16.
Thirteen happens.
They're in an elite private school's crosshairs. It's intimidating, if only because people keep looking at them, looking for something. There are, on the upside, a lot of god damn demons here. It's only natural. Schools and businesses are full of dissatisfaction and curses. They've seen other magical girls here. They all nod at each other and let them go.
If there are any in class E, Nagisa hasn't met them, because they haven't been there.
Then because survival is all that matters, it all goes to absolute pot.
Survival doesn't mean good grades, or even great ones. It means passing. It means ducking under the radar. It means doing the right thing to live sometimes.
None of this place is right.
So Nagisa tries to slip through the cracks. Until a boy decides something is enough, that they are too much. There's no violent suspension.
But there are whispers. Whispers ache. Whispers are full and heavy and deep and unforgiving. You can't kill whispers, you can only kill the people who make the whispers and that's just too many.
And Nagisa comes home too tired to hunt the longer it goes. They come home too angry. Their mother pries and picks and pokes but smiles sadly towards the end.
"You're my son after all, it's going to be hard."
It's not quite right, and it's probably the magic talking, but Nagisa is relieved at the sound of it, at the brightness that fills the room, because Mom, for now, knows they're trying, knows that these people hate them and knows that people are against them. Even at the bottom is good enough because they will push and push to the top.
They will continue to let her think so. Because how true is it really?
It lasts for a while. Then the last month, the whole world turns asunder and they fall, fall to the bottom.
Into E.
It's almost not worth continuing. The world is bright and dark by turns. Nothing keeps it one way or another for very long and it just keeps slipping, keeps shattering.
It's almost not worth it.
It's so nice where it is.
Nagisa nearly misses fourteen, but doesn't concern themselves with it.