Tobi: Thank you everyone! We got such great reviews last chapter. Give it up for RedDummie! -claps- they were the 400th reviewer! Give them a hand! -claps some more- I hope you all like this chapter; I especially enjoyed writing this one.

CM: Wow guys you all rock! Our feedback was great! I'm gonna dedicate chapter 10 to you all! I know you will love it. In this chap...(_ _)" poor Cloudy -snickers- but be patient guys. Things will get good real soon. :D CLOUD Hwaiting!

Six days left to live.

It hadn't been intentional, but he had fallen asleep. Only for about an hour, judging by his clock, but it was long enough for the damage to be done.

With shaking fingers, Cloud touched his forehead. The word 'SEVEN' had been crossed out, and the number '6' had been scribbled onto his skin. His doors were still barricaded; how had this happened? His ghost was solid, right? Tangible. He had bounced off it. Then how…?

Fear slid through his veins like ice. He shivered and wrapped himself in his quilt, closing his eyes and going boneless. Was it even worth trying to fight this thing? It was obvious that he was fighting an uphill battle. Who was he? A little blond from Midgar, attempting to beat a ghost in its territory. It was suicide.

Stop being a pussy!

Aware that he had given himself an eerily similar pep talk yesterday, Cloud frowned and stood. Even though he was scared… and even though he didn't really know what he was doing, he wasn't going to go down without a fight.

He was determined, this time. His thinking the previous night had been a lot of 'yeah, and then I'll kill it!' and other half-asleep nonsense, but he had constructed a plan, of sorts. There were knives in the kitchen. Paperweights in the lounge, as well as those fire-stoking things, which were pretty damn sharp.

He could use the things in the mansion to his advantage. He wasn't defenseless.

Once again terribly like yesterday, Cloud felt a rush of bravery flow through his veins. He got dressed slowly, brain eerily blank, and left the room. He didn't go kicking down the door or anything crazy—he was a calm, collected man. A man who wouldn't take anything lying down!

He left Sebastian on the bed.

The mansion was silent as Cloud made his way through it. His bare toes dug into the carpet of the hallway, and he inwardly mused about how soft it was. Better than the crappy one back in Midgar—this was just another reason why he had to stay in Nibelheim. He didn't have a job yet, and he only really had one sort-of friend-slash-admirer, but he had felt, before any of this ghost stuff happened, that he was at peace. It was nice here. It was where he needed to be; he knew it deep down. Like maybe his purpose was to get rid of this ghost or something, or maybe it was his destiny to restore his family's honor in Nibelheim. He didn't know.

He descended on of the staircases, but stopped short with a good twelve steps left. He remembered dropping his books the previous night—he had only a couple sitting in his room. The ones he hadn't managed to rescue were gone. The steps were completely clear.

Cloud swallowed. His 'roommate' wasn't trying to hide itself anymore. It could move things. Could steal Sebastian. Could try to kill him.

He felt dizzy. Cloud sat on a step and leant his head against the banister, taking a deep breath. …He was scared; of course he was. He was so out of his league here it wasn't even funny.

Cloud stood. He was scared, yes… but he wasn't defeated. He trotted down the stairs and stood at the bottom, glancing back up. It felt like he had done a lot more than get from his second floor to his first.

He knew he was unbearably tense. What he needed was a comfortable, quiet room where he could think. The ideal place was found in a pretty short time—it had a relaxed atmosphere, a divine-looking couch, and a fireplace.

As the Invisibles followed Cloud into the room, Zack pointed at a moose head above the fireplace and screeched, "Eww, look at that!" Calling it creepy would've been an understatement. It actually pained Angeal a little to see a dead animal hanging in someone's mansion like that, and he frowned.

There was a freaky taxidermied moose head on the mantle, and Cloud averted his eyes. But otherwise, the room was nice. Cloud lay down, hugged a throw pillow and appreciatively eyed the stereo on one side of the room. Lucky, rich Hojo. Cloud blinked and remembered that he was the lucky one now (for the most part). He smiled and snuggled into the cushions, closing his eyes.

