Standing in the rain, with his eyes fixated on the ground, his clothes soaked with drip-drops of the middleweight storm, and his purple hair falling before his downcast eyes, a boy of not less than seven years old held onto his older sister with shaky hands.
Toshirou-nii... Are you really-"
"Yes, Joel. For the thousandth time, I am not going to change my mind. You know this as much as I do."
Indeed, he did, but it did not also mean it sat well with the boy. Rather than his conscience, Joel was disturbed for Toshirou. He did not want the blood of innocents to be on his hands. He understood the hands of the teen were unclean, having shed the blood of a human, a guilty one, but the blood of an innocent person, people for that matter, was a different ball game entirely.
'Even I do not want this.'
