These were actually written concurrently with the chapters in question, although I'll admit that they're pretty rough.

Virtual cookie to whoever correctly guesses who the two characters in this chapter are based on. I ended up going back on it later, though

Canon: Full.
Context: Concurrent with Chapter 4-1
Perspective: Third-person.

Emergence: Aside
The Briefing

The White House

A CIA man and a naval officer walk into the White House sounded like the beginning of a bad joke. The naval officer remarked this to his counterpart, who reminded him that what they were about to tell the President sounded like a worse joke.

"Sit down, gentlemen," the President said cordially. "What do you have for me today?"

"Are you familiar with The Bride, sir?" the CIA man began.

"The one in Syria?"

"Yes, sir."

The President nodded. "I am. Have you figured out who made the video?"

The two intelligence officers shared a look. "It is our belief that the video was not faked, sir."

His voice was grim. "Explain."

"We have drone imagery of the event," The man from the CIA opened a folder and placed several greyscale pictures on the President's desk. He pointed out several features. "This is infrared imagery. The brighter thermal bloom we believe is The Bride."

He pushed that picture aside and arranged several more. These all showed, in greyscale detail, blood splatters from the men as they were hit by the woman in yellow (or, in this case, light grey). "Sir, these frames match up exactly to the ones in the video. She is the only one in the area. It is not staged, and it could not have been anyone else."

"So who is she?"

"The NSA ran voiceprint recognition," the CIA man explained, deliberately using the common term rather than the technical one. "They've matched her voice with a 90% probability to that of a US national. We know that she's still within the continental United States. It cannot be her."

"So your voiceprint doesn't work?" the President asked.

"The NSA's, sir, and not exactly," he replied, letting a little institutional rivalry leak through. He collected the drone pictures and put another three on the table.

"I think your manga collection got mixed up with your intel report," the President said lightly, holding up one of the pictures.

The CIA man shook his head. "No, sir. That is Yang Xiao Long, the most probable identity of The Bride. And a fictional character voiced by the American in question."

"You're joking."

"We've actually been tracking her teammates- from the show, that is-, or people we thought were her teammates," he explained quickly. "Over the past month and a half, we have observed all three of them at various locations around the world."

"Her actual teammates?" the President asked. "Not just people dressed up in costumes?"

"We've spotted some of them who did not appear to have any other identities, and the NSA intercepted some very strange communications. We even think the Russians tried to grab one of them, but failed. Unfortunately we haven't been able to confirm any of it as authentic until now."

"Are you telling me there's an anime character running around in Raqqa beating up ISIS? And that the rest of her team has been escaping into our reality over the past two months? Gentlemen, I don't mean to doubt your competence, but I fell as if this is some kind of joke that is going over my head."

"Mister President, in a situation like this it is critical that we focus on what we do know, not what we don't," the naval officer said, speaking up for the first time. "We know that there is a woman who killed seven ISIS fighters at close range. We strongly suspect she is still there and still fighting. We strongly suspect that she is superhuman. We believe she is a fictional character that has somehow ended up in our world. We believe that she is not the only one."

"Okay. So we know there's someone superhuman running around in Raqqa." The President leaned back. "Gentlemen, I have heard some crazy things in this office, but I think this tops the charts."

The CIA man and the naval officer shared a look. The naval officer said, "Sir, I request authorization to retrieve this individual and bring her back to the United States."

"So far, we have avoided direct involvement in that conflict," the President stated. "What you are asking for constitutes direct involvement."

He stood up and paced the room. "It would be a questionable act. For all we haven't done in Syria, there's one white American girl and suddenly we invest everything to rescue her."

"No sir, it's one unexplained superhuman-"

"If your intelligence is accurate. I don't see how it can be."

"We know what has happened, we don't know how or why. Retrieving the girl could give us those answers."

"This would not be the first time we've done this, sir," the naval officer pointed out.

"James Foley died anyway, and the situation was much more favourable for us at the time."

The CIA man tried another approach. "Sir, if our information is accurate, this is a seventeen-year-old girl, far away from home in one of the worst places in the world. She's lost, she's scared, she's alone.

The President cut him off. "I have to put America, and the people of America first. With that said, you have a go. But I never authorized it."

"Yes, sir. Thank you."