When Luz finally reappeared again, Kipo's face broke out into relief.

"Oh, good, there you are!" Kipo called to her, standing up and waving enthusiastically, but her smile fell as she saw Luz's downcast expression. "Hey, what is it? What's wrong?"

Luz sighed. "It's... nothing. It's fine."

"Are you sure?" Kipo pressed, and Luz shook her head more vigorously this time. Kipo frowned worriedly, but she decided not to press it. Besides, they were on a time limit. "If you say so. You can talk about it when you're ready you know."

Luz opened her mouth to protest, but Kipo continued on before she could. "We decided to go look for a hospital, or something like that. It's not very likely we'll find one, but we've got to try, because we don't have a lot of time left-."

"Oh, we don't have to do that," Luz interrupted, and before Kipo could question her, Luz raised her clutched hand. Kipo did a double take.

"Isn't that-?" she asked breathlessly.

"It'll heal them," Luz insisted. Suddenly, something seemed to occur to her, and she frowned at the cloth with the... all too familiar texture to it. "At least I think it will. But Six has never lied about this stuff before..."

"A-Are we sure?" Kipo asked her, nervously. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"Only on its own," Luz explained, before scanning around. "Are they inside?"

"Yes..." Kipo told her, slowly. "Luz, please be careful with that."

Luz nodded, and Kipo suspected that she didn't want to talk anymore. She stepped back Kipo, and into the building behind them. Kipo started to follow, and then paused, looking over the destroyed town behind them. Six was nowhere in sight.

Kipo can't say she knew the strange dog-fox creature too well, other than the fact that she was incredibly rude most if not all the time... but there had been no reason to suspect she would backstab them. The betrayal hurt, almost as much as Hurricane's betrayal.

Kipo shook her head, following Luz back into the community center.

The first thing she heard was Kai arguing. Kipo kept her laugh to herself. Typical.

"No, no, NO! I do NOT trust something the ghost gave you!" Kai cried.

"It wasn't the ghost," Luz explained, an edge of annoyance leaking into her voice. "It's just magic."

"..." Kipo walked in as Kai narrowed his eyes at the cloth suspiciously. "I don't trust it."

Beside him, Tulip rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on! Kai, the only reason I said you should go first is because that wound is probably the worst one here. You need treatment!"

"Yeah, treatment!" Kai cried. "Not whatever that is!"

"Oh... FINE," Tulip groaned. "I'll go first. Luz..."

Luz gave Kai a glance, but maybe she wanted to actually do something, because she moved to the side without complaint. Tulip held out the cloth, and Luz reached forward, wrapping it around Tulip's leg. She paused for a couple seconds, seemingly unsure about what to do next, before unwrapping it, being careful to always keep a hand on the fabric.

"D-Did it work?" Luz asked uncertainly, and Tulip carefully and slowly stretched out her leg, a beaming smile growing on her face. Kipo's eyes widened. Was this really the same smoke that was in the forest? Kipo supposed she never did get too hurt in the forest, but... still. The fog could do that this whole time?

"Hey, it did!" Tulip exclaimed, standing up and putting her full weight on her leg. "Oh, that feels great... Kai, the cloth if FINE, just use it!"

"Okay, okay!" Kai cried, leaning forward. It seems all his reservations had evaporated like mist. Now, a lot surer of herself, Luz moved forward, wrapping the cloth around his head before unwrapping it. After she stepped away, Kai quickly unwrapped the makeshift bandage around his eye. Kipo winced. The blood they hadn't been able to wash off before was still there, caked onto Kai's face, but now he once again had two eyes looking out at them, blinking sporadically like even he couldn't believe it.

"Oh, wow," he said, barely more than a whisper. "H-Hey, the pains all gone! I can see again! How do I look?"

Luz's grin quickly shifted into a grimace at the question. "Uh, great! ...Maybe just wash your face first."

Kai's smile fell, and he rubbed at her face, letting out a surprised exclamation at the feel of his own blood. "Oh, god!"

Mabel stepped forward next. "Do me, do me!"

It only took one glance at Mabel's blackened fingers for Luz to comply, quickly wrapping the cloth around Mabel's hands.

"Why didn't you say anything about this?" Luz asked her, worried, and a little amazed. It did look... very painful.

