Four Friends; A Forsaken World [REWRITE IN PROGRESS]

Chapter Six: Shrine of Power, Shrine of Revival

As the five friends ran up the thousand shrine gates to the Mogami Shrine, they remembered what happened. They arrived in Raito after a good night's rest, met Kit, had breakfast at Spirit's Abode...and now here they were, running up a thousand shrine gates with police officers. Not on their trail, they were on the same side. Lizzy was the one who was sweating the most, not only because she was in BLACK CLOTHES, but she was also the most unfit amongst the five. As they reached the top of the gates, they gasped in the mess everywhere.

A coin offering box was tipped and coins were everywhere. The guardian tanuki and kitsune statues were tipped to the side and a shadowy liquid-like energy covered one of the kitsune statues. A pedestal in the middle of the shrine was surrounded with shattered glass and a board that once held wooden boards with wishes on them had some of the horizontal poles empty and the string that once held some of the wishes to the poles were untied and the wooden boards lie on the ground in a mess. The leafy tree canopy seemed to have a perpetual light on the pedestal and there was a hole in it.

"What happened here?!" Jian demanded.

"From what it seems, assailants broke into the shrine and broke everything." Faith noticed. She turned to a police officer. "Were there any security cameras or guards near the Mogami Shrine?"

"Well, yes." A police officer in black replies. "There are guards at the entrance to the shrine gates. The protective spirits above protect the Shrine of Revival."

"Spirits?" Faith questioned.

"The kitsune and tanuki statues are the protective guardians of the shrine." The officer replies. "Those are their bodies. When a threat strikes the shrine, they leave the statues and defend."

"Okay. I understand now." Faith turned to her friends. "Okay, here's what we have to do. Jian and Lizzy will go down and ask the officers at the bottom what happened while me, Kitto and Puro will search the area for any clues. Because me and Lizzy are in a Discord server together, we'll stay in a voice channel together as we relay messages."

"Yes, ma'am!" Jian saluted.

"Aw, not more running!" Lizzy groaned.

"It's fine, you can get on my back and I'll fly you down." Jian smiled.

As the two girls left, the other three children began investigating.

***

"Okay, what did you find?" Faith asked, turning to Kit who was searching the perimeter.

"I found what seems to be the end of a broomstick." Kit said, lifting some golden fluff.

"Let me hold it to detect any elements." Puro said, running to Kit. Kit handed the robot girl the fluff and Puro gasped. "Interesting. I sense a sparkly feeling. And this sparkly feeling is a dark maroon."

"Dark magic?" Kit asked.

"Yeah, from what I'm seeing." Puro replied, taking a photo of the fluff with her phone and handing it to a police officer.

"Okay, let's search more." Faith said.

As they searched, the trio concluded that the thieves have flew in with broomsticks, used an unknown type of elemental energy to neutralize the Spirits and when the cops got up, they were too late. Puro detected the unknown energy was elemental energy, however she was unable to detect what it was. It WAS elemental, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

***

"So, what did you find?" Puro asked, after she and the two other friends had reached the bottom of the shrine gates.