hospital and that's it. We'll get around this spider somehow. If he's around here looking for you, we can have those guys drive us to the parking garage. It won't be that hard to find the doc and he'll sort the problem out!"

"I hate doctors! They let me die!"

"This is a good plan," Zoro said with a nod. "We need to ask them to drive us there, then. There is nothing we can do with that thing crawling around here, since all of you are ninnies."

"Chia Pet, if I want your opinion, I'll ask someone else for it!"

"But I'm not ready to go," Tony muttered. "I haven't been able to say goodbye to my grandpa…"

"Perhaps your grandpa is waiting for you," Brook said gently. "It's been some time since your passing."

"It felt like I just died! I wasn't here for very long!"

"But if you didn't know Britney had married, it's been quite some time since then," Zoro said, gesturing at Brook.

"She was very popular in the nineties," Brook said, "and didn't marry until the earlier part of this century. Since then, she's divorced with kids and is onto boyfriend number five right now! She's performing in Vegas regularly!"

Tony went still, processing this information while Sanji frowned, Zoro lost in thought.

"Are you sure you died in the nineties?" Sanji asked him. "Or were you stuck there as a personal problem?"

Zoro reached down and yanked Sanji's twin Velcro straps from his shoes, causing the blonde to gasp with outrage. "Ugh, eat me!"

"But it doesn't seem like I was in there looking for a way out for that long," Tony said faintly.

"Time flies on without us," Brook answered him. "If we don't have our names and don't remember who we are, it's difficult to even conceive of it in the first place. But you have your name, little one, so you are aware of these difficulties – unfortunately, it wasn't what you'd dreamed, isn't it?"

"Not so far," Tony said with disgust. "I just want to scare people, now. I want to see my grandpa, I want to have fun! I was in the hospital for a long time, I rarely got to go outside and do things!"

"Honestly, we wouldn't mind participating because it does sound like fun scaring people," Sanji said. "But with that thing chasing you, it's best to move on before it can catch you."

"You're so bossy, I don't want to listen to you anymore," Tony decided, narrowing his eyes. Sanji frowned at him for a few moments, then shifted around to remove his belt.

"That's it, bad kids get a spanking!"

"NO! NO! I'M SORRY!"

"Hold him Zoro! This'll teach him to talk back to his elders!" Sanji threatened, snapping his belt while Tony hid himself behind Zoro.

"Oh no! Cruelty is abound! Demon!" Brook shrieked with horror.

"KNOCK IT OFF!" Zoro shouted, holding the two apart. "What the hell is wrong with you? You don't just spank other people's kids!"

"And this is why kids grow up to be so rebellious! Back in my day, we were spanked for speaking back! This is why I'm such a good person now!"

"Bullshit!"

"God, you're so mean!" Tony shouted at Sanji over Zoro's incredulous denial.

Brook laughed noisily as Zoro kept Sanji's belt from reaching Tony, Tony on his back screaming in terror as he kicked out to block the belt from coming near him. The door opened loudly as Ussop stalked in with a red face, all of them falling silent and still.

"Shh," Brook hissed.

"I already heard you!" Ussop snapped. "You were supposed to have gone about your business – how the hell did you get into my room?"

The four of them remained quiet as he stalked in, looking for the direction the whisper had come from. He was quite positive he'd heard their voices coming from behind his closed door, and his eyes darted about – he saw that his protection spell scrolls had been removed from his wall, laying on a pile of clothes with useless action. With a growl, he stalked over and picked each one up, checking the sturdiness of the sticky on each one.

Just as he was going to reset the one that hung to his right, it was slapped out of his hand. He screamed with surprise and fright.

"Look, we're just looking for a quiet place to sort out our details!" he heard Sanji protest. Ussop squeezed his eyes shut with irritation, fingers curling to his ears. "We can't just have it out in the open where that thing can get us!"

"I don't want it here, either!" Ussop insisted with an aggravated expression.

"But this place is protected, right?" Brook asked. "Only I know how to access it. Be a dear and remove some of the mirrors, okay?"

