I went on, continuing my story.
"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 -"
Ooh, Uraraka? You're in the big leagues now, you go girl!
" - 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."
Ooh? You're getting grilled on your love life again tonight, Uraraka.
"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."
Musha stood up. "My agents encountered Gluttony and Envy in a downtown high traffic area."
The photographs of our fight with Gluttony and Envy showed up, and I tried not to act too smug that I totally took them out alone.
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?" Jirou burst out, alongside Yaomomo crying, "Oh, goodness!" and Iida's "Ashido-kun! Are you uninjured?"
"Relax, guys, I'm fine!" I grinned. "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?" Jirou asked.
Gang Orca looked irritated at her. 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 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."
"And then?" Eiji asked.
"Your turn. Tell me about Hasaiikai."
"Okay."
We all cried out, "Destroy's Quirks?!"
"Huh?" said Togata. "You gonna be okay, Tamaki!?"
"Yeah...I'm back to normal after a good night's rest. Here, look at this fabulous cow hoof," said Amajiki, holding up his hand, which was now a cow hoof.
"You ate beef for breakfast?!"
"So he recovered? That's a relief. This stuff must not be fatal."
"No...on that point, I turn to Eraserhead," said Sir Nighteye.
"It seems a bit different than my 'erasure'," said Sensei. "Because I'm not actually attacking a person's quirk itself. What we call quirks are special additions to an ordinary body, or the plus alpha elements. Everything included within the plsu alpha are what we call teh quirk factors. What I do is temporarily stop those quirk factors from activating. I can't actually cause any damage."
Fatgum continued, "We got Tamaki checked out at the hospital right after the attack. They said his quirk factors were damaged. Luckily his body's natural healing was enough to fix the problem."
"Did they analyze what he got shot with?" said Sir Nighteye.
"It didn't do anything else to Tamaki's body!" said Fatgum. "It only attacked his quirk! The gangster in question clammed up, and the gun was destroyed! It looked like all we had was that one empty round! However," he added, "since one bounced right off of Kirishima's body, we got our hands on a vial of the stuff that's still intact!"
"ME?! Seriously!? Didn't expect that!" I gasped. What's going on?
"Way to go, Krishima!" Uraraka cried.
"Very cool, man!" said Tsu.
"Hardening, right? I know about him! Perfect guy for the job!" said Hado.
"Analysis of the substance inside revealed something pretty disgusting," said Fatgum, and the atmosphere in the room changed. "They found human cells and blood."
"Huh!?" Uraraka gasped.
"Sounds kind of unreal," murmured Tsu.
"So the effect it has comes from a person's quirk? A quirk destroying quirk..." said Ryukyu.
"Hmm...I was already kinda lost, but how does any of this connect to Hasahikai?" said one of the other pros.
"Although Kirishima caught the guy who had the illegal substance," said Fatgum, "Figuring out the network for drugs like that is pretty tricky. It's all shrunk down since the old days, but these drugs pass through multiple levels of groups and organization down the supply chain, until they finally arrive at the lowest level. There's no proof that Hasaikai is the supplier in question, but Hasaikai definitely did business with one of those middlemen."
"That's all you've got?"
"The other day, Ryukyu and her people stopped a feud between two villain groups," said Nighteye." The boss of one of those groups is the middleman dealer just mentioned."
"One of those giant villains," said Ryukyu, "Shot himself up with a booster to extend his short activation time."
"Linking all this recent organized crime activity to Hasaikai...maybe you're just seeing what you want to see," said another pro. "I'm still not convinced. Seems like you want Hassaikai to be the root of all evil, so you're painting just the right picture. I'm gonna need something more concrete to go on."
"Their young leader is Chisaki, and his quirk is Overhaul," said Nighteye. "The ability to both dismantle and restore. Dismantle, a quirk that can destroy and then heal. Then we have bullets that destroy quirks."
Midoriya was looking really freaked out.
"Chisaki has a daughter," said Nighteye. "One with no birth record, so the exact details are unclear. When these two," he nodded at Izuku and Mirio, "encountered her, she was covered in an excessive number of bandages."
"No," murmured Ryukyu, "It's too repulsive to imagine."
"That's super-powered society for ya," said the older pro. "Anything you can imagine, there's someone out there who can make it happen."
"What?" I asked, totally confused. "What're we imagining!?"
"Todja we didn't need kids here," said the pro in the mask, "just use your damn head. You're saying he's turning his own daughter's body into bullets and selling them on the black market?"