"I couldn't feel them!" Mabel told her happily. Inside the cloth, her fingers twitched. "Oh, there they are... yeah, that feels a lot better."

"Yeah, I'd think so..." Luz agreed slowly. She unwrapped the cloth. "How's that?"

"SO much better!" Mabel said, wiggling her fingers. "Look at them all! Good thing I didn't lose any, I need all my finger puppets."

Luz nodded in agreement, before looking at the rest of them. "Anyone else? Coraline, I know you got cut."

"Fei Fei got burned, though," Kipo pointed out, but Fei Fei shook her head.

"Uh, no," she said. "I can wait."

"A burn is a worse injury than getting cut," Coraline argued. "And I'm fine. It's mostly healed anyway. Or at least closed."

Fei Fei didn't argue anymore, though she did look slightly reluctant to have so much attention on her, and she raised her hands. Luz stepped forward, once again using the magical cloth. Within a minute, Fei Fei was healed, and she curled her fingers, feeling them out. Despite her earlier arguments, she looked relieved, and Kipo suspected that unlike Mabel, she had been feeling the injuries on her hands. Kipo wondered why she didn't say anything.

"And now you, Coraline," Luz said, and Coraline titled her head.

"Do I need it?" she wondered. "It's barely more than a scratch."

Luz shrugged. "Better to be healed why we can. Besides, no disinfectant out here."

"That's true," Coraline agreed, and she held out her arm. Just like Coraline, it was fixed just as fast. This time, Kipo looked closely, and through the semi-transparent fabric, she saw the wound seemed to knit itself together, like the skin was healing itself in the space of a couple seconds.

Luz stepped back, smiling and looking satisfied with herself. "There we go..." she said. She looked around. "Um... now what?"

Kipo stepped forward. "Now that we're all good, we should discuss what to do next. Our main goal is getting out of here, and I think Hurricane has something to do with that. We need to-."

"No..." Luz interrupted uncertainly. "I meant about the cloth."

"...Oh," Kipo said.

"Well, we should keep it obviously!" Kai said. "That things OP!"

"But I have to keep holding onto it," Luz pointed out, before shaking her head. "No, I know how to do this now. If we need it, I can make more of them. I'm letting this one go."

Before the others could make any argument, Luz let go of the cloth, and without her hanging onto it anymore, it dissolved into nothing. Kipo stepped back quickly, still a little wary of the thing, even though it had proved incredibly useful.

"And now we do what you said, right?" Luz asked. "We... find out what to do next?"

After a second of holding her breath, Kipo nodded, answering slowly. "Yeah... I got to admit, the ghost and Six seemed to be... dead ends, so we got to work somewhere else. Any ideas?"

"These flowers seem important," Coraline pointed out. "Or why would that guy go through so much trouble for it? They seem to be valuable."

"And why couldn't he get them HIMSELF?!" Mabel cried, still looking annoyed.

"Yeah... that's right," Kipo agreed. "There's something weird about those things. Anything else we should look at?"

"Why we're here and where we are is still a good question," Tulip offered. "We shouldn't forget that. Figuring out stuff is important, but we can't forget our original goal. This place is dangerous."

"Yeah, half of us are dead already," Kai noted, shivering. Suddenly, a certain look crossed his face as he realized something. "Hey, when we die, do we grow flowers, too? Or just people from this place?"

Kipo blinked. Say, that was a good point... and if the former was correct then it hinted at something darker going on in this world. Kipo shook her head, saving that thought for later.

"We'll talk about that with the flowers," Kipo told him. "What else?"

"That one that sent us to those places," Fei Fei spoke up, leaning forward. "Who was it?"

"Oh, you mean Gale-er-Hurricane?" Kipo replied, stumbling over her words. "Well, he had a lot of names, technically. Anemos, Hurricane, Gale... probably some others, too."

Kipo paused, but realizing how little her friends knew, she continued. "I don't know a lot about him... I only got hints and clues. I... here's what I know: He's powerful. He can control time, he can see mostly everywhere, somehow, and he has these... wooden figures that can appear in the real world. Those were those animals you saw! I was controlling them, kind of."

Kipo suddenly winced. "Uh, well, I did my best. Anyway, I think he's been around for a long time, too. I..."

