The police detective lifted up her notes and read off "According to information gathered by the Ryukyu hero agency - who could not be present here today, due to being called away on another investigation - the villain group calls itself 'mercenaries of' something. The police department, working on that information gathered by - " she squinted - "Uravity -"

Nice going, Uraraka.

" - Conducted their investigation following that lead into criminal organizations, and determined after a few interrogations that the group calls itself the Mercenaries of Sin. Hence, the gimmick of the seven deadly sins. And they are mercenaries for hire, a private group of thugs renting themselves out to whatever criminal organization shows an interest in their services."

She clicked a remote and a projector screen rolled down from the ceiling; a few photographs appeared as she went on speaking.

"They've been hired at a huge number of crime scenes lately, taking part in various illegal activities. The Ryukyu agency's Lust and Greed were stealing a shipment of quirk enhancing drugs, alongside the homeowner's personal possessions. Not clear if that property theft was a blind, a vendetta, or just petty larceny, but the important point was the drug theft."

Photographs of Uraraka's team fighting Lust and Greed popped up on screen, taken from far away by excited kids with cameras. From what I could see, Lust had long black hair and Greed wore lots of flashy jewelry.

"Uravity's evidence indicates that Lust can steal knowledge of a person by - er - initiating physical contact, such as kissing."

I decided not to ask how she'd found that out. Maybe I'd ask Uraraka herself later.

"Greed appears to have superhuman strength. As said before, they were working with a criminal called Magus."

Death Arms raised his hand. "We sure the people hiring them aren't connected?"

"No sign of it so far. But we are checking every lead."

He looked over at me. "Earphone Jack, you're in the same class as this Uravity, that right?"

"Yes, sir."

"You probably can't talk much about your missions behind the scenes, but has she ever dropped info about this?"

"No, sir."

He shrugged. "Thought I'd check."

"In any case," said the detective, "the next encounter was with the Yoroi Musha agency, who is present."

Misha stood up. "My agents encountered Gluttony and Envy in a downtown high traffic area."

A photograph popped up on screen of an orange villain in tight clothes, whose hands and feet were oozing some kind of goop all over the place - and things were disappearing inside of t, like that old movie The Blob. That film scared the crap out of me as a kid. I shuddered a little and glanced over at Mina, who was looking a little smug, and also a little guilty.

Musha explained, "Gluttony was able to dissolve matter. The two appeared to be acting as nothing more than agents of chaos at the time, in fact. Envy took possession first of my sidekick here - " he pointed to a sidekick with some kind of painter gimmick - "then of my work study student, Pinky."

"Oh man - you ok, Ashido?" I burst out, alongside Yaomomo crying, "Oh, goodness!" and Iida's "Ashido-kun! Are you uninjured?"

"Relax, guys, I'm fine!" said Mina. "She just used me to try and get away, not hurt anyone. And I totally caught her and that Gluttony creep. I would have had them both if Gluttony hadn't destroyed the building!"

Misha nodded. "The villains were pushed by our team to the point of desperation, and showed themselves willing to wantonly damage property to facilitate their escape."

"The key point for the investigation," said the detective, "came from something Pinky here overheard Envy say. Namely, that they had 'only five minutes left'. Hence the desperate exit. We have some bead on their identities. While the first two had fairly common quirks, these two were specific enough that we got a bead on who they might be."

She flipped up two photographs, one of Gluttony in civilian clothing, without the Noh mask - a creepy face even without it, eyes without pupils and barely intelligible features; and Envy too, a face like a pinched up snake, sorta reminding me of that creepy momo meme on the internet.

"Okay Inada, 25. A known criminal, born with a body made of an unusual substance that absorbs matter and disintegrates it. Has been going around committing petty crimes for about ten years. But her abilities are not generally on this scale. She's only been capable in the past of dissolving a surface area the size of trash can lid, not the size of a building. The second, Envy, is named Netami Mochizuki, age 24. A petty thief, generally disliked and suspected by others because her powers - typically - allowed for minor puppeteering. She could control others' movements, for a little while, by body hopping for a moment, but never for the sustained amounts of time she exhibited the other day. This indicates that both of them had their quirks enhanced - and most likely by an illegal drug known as Trigger."

"Trigger?" I couldn't help asking.

Gang Orca looked irritated at me. Hayashi sighed.

"Well, not everyone here is initiated in Trigger anyway, so I may as well explain. It's the name of a quirk-enhancing drug that has been hitting the streets lately. There are two major brands - one made in Japan and China, one made in the United States. The Japanese brand has a short use life, only about twenty minutes. The US brand can last several hours. it's capable of enhancing a person's quirk nearly tenfold. The aftermath is pretty ugly - leaves the user spent, and highly addicted. The Japanese brand is less addictive, but also lasts a shorter amount of time. The US version is difficult to get, and therefore in high demand among the criminal underground here in Japan. These Mercenaries of Sin are likely all using it to carry out these activities. The upside to that is that since the after-effects can leave a person drained, like a bad hangover, for a week or so afterwards, that they can't move very often. That also probably explains why their attacks have been a bit staggered. They want to keep operating, so they send out different agents each week."