"TOUCH FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME-!"

Cloud screeched and fell off the couch, smacking his head on the floor. Music—impossibly loud, deafening music that he could feel in his bones through the floor—was blasting from the massive sound system in the corner. He covered his ears and stumbled over to it, eyes wide.

Feeling the vibrations in his teeth, Cloud squinted through watering eyes for the cause of the problem. The power was on, and the volume knob was almost all the way to the right.

He jabbed the power button, and the music stopped. Now the mansion was freakishly silent, aside from the ringing in his ears.

Heart beating frantically, Cloud collapsed on the couch and buried his face in a pillow. Stupid, stupid house.

"YOU'RE SO FINE AND YOU KNOW—"

Cloud jolted and sprinted to the faulty piece of machinery, turning it off. He panted briefly, hand over heart, but it turned on and started up again.

"LIKE A VIRGIN—"

Cloud stubbornly turned it off. It turned back on… again. This happened a few times, Cloud jumping each time his ears were assaulted, even though he knew it was going to happen.

…Was this what Hojo listened to! He was disgusted. He bent to unplug it, but paused. The Cloud Strife of a few days ago would be this naïve. He knew now.

He stood back up. It was quite possible that the stereo was turning on not because it was broken, but because something was making it do so.

It turned on again. Cloud's eyes were fixed on the power button, and he distinctly saw it get pressed in. The volume knob twisted a bit to the right. He wouldn't have seen it if he hadn't been paying such close attention.

Cloud felt like he had been punched in the gut. All these coincidences he kept blaming on the mansion's various things and on Hojo weren't what he thought they were at all.

But, he realized, he wasn't as afraid of the ghost as he used to be. Now, he was just angry.

"I've got you!" Cloud shouted, throwing himself sideways, expecting to collide with something. Instead, he flew through the air and hit the ground hard, rolling and surely giving himself rug burn. His head was starting to hurt from Madonna's singing.

Crouching, Cloud swiveled his head around and examined every inch of the room. It was still in there—he could feel its presence—

There was a noise from above, and he looked up. He saw a rush of brown, but that was it before all he saw was black.

Waking with a splitting headache was really getting old. Cloud stirred slowly, putting a hand to his head and grunting. Eighties music was still playing, and head was throbbing. He blinked his eyes a few times, then started when all he saw was a glassy eye an inch from his own. He panicked, pushing and kicking, then didn't feel the thing's weight any more.

Cloud got a good look at it and collapsed, laughing weakly and without humor. Knocked unconscious by a moose head! Who would've thought?

The lesson he had learned earlier came back to him. No… it wasn't an accident—that creepy dead animal had been purposely made to fall on him.

Cloud winced and stood, unplugging the stereo and ruthlessly smashing the prongs of the plug against the wall, so they were hopelessly bent. A waste of money, but he didn't really care. It wasn't like it was his money. He left the room, holding his noggin between his palms. This ghost nonsense didn't make any sense… was he really dealing with a ghost, here?

He wouldn't understand just by thinking about it. Not knowing what else to do, Cloud teetered to his new bedroom, laid his head on his pillow and opened one of the books he had rescued the previous night.

Mako, the title read. He remembered finding this one. The front cover was plain, nothing but a murky brown with a greenish tint. It reminded him of shit. Nasty. He turned it so he could read the author's name.

"Hojo?" he breathed. Hojo had written this book. There was his name—Barnaby Hojo. Cloud snorted at the man's first name.

Hey, Barbie! What's up?

Barbie had been what the meaner relatives of the family had called Hojo behind his back when he wasn't around. He opened to a random page—dammit, it was all sciencey gobbledygook. But after spending a few minutes skimming, he paused.