Kipo reached to her pocket, almost ready to grab the notebook, before she froze, lowering her hand. He was probably watching them right now... Kipo slowly lowered her hand.

"He said he wasn't a god, only god-like, but people still worshipped him," Kipo told them, but she spoke more softly, suddenly worried that he was listening in right now on his screen.

Mabel brightened at that. "Oh, like that church on the mountain! Father... whatever-his-name-was was talking about 'false gods' and 'real gods'... I think he thought that note was fake or something."

Kipo's face twisted. "It... was. I thought I was helping when I was impersonating their god... ugh, turns out he was across from me that entire time!"

...No one said anything to that. Eventually, Kipo waved a hand, feeling embarrassed.

"A-Anyway, I don't think we can puzzle this stuff out ourselves," she said. "We need to actually go find some answers. Or at the very least, more clues."

Kai looked up, alarmed. "We can't go to this crazy church! That's the place where Kris-."

"We won't be manipulated this time!" Kipo interrupted, accidently raising her voice. She paused, took a breath, and continued more calmly. "We need answers. This might not be the best place, but it's our only chance! We just... actually, wait. Before we decide anything... anyone have any other ideas? Six and Hurricane are the only ones who seemed to know anything, and they're not on our side. And trust me, I'd be happy to hear any better suggestions. So... well, just say them out. I'll listen, I promise."

The silence that followed was awkward and heavy. Kipo sighed.

"Okay... it's decided then," she announced, not anymore happier than they were. She glanced down at Mabel's hands. "We'll be more prepared this time. And trust me, we're not leaving without answers... no matter what."

They started preparing to go North. Well, as much as they could, anyway. There were no coats around for them to wear, and their old clothes were basically useless expect for bandages, so they packed them only for that use. Their best plan was to buy coats from a town on the way, so right now, they were packing up as much food as they could fit in Kipo's backpack as they could, but it still wasn't a lot. For all seven of them, it'd running out soon.

As they gathered it up, Kipo slid closer to Mabel, keeping her voice low.

"Mabel?" Kipo asked her, keeping her voice soft. "Are you okay?"

Mabel looked up, her eyes wide. "Huh? Yeah, I'm okay..."

"Are you sure?" Kipo asked, and she breathed a sigh of relief when Mabel nodded. "That's good. Mabel, I'm sorry about this. I wish there was something else we could do."

Mabel smiled at her, but it looked a little shaky. "It's ok, Kipo! I want to go back there anyway. Maybe Kris and Norman are actually okay!"

Kipo cringed, but thankfully, she didn't have to say anything.

"And I want to see this... 'dad' again. I'm going to give him a piece of my mind!" Mabel continued, putting her hand into an angry fist. "I've got some choice words with that guy!"

"It's Father Arlen," Kipo reminded her. "And do you really think Kris and Norman are ok?"

"You didn't see them die, right?" Mabel pointed out. "That's what you said."

Kipo frowned. She could tell Mabel didn't really believe it, and it hadn't been her intention to give Mabel false hope when she was told her that, when Mabel had been looking particularly down.

But maybe even a false hope was better in this hopeless situation. Anything was better than falling into that despair, Kipo decided, and she gave Mabel a smile.

"Here's hoping," she told her, and Mabel beamed, looking far more confident than she had been before. "Are you ready to go?"

"Born ready," Mabel assured her, her eyes drawn determinedly and her hand squeezed into another fist. But then a worried frown broke out across her face. "But are we going to have enough food? We won't have to hunt anything, right?"

Kipo inwardly cringed at that, but she kept her smile on her face as she shook her head. "We'll be fine. Fei Fei said we have more than enough money to buy for food."

Kipo ignored the less-than-confident face Fei Fei made in the corner of her eye. She placed a hand on Mabel's shoulder instead, dropping her grin and putting on a much more serious face.

"Don't worry," she told her friend. "I'm ready this time."

Mabel looked surprised, before she matched Kipo's expression. This time, it didn't look like she was faking it.

"I'm ready enough for all of us," Mabel told her, and she sure looked like she was. Kipo stepped out of her way, surprised at how much Mabel's determination put her at ease.

"Let's get going, then," Kipo said. "Let's get our answers."