Oh no. No way...
"It's uncertain whether or not he's selling just yet. Given that the drug's current effects are somewhat underwhelming. But if we imagine that it's simply in the testing phase. If he's simply distributing samples in order to attract followers. We're still lacking proof, but he's bringing in people from across the country. And amassing funds. What if hte final version of these bullets is capable of destroying a person's quirk permanently? One could execute any number of fiendish plans with such a thing."
"Makes my stomach turn just to imagine it!" said Fatgum. "Let's go bust down their doors!"
"So if your kids had just rescued the girl, our problems would've been solved?!" huffed he pro in the eye mask.
"I take full responsibility, so please don't blame them," said Sir. "They don't know the extent of the circumstances, but these two actually did take measures to save her. I'm sure that the ones hurting most out of all of us are these two."
Midoriya and Togata stood up suddenly and pushed their chairs back.
"The next time, for sure! We'll save her!" said Midoriya.
"That is indeed our goal," said Sir.
"Tech! If she's even still alive," said the pro with the visor. "If all your guesses are correct, this leader of theirs probably sees the girl as the core of his plan and someone worth hiding. But there must've been some sort trouble because she got out! Not to mention our junior heroes here got a glimpse of her! If you were him, would you just bring her back to the main hideout? I know I wouldn't! We can charge in, guns blazing, but it's all for nothing if she ain't there. Any way to be sure where he's keeping her?
"He raises some good questions, Nighteye," said Ryukyu.
Sir nodded. "Indeed, that is the issue at hand. Beyond the unclear nature and scope of their plan, should we fail to end this decisively in one strike, they won't give us another chance. Which brings us to the organizations Hassaikai has contacted, as well as Hassaikai's verified properties! Through our investigation, we've compiled an extensive list! I'll be asking for each of you to check out certain groups and locations on your own. We need to narrow the list down!"
"Gotcha. So that's why us minor heroes are here too," said another pro, who I didn't recognize. "Take a look There's a connection between each hero's home territory and the list of locations. We were chosen because of our familiarity with the neighborhoods. "
Fatgum unexpectedly stood up and yelled, "You're mighty cautious for a former sidekick of All Might, doing things all roundabout like this! While we're twiddling our thumbs, little Eri's probably out there crying somewhere!"
"We can't do things the way All Might would," Sir replied. "We must rely on analysis and precaution to raise the odds of saving her as much as possible."
"It's no good getting worked up," said Deku's pro. "If we go big and mess this up, they'll get away. It'll only stoke their fires even higher. Just like how Stain's arrest was actually good PR for the League of Villains. Distributing quirk killing bullets to small-time street punks might even be a reason for that."
"YA'LL ARE OVER-THINKING THIS! ALL TALK AND NO ACTION LEAVES US DEAD IN THE WATER!"
Aizawa sensei raised his hand.
"Um, can I say something? I'm not exactly sure how your ability works, Sir Nighteye, but why not use your foresight to see what sort of fate awaits us? Going forward without that knowledge seems irrational."
"I can't do that." It was final. "My ability has limitations. Once activated, it has a 24-hour codlin period. In other words, I can only view one hour of a single person's life each day. The images appear in my mind panel by panel like a flashback. After using it, it's like I can watch recorded footage of that person's entire life. Think of it that way. But the entirety of the film plays out from a perspective close to the person in question. What I end up seeing is his or her actions and faint glimpses of the surrounding environment."
"That sounds like more than enough. We could still learn plenty. So why can't you do it?"
"Well, for one thing, what if in the near future what awaited that person was death? A cruel and merciless death, even. What then? I've trained my quirk to maximize the success rate of every action I take. I use it to all but ensure victory in battle. It's not meant to recklessly view situations with so many uncertainties."
"Seeing if we're gonna die sounds pretty darn useful! Then we could come up with a plan to stay alive!" said the hero with the visor.
"I'm not a fortuneteller. There's no guarantee that the fate I see can be avoided."
"I don't get it, Nighteye! C'mob, why dont'cha take a look at me? I'll avoid whatever life's got in store for me!"
"I can't!"
Final, once again. And a long silence.
"Why don't we get started?" said Ryukyu. "There's a child in need out there. That's what matters most."
"Confirm the girl's location and take measures to save her," said Sir. "Once we're as sure as we can be, let's bring this matter to a swift resolution. I thank you all for your help."
"Right!" said his sidekick. "I'll be passing out these detailed case files to each of you."