Alright, so Mako was something that was injected into your bloodstream, and it made you stronger. It sounded familiar, and Cloud remembered with a jolt that Mako was what SOLDIERs were injected with. He had heard stories about it, how bad you puked the first time you got it, how bad it burned as it travelled through your body. Rufus had once said that Mako was what powered Midgar.

Cloud kept reading.

He flipped through it some more, but hastily tried to find one of the pages he had breezed over, after seeing the word 'Nibelheim' on it. He found it and curiously devoured the words.

"The special brand of Mako found in Nibelheim, which is located in the Nibel Mountain area, can give specimens undesirable but curious side effects, such as invisibility."

Cloud thought about that. His 'ghost' was solid. Was there a chance that he was dealing with one of Hojo's 'specimens?'

He felt sick. He really did. His relative had been up to something shady; that was for sure. But, like, human experimentation? That was a bit far-fetched. He didn't know what to think.

He had to use the bathroom. Cloud carefully stowed the book under the bed but on top of the wood underneath, so it wasn't visible to anyone peering under the bed (he wasn't taking any chances) and left the bedroom, blinking tired eyes. Maybe he had a concussion. That would be bad.

Cloud pissed, nearly falling over on his jelly-like legs as he stood in the bathroom. On the way back to his room, he was struck by a terrible dizziness.

That carpet looked soft… Cloud lay down on it, sighing in bliss like he wasn't lying in the hallway and was snuggling down on clouds.

Everything else could wait… he needed some shut-eye.

Five days left to live.

Gummy eyes peered at the mirror in the too-bright bathroom. It was late morning—Cloud was appalled. He had slept for a ridiculously long time, but he couldn't say that he blamed himself. He had needed that long rest—he felt incredibly well-rested now.

Even so, there were hideous bags under his eyes. Cloud frowned at his reflection. '5' was now written on his forehead beside the crossed-out '6', and he tried not to stare at it. He realized belatedly that his pants were missing. He was just in his boxer-briefs.

Panicking slightly, Cloud looked around in the hallway for them. No luck. He had a bad feeling and rushed to his bedroom.

It was totaled.

His clothes were everywhere. His sheets were thrown all over the place, and his mattress was standing upright against a wall. 'GET OUT' was scrawled on the mattress, probably with the same marker that had written on his forehead. His dresser drawers were scattered, and some of the broken glass from the bathroom had been tossed onto the carpet. One of the golden chairs' fabric was all ripped up.

He found his pants, all right. One pant leg was tied to the ceiling fan, and the other leg was hanging down and was tied as a noose around Sebastian's neck. His toy looked small and defenseless hanging there like that.

It was one of the most disturbing things he'd ever seen.

He found his wallet on the ground—no money was missing, but his driver's license was about ten feet away. Cloud didn't know what to make of it.

Where did he start? He frowned and began to come up with a plan to clean the room, but the doorbell rang. There was some sophisticated bell system—he could hear it in any part of the house.

Cloud cursed. He snagged a pair of crumpled pants and tugged them on as he hopped to the bathroom. He had to get rid of the marker if he was going to talk to anyone. Soap barely worked—he furiously doused a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol and scrubbed his forehead with it, screeching when some dripped into his eye.

Half-blind (but clean), Cloud stumbled downstairs and darted to the door, heart sinking when he realized it was Tifa.

"Hi," he said breathlessly, trying to keep his ears from tearing up because of the alcohol in them. That would've been embarrassing.

"Hello Cloud!" Tifa chirped. "How're you—oh!" She cut herself off, inspecting his eyeball. It was bright red, like he had gotten pink eye or had burst every blood vessel in it.

"I'm okay," Cloud said automatically, blinking and feeling it tear up despite his best efforts. Tifa was frowning at him and scolded, "Are you getting enough sleep?"

Cloud sighed, "Not really." He unconsciously glanced at the mansion, but Tifa caught it.

"I don't blame you," the woman said, smiling. "I don't think I could ever go to sleep in there, after all of the stuff that's happened."

