Edited by Wpnfire - thank you as always!
"Your irresponsible behavior and your incapability of properly judging the situation, will cost you more than a few extra scars."
Raphael obediently bowed his head, and stayed in a kneeling position in front of his father, without moving. He let his mind wander again. After all, he was not hearing anything new and he did not expect to.
When his brothers had helped him to get back to the lair, and Donatello had treated his wounds, Raph had to explained what had happened. He told them about rescuing some kids from the Foot and had described in detail the attackers combat tactics and weapons. After that, he had pretended a total exhaustion caused by loss of blood, and so he had been released and sent to his bed. In the morning, the lesson from his Master had not been forgotten, but after a long sleep he was better prepared to fill in the gaps in the previous evening´s story.
Raph closed his eyes and prepared himself for the inevitable. He sensed that Sensei´s monologue had come to an end:
"...and to give you time to reflect on what I just told you, you will be," the hotheaded ninja bowed lower, "grounded for a week."
"Yes, Sensei." replied the punished student obediently as he silently uttered a sigh of a relief. One week, he can manage that. His wounds did not allow him to move around much anyway.
"And no TV or video games!" Splinter did not forgot to add, unfortunately for Raph.
Raphael hissed silently and quickly retreated out of the room.
On the fifth day Raphael started feeling like his head would explode.
Donatello had refused to repair his punching bag for the tenth time, his motorcycle was fully repaired and cleaned. Training had turned into a living hell: He still could not move enough, and his new sais only reminded him where the original ones were. Leonardo´s occasional searching glance had not brightened his mood either. Michelangelo, now the primary user of the TV, had not forgotten to constantly remind him this unpleasant fact, just by his screams of exaggerated excitement at the screen.
Eventually, Raphael was left alone with his own thoughts, which were not very happy ones. The ninja with the red bandana was not simple, contrary to others expectations, but he liked the simple things and the simple situations. He sees a victim, he saves the victim, and beats up the attackers. There were no unnecessary questions, like if the attacker happened to have a bad childhood. He preferred to leave such thoughts to Donnie, planning to Leo, and annoying shouts to Mikey.
His latest escapade, though, had left him distraught. The thought, that "Jane" could have simply killed him, whatever her reasons were, without any trace of his cold body irritated him. Raphael, deep in his self-pity state of mind, toyed with the thought for a while about how every single member of his family would react to his death, and then he rolled in his hammock to the other side with a loud puff. Two days, two more days. And then he will find the little bitch, even if he has to snoop through the Foot stronghold from its basement to the highest tower, and then the girl will regret that she put him into her dirty game. With that thought he finally fell asleep.
"Behind you!"
Raphael bent down to avoid a hit by the rod, and knocked the attacker down. Then he knocked him out with the blunt end of his sai.
The green ninja laughed. He could feel the wind on his face, the adrenaline pumping through his blood, and the fear of the thieves. If anything positive comes from being grounded, it is the end of it. To be outside then, it is always so intense.
"Watch out, Casey!" he managed to warn his companion. A body of one would-be thief flew through the entire alley where the fight took place, and sprawled next to a fighter in a hockey mask. It was decided: The rest of the Purple Dragons ran away, but Raphael was in a good mood so he did not care. He grinned at Casey and the air rang with the sound of the claps of their hands.
"Good job, buddy. But next time, be careful of what´s going on behind your shell."
"Don´t worry," answered Raph with mock anger, "If I hadn´t stunned that fat ass, he would have turn your face to a pancake." The sounds of their teasing was fading away as their silhouettes left the battlefield, unseen but not completely unnoticed.
It was close to midnight, thus Raphael´s hour of his required return home. He made sure his friend was safe at home, then ran toward his. When he was sure he was out of the sight, he turned to the right.
The abandoned factory was quiet and everything was covered by darkness. The ninja cautiously went to the room located next to the main hall. The abandoned office seemed empty.
Raph was not sure what he had been hoping for. Then he held his breath. There, in the middle of the table, was his sai, stuck in the dusty desk, casting an almost invisible shadow. When he was just about to grab his weapon, he noticed that the sai was not covered with dust. With a lightning-fast move, he threw it behind him.
"Don´t want it?" asked a familiar voice softly behind his shell.
The turtle slowly turned around.
"One´s missing."
The girl in a Foot suit pulled the weapon out of the wall just beside her ear and added it to a second one just tugged from behind her belt.
Raphael laughed predatorily: "Much better," and threw himself after her.
The black-hair girl barely managed to parry and dodge. The ninja turtle did not hesitate to knock her down. Before he could take advantage of the situation, the black figure rolled under the table and on the other end she got up just in time to stop his attack from above. He swung, and she jumped to get back to the other side of the table. Raphael had enough. With a roar of rage he kicked the annoying furniture toward the girl. She was struck down with a loud pant. Before she could recover, one sai, glowing with novelty, was aimed between her eyes.
"I can see now why you needed my help," sneered the rightful owner of the weapon.
Her deep blue eyes narrowed with anger and Raph´s triumphant expression faded. He felt the cold touch of metal on his inner thigh.
The silence was disrupted only by the two breathing deeply. Raph stood up. After a while the girl did too, after she hid her dagger back into the high boot.
Raphael grimaced: "You just can´t play fair, can you."
"We can. But why tire us out?"
Her voice was steady again, but she did not sound nearly as confident as before. Both of them were ninjas. Both of them knew who was better.
Raphael tried without success to call back the anger that consumed him the entire last week.
"Last time you got pretty beaten up," he tried to lighten his spirit up with sarcasm.
His brothers had met a minor foot commando during their patrol in the middle of the last week, rather unexpectedly near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and had scattered them without an effort. Raph did not know more information. Seeing Donnie´s wound–a small one, yet distinct–had made him feel embarrassed, and a silent reproach from Leo, and Mikey´s shouts of a battle of the century, had forced him to quickly hide in his room.
She shrugged. "Just an ordinary exercise." Raph secretly smiled. "I was not involved. And neither you. Still hurting?" she looked at his disappearing scars as she spoke with a sarcastic tone.
"Yeah, my ass, from sitting." he spat and immediately wanted to kick himself.
She laughed: "House arrest? Is that your punishment for irresponsibility?"
"And what about yours–were you beating with a cane?"
Her expression hardened furiously. "Do not speak of things you know nothing about!" She turned on her heel, heading for the exit.
"You have a curfew because of your failed revolt or something?" Raph continued on his little revenge.
She looked genuinely astonished. "Quite the contrary…"
"Jane?" he called after her surprisingly gently, before she could merge with the darkness.
She stopped.
"Yuna." She said, and disappeared.