[61: The first story is rarely the true one. But it is always the loudest.]
"...Now, we need to move on to the topic of Eleanor. As we all know, she won't be…returning here any longer. She has gone down the path of a vigilante. If there's any good to come of this, at least she hasn't gone down the path of a villain. But she's still a criminal. To make matters more complicated, she's an exchange student. If we capture her, America will ask for her to be extradited, and since Japan has a bilateral extradition treaty with the United States, it'll most likely be granted. What happens after she goes back to America will be out of our hands and in the hands of the American court system. Of course, this assumes we can capture her in the first place."
Nezu held a meeting with the teachers of UA. It was an emergency meeting, and the main topic was Eleanor. By now, news of what she had done had reached them, but it hadn't gone to the news media yet. Sir Nighteye pressured his agency not to tell the news that Eleanor was the one who single-handedly took down Shie Hassaikai. Nezu and UA also came to the same agreement not to tell the news and keep it within. This was something too volatile to tell the news. And the impact it would have outside of Japan was also hard to predict.
For the moment, they'd dodge questions from the press.
"One question. Since Eleanor is an American citizen, what do we do if she takes refuge in the American embassy?" Aizawa, who was one of the people in the meeting, asked.
"Under international law, we can't enter the embassy forcefully. If that does occur, the only choice is for diplomatic negotiations and talks to happen between Japan and the United States. It'd be a very messy situation with a lot of risks and tensions involved," Nezu answered before he continued. "As it stands, we have no idea of her whereabouts."
"We need to start with what we know. We can start with her profile here at UA. It'll have her basic information and details about her quirk," Midnight said.
"There's just one problem with that." Nezu opened a laptop and accessed the student database with his credentials as the principal of UA. "I already thought of that, but unfortunately…" Nezu's voice trailed off as he turned the laptop around for everyone to see. Eleanor's profile was completely blacked out like it was a top-secret file. Black bars were all over the file, and her portrait was a grey, faceless, undetailed silhouette with a question mark over it. (A/N: This is some Call of Duty: Black Ops type stuff.)
"It would appear that Eleanor is quite a few steps ahead of us already. And when trying to search for any other relevant information about her in our database, this happens." Nezu typed on the laptop, searching for something related to Eleanor. When the query was made, the laptop screen glitched out and forced the program to close, going back to the home screen and requiring another login to be made.
"We can't even use our own data. I've already talked with those in our IT department, and they don't know what's happening. We've tried patching, updating, and even returning to a previous state in our servers, but it's still the same. This doesn't happen with other students, but if something relevant to Eleanor appears in the query about another student, it gets blacked out automatically. Whatever malware she has on our system is a powerful one and has been in it for a very long time," Nezu explained.
"Where did she even learn all this stuff? I knew she was knowledgeable in many areas, but she's just a student in UA. It's like she has real-life experience," Tsukauchi, a detective of the police force, said.
"That may be an intriguing question, but it's not the right one at the moment. We need to know where Eleanor—" Nezu, and the entire meeting was suddenly interrupted when they all received an alert and notification on their phones and other devices.
"Let's see what it is." Nezu typed into the laptop and saw what it was.
It was a news alert from seemingly all the news agencies in Japan.
One of the headlines read, "Breaking: Anonymous Leak Claims Secret Hero Operations Exist."
Nezu got a TV remote and turned on a TV in the room. A news anchor appeared in the middle of explaining it. "An anonymous source has sent what appears to be confidential government documents to several media organizations. While experts say the formatting appears authentic, no independent verification has yet confirmed the claims."
'Careful wording,' Nezu thought as he watched the news coverage. Nezu switched to another network, a rival network to one of the other ones.
The host was in the middle of a large rant. "We may be on the verge of a massive government scandal!"
'Exaggerating. For now,' Nezu thought. Nezu changed the channel again. It was a talk show.
"We don't know everything about these documents. Most of it is blacked out so far, and the only thing we know for sure is that 'powerful people' are in charge of 'secret operations.' Whatever the case is, this has the potential to change everything," One of the hosts said.
"Or maybe it's someone with good photo editing skills. This could just be a giant hoax and conspiracy! We'll be back after the commercial break." The other host countered.
The talk show quickly degraded into a loud argument. The kind of thing that would attract attention. And ratings.