"NO! Get out of here! You're not invited!" Ussop shouted, stomping on the floor.

Monitors began to drift up from the floor, emerging from the nearby shelves. Zoro picked Tony up as Brook and Sanji hurriedly placed distance between themselves and the silent sentinels. "Let's go before we get kicked out," he said, drifting back through the wall into the other apartment. The other two reluctantly followed.

"Now what?" Sanji asked, replacing his belt.

"It's your fault we got kicked out!"

"It's this one's for not listening!"

"Don't blame it all on me, you ass!"

Brook gently pushed them along, ushering them out the way they'd come. Once outside of the apartment, they stood on the landing with reluctant action, looking for any signs of the creature Tony had described. Setting him atop of his shoulders, Zoro made sure Tony was holding firmly onto him and looked at Brook.

"I guess we do it ourselves, then," he said. "We can give the kid a few thrills on the way there."

"I don't wannnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaa!" Tony groaned noisily. "I just died, I wanna be a ghost!"

"We'll let you scare a few people on the way there," Zoro promised him.

"This is so unfair!"

"The afterlife is unfair, kid, at least you get a chance to move on," Sanji told him.

"What happens to you guys after I go?" Tony asked curiously as Brook allowed Sanji to lead the way. Seeing the distance between them and the hospital, Sanji began walking in that direction, making his way towards the landscaping that separated them from the complex.

Zoro shrugged. "I guess we hang around until we find out for ourselves where to go."

"That sucks…"

A low, ominous noise began to grow from somewhere behind the shrubs ahead of them. It rumbled with strength, building into a chuckling sound as multiple voices began to cry in terrible pain. Tony wrapped his arms around Zoro's head with a gasp. Sanji froze, unsure why his arms were tingling. He lifted one to see that his hairs were standing straight up. The bushes rattled a little, Tony jerking on Zoro's head to get him moving.

"It's that thing!" he wailed. "It found me!"

: :

Ussop fell asleep easier after reposting all his protection scrolls back up. He didn't feel bad for sending them away. Luffy and Franky had showed Sabo the findings of their brief visit with them at the grocery store earlier, and Ussop had gotten tired of their excitement over the very meager recordings of the ghosts' voices. It was not even a sliver of the things he'd heard – their constant voices and activity wore him out.

He only woke up because "It's Britney, bitch!" sounded out seconds before his computer speakers blasted out one of her singles.

It jolted his heart, nearly ended his breathing as her music ramped up to full volume into his room. He uttered a short shriek of surprise as he shot up in bed. Scrambling to turn it off, he tripped over his blankets and shoes, climbing to his desk with rapid presses of his mouse.

When the mute button made it possible for him to sort out his thoughts, he caught his breath and looked around himself. He fumbled for the light nearby, hearing Franky pounding on his wall with a cranky yell to turn his porn off.

His protection scrolls were down again. As well as several mirrors placed gently in a row against his bed. His skin crawled, but his familiarity with the group made him brave.

"What the hell? I told you to go away!"

The mouse sounded out and Britney continued singing. He jerked around and shut the computer off, the tower giving a heaving groan as it did so.

"Aw," he heard the boy mumble with dejection.

"Are you kidding me right now?" Ussop asked, slapping his desk.

"But I wanna hear her new video!"

"NO! Go away, kid!"

"We're hiding," he heard Brook say, his voice trembling slightly. "We have nowhere else to go. That thing is outside."

Ussop danced in place, goosebumps breaking out over his arms. "Then take it away from here!"

"But it's going to eat us!" Brook and Tony cried.

"So bringing it here was your best idea?" Ussop exclaimed with distress, hands to his head.

"It didn't see us run in here," he heard Sanji say petulantly from near his bed. "I'm trying to get Chia Pet here to run out there and distract it, but he said his jeans won't let him."

Ussop heard the foreigner yell out a response that had the boy laughing. He slammed a fist down on his desk as Franky knocked and peeked in at him. "Everything okay, bro?" he was asked.

