12.
Nights pass. Days are dull. You can hide in the night what you don't in the day.
Nagisa feels their body soften, but sharpen. There is nothing that changed for them, and yet everything is suddenly very different. There are ideas, methods, most of all, answers that were previously unavailable. And as that becomes clear, so too do the monsters. So too does the reality.
Their mother's fingers feel harder too, more pointy.
They think about running far, far away. But they know the land now. There are not many like them here. Not much mages.
Nagisa makes more daggers, imagines them in places they shouldn't be, in people that don't deserve it.
The cubes help, but they help like a cigarette after a long day. It's bad to keep them, so much so.
Then, one night, Nagisa dreams of a girl their age. She smiles.