Blue eyes went wide. "…What?"

"Like the guy who owned the mansion first," Tifa elaborated. "And Hojo's butler. You know?"

Cloud shook his head, dumbfounded. Tifa chuckled and gestured to a loveseat that sat on the front porch. "Can we sit down, then? Oh, and these are for you." She handed him a previously-unnoticed bag of sugar cookies. Cloud beamed and thanked her. Those he could eat.

They sat, Tifa's thigh pressed against his in the small space. Cloud resisted the urge to scoot away; he'd hurt her feelings.

"I don't know that much," she confessed, "but I know what the rest of Nibelheim knows."

"I'm totally clueless," Cloud sighed. "Tell me everything."

Tifa bit her lip. "Well… Personally, I'd say that it's haunted."

She giggled. "After the first guy who owned the house disappeared and Hojo and his butler moved in, everyone thought that Hojo had killed him to get him out of the way." She paused. "That's all small-town speculation, but they were creepy enough, and we all liked the first guy. Apparently he didn't have any plans to leave or sell the house and was suddenly just… gone."

Cloud panicked. Maybe Hojo had experimented on the original guy, and that guy wanted his house back to himself now that Hojo was dead!

"Did you ever meet the first owner?"

"Huh? No—oh, right. Well, Hojo and his butler moved in for the first time in the late eighties. I didn't know him, I was little." She grinned. "I heard he was a looker, though. But then Hojo disappeared until about eight years ago, maybe. He's been there ever since, until about two weeks ago, when he died. I'm sorry about that, by the way."

Cloud waved her condolences away. "You know about that?"

Tifa snorted. "There was this huge explosion, and then the butler ran out of the house, covered in blood. Everyone knows."

Cloud paled. Hojo's butler… just who was he? He felt sick.

"Some people think that it was the ghost that killed him," Tifa whispered, though why even she didn't know.

The Invisibles, who were listening from the other side of the window that the couple were talking near, were silently cheering Tifa on.

"Look how scared he is!" Zack cackled, pointing through the glass at Cloud's quickly-greening face. Genesis beamed and kissed Zack's cheek, not knowing what else to do with himself. Sephiroth inwardly extended his thanks to the brunette.

"…Oh," Cloud said tightly.

"You couldn't pay me to stay here." Tifa tilted her head at the Manor. "It's pretty, yeah, but there's been too much death there. That, and sometimes we can see lights turning on and off from down in the village. Everyone's afraid of it."

Death. People had died because of that ghost—human—spirit—thing! Tifa had said so!

"Tifa," he croaked. "I'm gonna be sick." He stood, grabbed the cookies and stumbled to the front door.

Tifa realized she had scared Cloud—and she wished she had been a bit more tactful. Cloud was obviously the kind of guy who could be bothered like that. She didn't blame him. He was sweet, and not afraid to show his emotions to a lady. Yes, she had definitely gotten lucky when Cloud moved to Nibelheim.

"Do you need help with anything?"

Cloud shook his head, managed, "Thanks for the cookies," and hurried inside, closing the door on Tifa's concerned face.

He chucked the bag into the kitchen, sprinted to the bathroom, threw up twice, and then went to his room and slept, nightmares waking him up in a cold sweat more than once.

Four days left to live.

The first sensation Cloud felt while his brain was still half-asleep was burning. He woke up more, alarmed and hoping his throat and the inside of his nose weren't covered in IcyHot, because it sure as hell felt like they were.

He sat up and coughed raggedly, feeling undeniably clogged. He cracked his eyes open, got an eyeful of his bedroom and screamed.

Everything was white. …Covered in a white powder. It smelled like…flour? And something else, too. That was scary in itself, but what was really scary were the footprints.

He had woken up a few times that night, and had cleaned his room the best he could around one in the morning. All this stuff hadn't been there then.

Cloud coughed again, sitting up. He stuck a finger up his right nostril and pulled it out—white. He had been breathing the stuff in all night! That explained the sore throat.