"They're back! They're hiding," Ussop answered with gritted teeth. "And one of them is obsessed with Britney Spears!"

Franky sputtered out a laugh with disbelief. "Ha ha! That's awesome!"

"No it's not! Let me borrow your truck, I'll drive them to the hospital myself!"

"I can do it," Franky offered with a loud yawn. "Let's go together. It shouldn't be that big of a deal."

Ussop searched for his shoes, grumbling as Franky turned away to go get dressed. "This is ridiculous…Brook! Go with them if they find a solution to their problem so you can move on!"

"Aw," Brook groaned.

"We actually didn't see it," Ussop heard Sanji say close to him, causing him to jerk his arm around to discourage the ghost from coming anywhere near him, "Stop hitting me!"

"If this thing gets me and I die, I'm coming after all of you," Ussop threatened without any weight, not wanting to imagine himself dying at the hands of some ghostly spider.

"Oh, good! Another friend! Just remember to take careful notes of the paths you take because those are probably going to be the last ones you do," he was warned.

"I don't want to!" Ussop cried impatiently, shoving his feet into his shoes. He heard Franky moving about with his keys, and slammed the door behind him. Moving through the main corridor of their apartment, he grumbled as Franky opened the door to Luffy's room, then Sabo's to let them know where they were going. They immediately scrambled out of bed, excited at the newest change.

As Ussop ventured into the kitchen to find something to drink, he saw Franky pulling down the scrolls in the entry way. He sputtered, abandoning his task to prevent that.

"Why?" Franky asked. "They have to come through here in order to get out, right?"

"No! No! The reason they were hiding out in my room was because that thing can't come in there after them!" Ussop said, hurriedly putting them back up. "And if they're afraid of it, then I'm afraid of it!"

"Ussop, this is not a bad thing," Luffy said sleepily, barely awake as he shuffled into his shorts, Sabo nearly running into him as he emerged from his room with a camera. "We want activity. If it happens here, that's great because we can get it with what we have right now."

"I don't want anything happening here! You guys can't hear what I can! What's worse is not seeing it, but then again, that's a good thing because I know I'll never sleep again if I see these scary ghostly faces looking at me!"

"Shh, you're driving yourself into a panicked fit," Sabo told him, finger against Ussop's lips. Ussop slapped his hand away. "This will be awesome if we can get something on camera! Luffy's recorder barely picked up anything! If they're here, we can – "

"Sabo, your research?" Franky asked, Sabo lighting up as he pulled his phone from his pocket.

After making some swipes, he called out, "Sanji Blackleg, are you here?"

Ussop listened, hearing nothing moving from his room or from the whole apartment.

"He was twenty when he was hit by a car," Sabo reported, looking at his phone. "It was a hit and run, never solved. It had taken awhile for his family to identify him, as he'd run away from home when he was a little younger. As for this Tony child, I wasn't able to complete my investigation. It's too long of a stretch. We'd need his last name as well."

"I don't think it matters now," Ussop said, waving that away. "Because we're returning him to the hospital and that's that."

"I'm here!" Ussop then heard from his room. "I heard my name! My full name!"

"Sanji's here," he said reluctantly.

Franky pulled down the scrolls once more as Luffy hastily pulled up his recorder. Ussop tried to wrestle the scrolls from Franky to put them back up but Franky overpowered him and held the scrolls out of his reach.

"Come out and talk to us, Sanji," Sabo then said, focusing the camera towards the hall. "Franky took down the scrolls."

"I don't want to go, yet!" Ussop heard Tony whine, so he quit his struggle with a heavy sigh. "They're making me go. I want to haunt people!"

"No, that's a bad idea!" Ussop scolded that direction. "Haunting people isn't a good thing!"

"My ultra violet caught two forms!" Sabo squealed cheerily. "Two of them!"

"I haven't heard my full name in so long!" Sanji exclaimed.

"That's great, keep it to yourself," Ussop said crankily. "We don't need to know more about you."

"Rude. Listen, Zoro's full name is Roronoa Zoro. Find out more about him! Then maybe you guys can fly him back to Japan and leave his leash there for someone else to find!"

