Again the rain... always the rain... The young girl stood amidst the rubble, where a magnificant church once stood, her head lowered, letting the freezing downpour drench her throughly, chilling her to the bones. Wet strands of coal-black hair clung to her fine-boned face, wild lines of darkness slashing across the pale flesh. Drops of moisture traced gentle paths on her childish cheeks, silently falling, like the dry leaves in Autumn, onto the ground. Was it rain? Or were they her tears? It was unclear, her closed-off expression not leaking any hint as to what she felt.

Few paces away from the girl-child, a young boy, barely older by a year, looked at his kid sister with sloe eyes filled with the sadness and pain that did not belong to a child his age. It was the eyes of someone who has seen too many deaths, too much pain and suffering in this war-driven time.

He picked his way carefully through the wreckage to stand beside the girl. Putting his hand gently atop her head, he said softly, "Shichi.. come on, we have to go. The soldiers might be back, we need to get away from here."

A low whisper drifted from her lips. "It was the same..." A pained expression shadowed the boy's young features for a brief moment, as that simple sentence dredged up unwanted memories that should have been buried.

Suddenly, Shichi lifted her face, unspoken anguish distorted her childish features. Midnight-black eyes, filled with an ageless pain, stared into her brother's equally dark eyes. "The rain.. it was the same, Kaminari... The day they buried Solo, and now the church, and Father Maxwell... all gone. Duo, too. Everything... everyone... GONE! AND IT ALWAYS RAINS!!" She screamed, tears overflowing. She fell to her knees, not caring about the sharp-edged broken bricks that littered the land scraping her skin, and sobbed uncontrollably. "...Always the rain..."

Kaminari's face held a pained expression as he watched his sister's outburst. Shichi was too young... At the age of merely ten and suffered through so much... his fists clenched. Curse this war! Don't they know how much it hurt?! To live in a world where everyday they have to worry about how to survive until the next sunrise, a world where everyone you love might be taken by Death the next moment. A world, where war orphans like them trudge through dark alleys, scouraging for any scraps of food, living like rats, when they should have been playing, going to school, enjoying life instead of mourning for the people they had loved, and had loved them back.

Kaminari knelt down beside his sister, encircling the heartbroken girl in a tight hug. "Don't worry, Shichi... I'm still here, I won't leave you.." He murmured soothing words to her, a fierce new determination flaring high from the core of his soul. "We'll survive, Shichi. Through the rain. I will protect you, and I'll never, ever leave you."