He noticed with a jolt that 'LEAVE' had been written on the mirror by someone's finger. That and the footprints on the floor nearly had Cloud running out of the mansion, but he couldn't leave. The ghost had to get over it.

In some sort of trance, Cloud slid out of bed and crouched, inspecting a full, unbroken print. It was far bigger than his own footprints. Wide. Thick tread. Boots.

Cloud fell back on his butt, hacking up a powdery, bad-tasting loogie and spat it on the carpet, not really caring anymore.

This was all the proof he needed. This thing was… Shiva, it had been in his room, walking around while he was asleep and defenseless! Why wasn't he dead?

Cloud paused, eyeing the word written on the mirror. …It seemed that the ghost didn't want to kill him, but just wanted him to go away.

Well, he wasn't going to leave. It would just have to kill him to be rid of him.

Brows furrowed, Cloud left his room, going to the bathroom to clean himself up. He really needed a cough drop.

Upstairs in the attic, Sephiroth winced as he stepped on a particularly squeaky floorboard. He glanced down so he would remember where it was so he wouldn't accidentally step on it again, if he ever came back up.

His foot left a faint white footprint on the old wood, and he smiled. They had generously piled flour and a harmless white chemical powder (that made the flour even harder to shake off things than it would be normally) under Cloud's bedroom door, then dragged a portable fan around and aimed it. After a few minutes they had turned it off and opened the door.

Completely white. Perfect.

They had decided that he had the biggest, most intimidating feet, and that he was the one who had to stomp around in the bedroom. Sephiroth had been disgruntled at that, until Genesis had said a few choice words about how 'big and sexy' his feet were. After that he had gladly gone inside, lifting his knees high between steps so he wouldn't smear his prints. He had written '4 DAYS' backwards on the boy's now-clean forehead, pausing at first because the boy's skin was so soft. Even more so than Genesis's, and the redhead was forever using creams and the like. He had shaken his head, finished his task and on inspiration wrote 'LEAVE' on the white-coated mirror.

They had relaxed and dozed in their room for a few hours, but then Zackary had scuttled upstairs and then made them all join him.

Cloud was awake now, and Sephiroth vowed not to make another sound that could tell him where they were. Things were different now, not like they were for the first couple of days after he moved in, but… still.

Sephiroth stopped short and stared at Zackary. He was in the process of putting on a medley of old woman's clothing, which Genesis was gleefully pulling out of a chest that really looked more like a hideous toy box. Angeal was pulling an off-white dusty skirt up Zack's legs with a snicker.

Zack giggled and caught Sephiroth's mystified gaze. "I found these a while back," he explained, gesturing at the pile of clothing. "Must've been Crazy's—" he paused. "…Wife?"

Angeal glanced at the pile. "No woman would want to marry that man."

"Maybe he was into crossdressing," Genesis suggested. He put Zack's left arm into a sweater sleeve and gave the ex-First a gentle spank when he tried to do the same with the other arm and accidentally hit Angeal in the shoulder.

All four tried hard not to picture that.

Zack held up a finger, yanked on a few more random articles of clothing, wrapped a scarf around his chin, mouth and nose and pulled a long, sagging hood over the top of his face. The fabric was thin enough that he could see through it with his enhanced eyesight. Not one inch of his invisible skin was showing anywhere.

Hunching over and speaking in an 'old granny' voice that surprised all of them, Zack croaked, "Hello! I've been sensin' some mighty powerful spirits in this here house!"

Cloud ate breakfast quietly, keeping an eye out for any suspicious activity.

The flour had taken ages to scrub off his skin—he hadn't even tried to clean up his bedroom yet. His throat still hurt too, and he winced as he swallowed a chunk of half-burnt toast.

This wouldn't go unpunished. He'd get this ghost back—all the things it was doing were inexcusable!