'They're already shifting the conversation away from the documents,' Nezu thought.
Nezu changed the channels, and all the news agencies were talking about the same thing. The leaked government documents about "powerful people" in charge of "secret operations." The files were too redacted to confirm anything, but they all wanted to be first, even if they didn't know anything.
'I've got a bad feeling about this,' Nezu thought. He already has some suspects in mind.
"This can't be a coincidence," Tsaukachi said. "First is Eleanor becoming a vigilante, and then the UA database being hacked, and now leaked government documents? All this in less than a week? You think Eleanor has something to do with this?"
"We don't have any hard evidence that 100% proves it was Eleanor for the hacking or leaked documents. As for evidence of what happened to the Shie Hassaikai compound, it's mostly circumstantial and speculative. Any hard evidence would've been destroyed in the explosion," Nezu said.
"That's true. We tried getting footage from nearby cameras, but they were all disabled, and what we did get was corrupted." Tsukauchi rubbed his head, stressed. Such a clear suspect, but most likely not enough evidence. They all knew it was her, but having to prove it in a court of law was another thing. And that was assuming she'd even be tried in a Japanese court.
"Things are only going to get harder from here on out," Nezu said.
/\\//\\//\
(Nighttime)
'Come on, where are you? I left a good enough trail so that it was not obvious and not too hard. The Hero Public Safety Commission should at least be this competent with its cybersecurity,' Eleanor thought to herself.
"She" was on top of a building, walking around a bit. A cloaked drone was in the sky, using black-and-white thermal camera surveillance. Through her visor, she saw the live feed. She was waiting for someone to arrive. She purposely left a trackable presence that would let the HPSC trace the leak to her. Well, to her current location.
The drone was focusing on an area within three kilometers of Eleanor, give or take a few meters.
'I know you're out there. You're not in Tartarus prison like you're supposed to be. You're still working for the HPSC and doing this kind of stuff,' Eleanor thought to herself.
Just then, a small ping on her visor alerted her. The drone focused on a figure moving suspiciously on the roof of a building within the three-kilometer range. 'Three kilometers. About 7–10 seconds. But I'll just assume five for a worst-case scenario,' Eleanor thought.
[Identity confirmed.] Theodore's voice alerted Eleanor.
'Let's move.'
/\\//\\//\
The target was about three kilometers, or about 3281 yards, out. At this distance, the Coriolis effect becomes a major factor. Because of the rotation of the Earth, the target shifts its position relative to the shooter while the bullet is in flight. And at a range like this, the bullet would deviate by at least 13 centimeters, or about 5 inches, depending on the direction of fire, but it would most definitely be greater than this, though.
The flight time of a bullet, the direction of fire or azimuth, the latitude, and the hemisphere all have an effect on where the bullet would land. A longer flight time means the Earth has more time to move beneath the bullet. The direction of fire causes the target to either have a lower or higher impact and left or rightward drift, depending on the hemisphere. Firing East causes the target to rise, giving a higher impact. Firing West causes the target to drop, creating a lower impact. Firing North causes a rightward drift in the Northern Hemisphere and a leftward drift in the Southern Hemisphere. The rotational speed of the Earth is highest at the equator and decreases to zero at the poles. This means latitudinal deviation is highest at the poles and zero at the Equator.
Being a sniper takes a smart mind and a lot of math.
And fortunately for her, she had those. How else would she be able to land shots from three kilometers out?
She took a deep breath. She exhaled about half of her breath, held it for a few seconds, and then took the shot.
A few seconds passed. Just when she thought the bullet would hit the target, it suddenly passed through them, as if there was nothing there. The bullet left an impact on the concrete instead.
Her eyes widened in surprise. She returned her arm to normal and quickly tried to get up, but before she could, she suddenly felt someone force her arms behind her and slam her back onto the roof of the building she was on. Her arms were held tightly; if she moved them in the wrong way, they would get broken. Her face could see ahead of her, the light of the city at night.
She also felt the barrel of a gun being put at the back of her head. One wrong move and she was dead.
"You really ought to go home, Lady Nagant."
/\\//\\//\
(A/N: OMG! [insert cheering gif here] The love interest is here! What's more romantic than putting a gun to someone's head after they try to assassinate you? This is how a romance starts, right?)