She clicked onto a new set of photos - this one only of civilian casualties being wheeled on gurneys, including to my surprise, Iida's team.

"The Manual hero agency had the next encounter of our group."

Manual nodded. "Sloth is capable of slowing a person's movements. She was stealing something from a residential neighborhood, from the sound of it."

Hayashi shook her head. "Nothing was stolen. Our best bet is that Sloth was dealing. There are a few suspects with similar quirks being investigated, but odds are good she was using Trigger. And odds are also good she was dealing it. There were a few people in that building whose testimonies were pretty evasive. Most likely the deal went wrong, a fight broke out, a fire got started, and Sloth chose to stage a scene of attack to cover up the drug smuggling."

Another click, this time onto Yaomomo's team. "Pride is named Hokori Ueda. She causes loss of equilibrium; she used Trigger to create some chaos, possibly to distract Majestic and my team's investigation into a string of murders. It's possible she was hired just for this purpose."

Yaomomo said, "That's mostly speculation."

"It was your speculation. Will you expand on it?"

Yaomomo looked both contemplative, and a little nervous. "Our suspect was Miru Uchigawa, of the Uchigawa family. I don't know her that well, but I do know of her. She's a very brilliant woman - one of the few people I know of more brilliant than-"

She stopped. We waited. At last she admitted, "More brilliant than I am. If she was in fact responsible for the deaths, from what I know of her this is exactly what she would do. Hire someone to throw us off the scent. It's like her, and the timing fits." She shrugged. "But there is no evidence."

"We are of course still investigating Uchigawa," said the detective. "Pride is part of these mercenaries, of course; she's been spotted at other crime scenes. She's a tricky customer - obnoxious, as you found, likes to make her victims feel horrible about themselves." She clicked onto photographs of our crime scene.

"Finally, the Gang Orca agency encountered a member of the group - specifically, Wrath." Silence. "She had a quirk similar to the pro hero you see here today, Tigress."

We all turned to stare at Tigress. Iida looked particularly shocked. She shrugged. "Similar quirks pop up all the time."

"We've established that's a possibility, or we wouldn't have included you in this meeting," said Hayashi. "Is there anyone who might have a vendetta against you and be willing to throw suspicion on you, through creating a similar attack and fighting style?"

Tigress shrugged. "Plenty of thugs I've put away in my day. No clue which one might have a beef. That's your job."

Hayashi looked annoyed. "In any case, Wrath can paralyze with a scream, and was working with an agent of an organization known only as NIGHTMARE. We have very little data on them, only that naming them seems to frighten even some of the most hardened criminals. IF they're involved, then this group is truly playing with dangerous weapons."

She sighed. "Our best bet as to what we should be looking out for next comes from our lead involving Pride. If Crearti's theory is correct, and there is a connection between the Mercenaries of sin and these murders, then it's possible they've got bigger plans."

"Such as?" asked Midnight.

"Most likely - since the murders involved dissecting of bodies to investigate -"

"Officer!" objected Musha. "Children are present."

"They are training to be pro-heroes," said Majestic. "They'll have to face this stuff e eventually."

Officer Hayashi clicked onto a few photographs of murder victims. Even though I knew I'd have to see this stuff one day, I didn't enjoy it. They'd been taken apart. It was even worse than Midoriya's quirk.

"The killer ripped apart these bodies to investigate the source of their water-based quirks. There were experiments done in order to add something to the gland. Pride was only able to escape Creaty and Lizardy thanks to water appearing from below ground and pulling her away. Most likely the killer was investigating the source of water-based quirks. Combine this with the use and smuggling of trigger, and our best bet is that this group is working for an organization interested in producing the ultimate in quirk-enhanced soldiers. Water-based quirks are, if taken to their ultimate extreme, the most deadly. Obviously, the control of the oceans and sewer water is dangerous. But if worst comes to worst, water control could mean puppeteering the water inside every human's blood." She sighed.

"And there is one more layer to this." She flicked up a photograph of the fight between All Might and All for One in Camino. "The villain organization known as the League of Villains was headed up by a criminal who could somehow grant quirks to other people - and did so in the creation of the Noomu. We know now that it's possible to artificially distribute quirks. If these villains can duplicate a Trigger-enhanced Water Quirk and find a way to distribute it to people, they'll have an army of soldiers that will be damn near impossible to beat. We can't be sure if that's their ultimate goal, but it seems likely they have something like that in mind. We're still investigating, but if that's the endgame, this is a very serious danger. We need to stop this plan in its tracks. And if we're going to start with anything, we'll need to start with the agents. We know these Mercenaries of Sin can be beaten. Many of you have s successfully done so. We're going to track them down as best we can and with our info, take them out as speedily as possible. One by one if necessary. That'll be a start. Hopefully once they're in custody they'll talk."

She closed up the presentation. "Your groups will be on call. When we find out more, we'll give you invitations to join in this hunt. Captured and taken down - and then we'll find out just how right our speculations are."