Cloud entertained a brief daydream about taking a baseball bat from somewhere and beating the poltergeist to death—er, again-death—with it. He could dream, couldn't he?

He nearly slammed his head down on the table when the doorbell rang. He muttered curses under his breath and stood on tiptoes to peer through the peephole. It wasn't Tifa, surprisingly; there was some old woman hunched over on his welcome mat. He couldn't see her face—everything was covered in layers of gross-looking, frayed clothing.

Wary, but trying to be polite, Cloud opened the door and said, "…Uh, hello. Can I help you with anything, ma'am?"

"YOU!" The old lady exclaimed loudly in a cracked, high-pitched voice. Cloud jumped about a foot in the air, not hearing the near-hysterical laughter that came from a certain ex-Commander from directly behind him. "You," she repeated, "shouldn't be in this here mansion! I sense evil—so evil—spirits about!"

Cloud's mouth fell open. "Um… excuse me?" he said dumbly. "H-How do you know about-"

"I'm a psychic, sonny," she interrupted. "And I've been sensin' a great aura from this here mansion of yours. The first tenant was killed, was he not? I thought it proper to come and tell you to get out…" she lowered her voice and said in a scary, quiet voice, "…with your life."

The quaking blond tried to say something else, but the woman pushed past him with surprising strength and started moaning, "Gaia bless! Gaia bless! Oh! No no no no no… such evil resides in these walls!"

Cloud hovered beside her and said awkwardly, "Excuse me, ma'am, but you can't just—"

She whirled around and pointed at his forehead. Her sleeve of her sweater hung over her hand, and Cloud wished he could have seen her face. He was getting a bit nervous.

"And what is this!" she lamented. "You have been touched by the accursed hand! Four days, boy! Why are you still here? It is obvious that it plans to kill you! Get out while you still can!"

Cloud took a deep, calming breath. "Look, ma'am. I appreciate that you came all this way to warn me. I'm aware of the spirits in this house, but I can't leave."

"Can't leave?" she laughed, sounding like a dying hyena. "Nonsense. Of course you can! Leave right now if you know what's good for you!"

She started limping through the house and Cloud followed her, at a loss. She kept screaming emphatically about how much evil there was, and how they wished him harm and blah blah blah—!

"Can't you exorcise it or something?" Cloud finally gasped, desperate to get her to leave.

The woman froze, then turned her head slightly and gazed intently at something over his shoulder. She shrugged, then nodded solemnly.

"We can try," she said at length. She stared at Cloud when he lit up, eyes bright and shining with gratitude.

"What do I do?" he asked seriously.

Her hunch became even more pronounced when she gave a weird motion, like a shrug that she tried to cover up halfway through. "Hold your arms out," she instructed, voice like sandpaper. "Eyes closed."

Cloud obeyed.

"Now stand on one foot… your other foot—and wiggle your fingers. …Trust me, boy. Now rotate your neck, mouth open, tongue out. And stick your patooty out too—do you want these malicious spirits to kill you?"

Feeling ridiculous, Cloud did so. He listened closely to her words, losing his balance every few seconds but doing his best to stay on one foot.

"Spirits!" she roared, making Cloud jump again. "Leave this home! You do not belong here!"

The air felt tense, and Cloud wondered what she was doing.

"Your time haunting this mansion and this poor boy is up! Return to the Lifestream where you belong!"

Cloud waited, expectant. There was a rush of air to his left, and there was a horrible, gritty scream as the woman tried to say something else.

His eyes flew open. The old lady was unconscious, head lolling as she… floated. She was about four feet off the ground, considerable amount of clothing all over the place. Cloud froze, utterly paralyzed with terror.

Genesis was crying, he was laughing so hard. Zack did his best not to make a noise or shake as he laughed. Sephiroth and Angeal hefted Zack higher and snickered at the horrified blond.

Slowly, she hovered out of the house. Cloud watched her go, eyes huge.

The woman's body drifted out the front door, and the door slammed shut behind her.