Hours later, both Chloe and Rahkaze strolled down the streets of the city. Still clutching his new degree had he received from the newly minted Novak University of Demonology, Rahkaze was thinking about throwing the degree away. To him, it was a piece of garbage. A proverbial pat on the head for all his troubles. He despised everyone in attendance.

Seeing this unsettlement, Chloe decided to break the silence, “let’s get out of the cold. Would you like to come to my room for drinks?”

Rahkaze didn’t have to think twice, “you know, after everything that has happened, I could really need a drink.”

Rahkaze agreed as they went to Chloe’s sublet, two blocks from the newly minted University.

While they both decided to go, they crossed paths with a wolf kemonomimi with reddish-brown hair and rose-colored eyes. She was wearing dressed up in a long black and red robe with an attached hood, dark silver center panel with lace-up detail, and long frilled sleeves with thigh-high boots. She had her long hair done in a high ponytail and was wearing an aroura-patterned bow. As the kemonomimi walked away, Rahkaze couldn’t help but stare at the beautiful wolf girl and watch her leave.

“Kaz, what are you looking at?” Chloe teased as Rahkaze turned around and faced her with defending himself.

“I think it was her.”

“Who, Rahkaze?”

“Aurora Rose Novak,” Rahkaze wondered.

Chloe shook her head in disagreement, “according to my reports, Novak left the Syndicate and went into seclusion. She burned a lot of bridges because… because she lost her family.”

“Yeah, another casualty…” Rahkaze reminisced.

“Come on, let’s get out of the cold,” Chloe offered, and Rahkaze agreed.

Chloe’s sublet was rather large and was modest. Having a queen-size bed, a living room with a couch and a coffee table. Even a fully functioning kitchen and a 42-inch television.

“You picked a nice one,” Rahkaze plopped on the couch as he made himself comfortable. Chloe went to the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of red wine and two glasses from the cupboard.

“Interpol gave me the place for the week while I am here,” She joined Rahkaze on the couch as she sat down next to him. She turned on the television, with an anime show playing. She uncorked the bottle and poured two glasses of wine. She gave one to Rahkaze and took one for herself. She laid back down on the couch and crossed her legs.

As are both enjoying their red wine and watching anime shows, Chloe had to break the ice with him and his disdain for the syndicate. He usually kept it in very well, but at the ceremony, she knew there was something wrong with him. Something more than just petty arguments or bad blood. It was something that she never really saw in him before, and that was pure fear.

“Rahkaze, you never really told me about your experiences with the elite.”

“It was a nightmare,” Rahkaze summarized.

“Give me the extended version,” Chloe probed as Rahkaze took another sip of red wine.

“There’s nothing really there to investigate, actually. Sometimes two people just don’t like each other. Sometimes… something happens between two people, and they just don’t end up like each other at all. It just happens. Why do dogs and cats fight each other? They just do.”

Then it was silence. Rahkaze finished off his glass of red wine as Chloe was happy to pour him another.

He stared at his own reflection inside the glass as he broke down and continued, “Alastair brought me on as his apprentice for one year. The first and only year I spent there was tough. They ragged on me because I was Revan’s kid. I was a marked man. I had to have my head on a swivel, run faster, and be smarter than everyone else.”

This saddens Chloe because she never actually took account of the fact that Revan didn’t really make that many friends as Lady Memento, and they may have used Rahkaze as a figurative punching bag, “oh…”

“I was always graded on a steep curve. The smallest mistake I’ve made was magnified to the umpteenth degree.”

“They just wanted to test you, Rahkaze. I really don’t think they ever meant to hurt you for what they did. I believe they wanted to see just how tough you were,” Chloe sincerely defended.

Rahkaze shrugged his shoulders, “I guess you can say that. Or I guess you can say they wanted me to put my tail between my legs and go home. I didn’t want to give them that luxury. I could’ve gone at any time after that--”

At that moment, he had to catch himself. He didn’t want to bring up what happened to his first mission. Instead, he changed the subject, “a whole teaching exodus was performed not because of me, but by the Holy Fire Bombing in London. Afterward, I left and never went back…”

Chloe took a sip of her glass, “it wasn’t your fault. It was theirs.”

Rahkaze scoffed at the idea, “my friend and I never had it easy in the syndicate. Sadly, I’m glad that the old castle burned to the ground. And whoever did it, I owe him lots of gratitude.”

Chloe was a bit unsettled by his words as she finished her glass of wine. She asked him a question while pouring her own second, “well, that degree is yours now. Accredited and everything. You can do whatever you want to do with it. Are you going to hang it on your wall?”

Rahkaze thought long and hard. Then, he took another sip of his wine and answered truthfully, “I’m torn between wiping my ass with it or burning it.”

After hearing too much of his negativity, Chloe had to step in and be the voice of reason, “you must let go, Rahkaze. I don’t think it was malicious of them, present you with a degree. To me, it was more about righting a wrong than giving you a kiss-off.”

Rahkaze faces his friend, taking a sip of wine, “What makes you so sure?”

“In some cases, many others take pride in their mistakes and do nothing to learn from them. Yet, the grandmaster himself personally went in front of the public and gracefully admitted his own errors and many others in his own circle. He knew they all had their own problems way before you ever even entered their lives. You were nothing more than a catalyst and an outlet for such grievances. After all that hardship, you had to carry all those years, you were rewarded by the grandmaster himself.”

Rahkaze never really sat back and realized that. He was so focused on revenge and payback from his enemies. Even now, he can’t help himself from being too prideful and snide, “Consider me honored.”

“Rahkaze, don’t be so bitter,” Chloe corrected. “It’s not every day, something like this happens.”

“They did it because they want to do it. To sell their fucking University,” Rahkaze counterpointed.

Knowing it was a lost cause tonight, she gave up for now as she was getting a bit too buzzed to argue, “I hope one day, you’ll look back at this, Rahkaze, and see is not always black and white.”

With that humble prayer, she raised a glass and Rahkaze drunk to that.