Chapter Five: Five Hours for Five Percent

The room fell into an uneasy silence, broken only by the steady ticking of the wall clock. Tick tock. Tick tock. T.LAC sat on the couch, fingers running through his hair in frustration, wrestling with the weight of the situation. “This is a waste of time!” he blurted out, standing abruptly. "Mara needs us!"

His eyes flicked toward Yozora, whose face remained calm despite everything. But T.LAC could see it—the subtle shift in his best friend. Yozora’s usual carefree demeanor had vanished, replaced by an eerie stillness. His starry eyes, which normally sparkled with lazy indifference, now swirled like galaxies in motion.

T.LAC paused, recognizing the shift. He had seen this before—Yozora’s ability to flip from laid-back to a force of nature in the blink of an eye. Taking a deep breath, T.LAC turned his attention to Mr. and Mrs. Tenebris. "Look," he said firmly, "all of this can wait. Right now, we need to know how to get our powers back. Mara doesn’t have time. We need to figure this out in less than 24 hours. What’s the plan?"

Mr. Tenebris sighed, rubbing his chin in thought. "Your abilities were scattered," he said slowly. "We had no choice but to separate them and hide them in remote locations. That kind of power, in the wrong hands, could be catastrophic. But, luckily for us today, my smart and beautiful wife thought of just about everything."

Yozora’s mom suddenly shooting up like a rocket, cracked her knuckles and jumped up with the sudden energy of a martial artist preparing for battle. Her eyes fixed on her son.

"Zora, the pendant I always make you wear to keep your locs up—even when you don’t want to? Pull it out."

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Yozora blinked in confusion but reached for the pendant, doing as she asked.

"T.LAC," she continued, "the anklet I gave you, break it. Then pull off all four blue beads."

Both Yozora and T.LAC exchanged bewildered glances but followed her instructions. T.LAC snapped the anklet, his fingers fumbling with the blue beads. Yozora removed the pendant from his locs, holding it in his hand, feeling the weight of it like never before.

"Now," she said, her tone leaving no room for argument, "T.LAC, swallow all four beads. Zora, swallow the pendant."

"What?!" T.LAC exclaimed, his face scrunching up in disgust, but Yozora didn’t hesitate. He popped the pendant into his mouth and swallowed it with a grimace. T.LAC, watching him, sighed heavily. "Man, this is disgusting," he muttered, before stuffing the beads into his mouth. He chewed with an expression that looked like he'd bitten into something rotten.

"Ugh, that’s nasty!" T.LAC groaned, his face wrinkling as if he'd eaten a raisin soaked in vinegar. Yozora remained silent, his gaze still intense, focused on the task at hand.

Mrs. Tenebris crossed her arms, her eyes scanning them both with sharp focus. "Good," she said with a satisfied nod. "Your bodies are starting to reawaken. That power you just consumed? It's only about five percent of what you need, but it’s a start. Don’t expect things to happen instantly—it’s going to be tough. You’ve got a lot to catch up on before you’re ready to face Jezebel."

Mr. Tenebris stepped forward, his expression stern but thoughtful. "You've got less than nineteen hours now, and part of that time has to go toward learning the fundamentals of the Toro. Before we ‘zeroed’ you, you never needed the basics like other Tuners. With the sheer amount of power you had, why would you?" He paused, thinking aloud. "T.LAC, even though you weren't as overwhelmingly powerful as Zora, you never missed a shot, even from three hundred miles out, without knowing the fundamentals."

He looked between them both. "What I'm getting at is this: if you were that skilled without the basics, imagine what you can do once you master them. You might surpass even your original potential."

"Honey," Mrs. Tenebris interrupted, glancing at her husband, "you should’ve regained some of your Hindo now that the boys have started reawakening. Set up a portal to the Control Test Site. It’ll be a good place to teach them. We’ll give you everything we can in five hours."

Mr. Tenebris nodded, his expression firm as he spoke. "Acceleration Art: Nomad’s Portal."With a fluid motion, a swirling vortex of energy began to form in the air, spiraling open into an otherworldly gateway.

Time was running out, and the real battle was about to begin.