"Japan," Ussop repeated, indicating for Franky to write something down. He gave Zoro's full name. "He's Japanese."

He heard Zoro say something to Sanji that made him attempt to repeat those words, fumbling over them as Franky concentrated on the task.

"'I'll kill you'," he repeated dumbly, Ussop paling significantly. Franky looked terrified as well, Sabo and Luffy noticing their hesitation to further assist. Brook's laughter rang out.

"He's saying that to Sanji, not you guys," the skeleton assured them. "Well, then! Shall we get a move on? I'm a little apprehensive myself."

"They want to go, so let's go," Ussop muttered, pointing at the door.

"Well, wait! Let's talk to them a little more," Sabo said, lowering his camera. "They sound very comprehensive and are answering your questions intelligently – perhaps they can answer a few of our own?"

Hands in prayer form, Ussop said, "Please understand the situation, here, Sabo. We are talking about ghosts being terrified of something bigger than them. They are talking about a spider that can bother humans, too. We are trying to return them to the hospital where their souls can settle without that spider harming any of them or me."

"Ussop, we've run into demonic entities before," Luffy said with a chuckle. "All that happened were scratches and some threats! I'm sure this wouldn't be that big of a problem, either."

"But that was so scary in itself!" Brook suddenly cried, causing Ussop to cringe. "Because those things were really terrible things! I still have nightmares about them!"

"Sanji, if you're still here, answer me this," Sabo said, adjusting his camera to hold up onto his shoulder, panning around the living room in hopes of capturing movement from the group, "aside from the ones you're with, can you interact with other ghosts?"

"Not really," Sanji answered, off to Ussop's left. "Why?"

"He wants to know 'why'," Ussop relayed wearily, reaching up to reassemble his hair into something manageable.

"We don't even recognize other ghosts," Sanji then answered, too close to Ussop's liking. "Our entire situation here was absolutely coincidental. I ran into mosshead here, we ran into the kid, then the doc, then Brook – this was a whole series of unfortunate events that happened to just work."

"I was cursed into a living Hell," Zoro muttered, scratching his nose as Ussop reluctantly relayed what Sanji was saying to the others. "I did something terrible to listen to his stupid voice for the rest of my ghost life."

"This doc is important," Brook whispered to Ussop, leaning over him. "The doc knows how to get to the light – "

"He's an angel," Zoro insisted.

"He's a devil," Sanji insisted over him.

"Then we get to this doc to get all you guys out of my damned hair!" Ussop snapped.

"Ughnnnn I don't want to!" Tony whined piteously.

"Pretty sure I am not meant for Hell," Brook muttered. "I will fight him if he keeps trying to put me down there."

Sabo lowered the camera, looking at Luffy. Luffy frowned back at him. "If we give you a name, do you think you could find someone for us?" Sabo asked tentatively.

Ussop made frantic fretting motions, waving his arms about. "NO! Sabo!"

"This is something important to us, Ussop," Sabo protested.

"I can do it!" Sanji offered, much to the dismay of the others. Only Tony called out with cheer, thinking his hospital visit would be delayed.

"He said he can't," Ussop said snappily. "He can't, Sabo, they have to go to the hospital!"

Sabo sighed, Luffy frowning at Ussop. "It's just…if we know he moved on, I think we'd feel a lot better – "

"I know you feel that way, I understand," Ussop told him urgently as Sanji continued speaking, trying to interrupt with another offer. "I get it, but…if I haven't heard from him, then he can't still be here, Sabo."

Sabo gave a reluctant frown while Luffy rewound his recorder wearing a similar expression. He shoved earbuds in while Ussop felt bad for denying the request.

When Luffy listened to the recorder, Ussop said, "Let's drop them off at the hospital. Let's at least help these guys move on, and maybe they can take Brook with them. There are plenty of others out there that we might be able to help if this is successful."

Luffy then held out the recorder with an accusatory frown, Sanji's recorded shouts coming out as, 'Don't lie! I can! Some of us can't go into the light! I, Sanji, can do this as a man of my word!'

Zoro's voice in the background had Franky hurriedly trying to translate. Scowling, Ussop frowned out at the darkness of the living room while Sabo frowned at him, trying to understand his position but unable to fully do so.

"The other guy's either saying 'Drop the jelly' or 'stop helping the small animals'," Franky said slowly. "I might've not written it in right."

Sabo brightened. "Change the program to a verbal translator!"

"Ooh! Right!"

While they did that, Ussop sighed heavily. "You're a rotten friend and no one likes you," he heard Sanji say close to his ear. "In my day, if someone needed help, you'd help them as a real friend. You're going to wind up alone at your own damn funeral! I'll even come back to laugh at you! You think I'm mean now – wait until you die, you little shit!"

Not wanting to argue with a ghost, Ussop threw up his hands in exasperation. He said to his friends, "Look, they made it clear they want Tony at the hospital. After that…after that, we can see what happens, alright? They offered!"

"It's not that we want to push you or anything, Ussop, it's just…" Luffy trailed off awkwardly, handing Sabo the translator as he and Franky sought to translate Zoro's words. "It'd be really great to know that Ace is truly gone. Hearing from him from time to time, maybe he's lost like these guys. If there's a way to allow him to pass over, maybe we should at least give it a try."

Ussop gave a reluctant nod.

He suddenly grew aware that the ghosts had fallen uncomfortably silent. He grew vaguely aware to a low pounding noise, something he immediately attuned himself to as he tried to sort out its location. Luffy was talking to him, Sabo and Franky still struggling to understand the translating process from both the recorder and the phone; none of them aware of the pounding noise.

Ussop's arms started to shake, limbs feeling like jelly as a cold sensation passed over him. He shivered. Lifting an arm, he realized that his hairs were standing straight up. A sense of wrongness began to permeate the air, and he heard Tony whining softly with fear heavy in his tone.

"What is that?" he heard Sanji ask, his voice dropped low.

To Ussop it seemed like they were footsteps – too many of them at a time. They grew in force, muffled voices growing apparent as they rang out from the stairway outside their door. Trembling slightly, knowing that this wrongness was attributed to the growing clamor outside, Ussop turned his head to look in that direction. It seemed like someone was shaking the entire building with its approach. The stairs rattled slightly, the sound audible enough to have Luffy looking in that direction. But Luffy looked away because it was a normal sound – the sound of someone walking up the stairs.

Ussop was terrified. The pounding grew louder, voices crying out with terror or begging in different languages – he couldn't sort them out to listen to each one individually. He heard Tony cry out, voice suddenly muffled as someone comforted him.

Ussop turned to look at their front door, hearing the doorknob jiggle ever so slightly. The sound of fingernails against wood tapped out softly in various areas of the doorway, causing Ussop to involuntarily think of multiple limbs. With how close Franky and Sabo were to the door, they looked over in mid-word.

Sabo looked at his watch with a confused, "Who is that? It's two a.m."

Ussop could hear anxious cries building in volume, but one sound carried over that. A low, building chuckle that grew with strength – not quite a man, but holding the quality of one.

"KnOcK, kNoCk," it said. It felt inhuman and wicked, bringing Ussop thoughts of a demon.

The door knob jiggled again, Franky giving Sabo his recorder as Sabo stepped back to give him room to answer. All of them were focused on the door with puzzled expressions. But Ussop knew that if they opened it, they were inviting it in.

"Don't open it!" Brook cried out with fear. The prompt command of the foreigner shocked some order into the quartet.

"Hope you survive," Ussop heard Sanji hiss near his ear. "We're out of here!"

"KnOcK, kNoCk, i SaId," the thing purred. The entire wall shuddered under unseen force. The scraping sounds scratching against the intensified. "I wAnT iT bAck, yOU LiTTle shIT. giVE iT bAck…GIVE IT BACK!"

The entire wall and door rattled with frighteningly heavy force, causing the hinges to creak and all the men inside to scream with startled terror.