The harsh light of a single fluorescent bulb glared down relentlessly upon the face of a young, white-haired girl while she sat cuffed and shackled before a large metal table. Struggling against her restraints, she'd tired herself out long ago and was now slumped forward in defeat. The room was just a bit too cold for her liking. Goosebumps broke out across her skin every so often as the vent overhead roared to life and flooded the room with an ungodly chill.

Tadashi warned her that this would happen. They had arrested her, separated her from her friends, and now they were currently trying to wait out her resolve by making her as uncomfortable as possible and hoping she might be more willing to cooperate when they came back. She wouldn't be, but she couldn't blame them for trying.

The room was eerily silent. The only sound that could be heard was the steady growl of the vent unit overhead and her own breathing. She waited for what felt like hours in the room until the door on the far side of the room swung open to let in two detectives. The two men strode in with clean-cut appearances and freshly pressed suits, moving to grab hold of the empty chairs in front of her with perfect unison, an act the girl refused to believe hadn't been choreographed beforehand.

One of them was tall, a bit more narrow in the shoulders with high cheekbones and a neatly cut buzz, but he had a stern brow and a dour look about him. The other one stood about average height with slicked back hair and a perfectly square jaw. He was clutching some kind of folder in his hands, but he set it down on top of the table as he took his seat.

"Sorry about the wait," said the first detective as he settled neatly into his chair. "We would have liked to speak with you much sooner, but we had to make sure you were ready to play nice first. Are you comfortable? Can we get you anything?"

The girl smirked. After being brought to this station she'd managed to headbutt one of the officers who tried to bring her in and bit another on the way to the interrogation room. She wasn't expecting them to respond by restraining her like this, but in her defense, she did not appreciate the rough way they tried to move her along. "Oh, don't you worry about me. I'm just peachy," came her dry response.

While the square-jawed detective seemed to curl his lip at her snarky remark, his colleague didn't seem to react. Instead, he took possession of the file, flipping it open and thumbing through a few papers that sat on top. "Risa Tanaka," he began, skimming through the pages as if only for the first time. "You're a very slippery girl, you know. Detective Miller and I have been tracking you and your friends for the better part of two years now, and this is only the first time we're meeting you face to face."

"Well I'm sure you tried your best," she responded, far too patronizing for someone in her position. The truth? She had no idea that she was ever on their radar. She shifted in her seat, suppressing a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. What else did they know?

Again, the first detective seemed to take her responses in stride, but the other was far less amused. He pinched the bridge of his nose, releasing a drawn out sigh before placing his hand on the table and looking her straight in the eye. "Look, Tanaka. We're not here to waste your time. Your little buddies have already rolled over and they're pinning everything on you, so unless you want to go away for a long time I suggest you drop the tough girl act and just tell us what you know."

"If you already know so much then what am I doing here?" Defiant, Risa tried to cross her arms, but the handcuffs wouldn't allow it.

"We're trying to give you the same opportunity to tell us your side," the calmer one interjected. "If we focused solely on their testimonies and the evidence alone, it wouldn't look very good for you."

"Exactly- so now's your chance to fess up. Simple as that."

Reflexively, Risa snarked. Her friends would never have folded on her so easily. Tadashi mentioned that they might try this tactic as well, splitting up the team and pitting them against each other for information. Though they put on a decent'Good Cop Bad Cop' routine, Risa wasn't buying it. It seemed more to her like they were pressing her for a confession, which probably meant that they had nothing concrete on her or the others aside from reckless use of a quirk on city streets. Had they even talked to her friends yet? Tadashi would have had enough wits to keep them carefully at bay, but Benjiro… he had a tendency to be a bit overeager at times. She worried that he might accidentally spill something crucial.

Square Jaw mistook her silence for compliance. "Good. Now, what can you tell us about these photos?" He reached over to fish a couple of printed pictures out of the file, spreading them out in front of her to inspect-

She blanched at the sight of them. This was definitely concrete.

Laid out in front of her were several different pictures of the various support items that Tadashi had designed and given to the team over the last couple of years. All of his finished products as well as his prototypes and schematics had been photographed meticulously and were now staring her straight in the face. They must have searched his home. Would they go to hers next? Her hands balled into fists on the table. "Doesn't look familiar." She challenged the detective with a sharp look.

Bad Cop jumped up from his seat, slamming both palms down on the table. "Listen kid, we're throwing you a lifeline here, but if you want to keep being a snarky little prick we can save ourselves the trouble and just lock your ass up."

"What's stopping you?" she barked back.

He refused to give her the satisfaction of a response, instead raising his voice to a shout as he continued to bark more questions at her. "Where did you get these support items?" He demanded, leaning in closer.

Risa, who was incapable of reacting to any challenge with maturity, leaned in as well, narrowing her eyes at the man in front of her. "I got them from your mom."

"You damn brat-" He lunged across the table at Risa, but was stopped short by Good Cop, who captured his colleague by the collar and admonished him with a glare. Upon realizing what he'd done, he recomposed himself and stood up straighter, dusting off his jacket. Risa, on the other hand, wore an absolute shit-eating grin. She couldn't wait to see the look on Tadashi's face when she told him that she'd managed to break one of the detectives. The first detective looked like he was ready to admonish her as well, but the door to the interrogation room swung open once more before he had the chance.

Standing in the threshold was yet another man clad in a freshly pressed suit, albeit this one looked a lot older than the first two, with strands of white in his mustache and a pair of small, square-framed glasses. "Good evening, gentlemen. Sorry to intrude like this, but if you wouldn't mind I would like to have the room for a moment."

Shock had come over them both, but the only one who looked displeased at that was Bad Cop. He glared at her on the way out, muttering something under his breath that Risa couldn't quite pick up.

"Aw, and here I thought we were bonding." She waved tauntingly to the two retreating detectives, her cuffs rattling together from behind her back.

This new guy, surprisingly, didn't acknowledge her sarcasm at all. Instead he strode over to her, leaning his hip against the side of the table while crossing his arms and fixing her with the kind of look that a disappointed father gives to his disobedient child. "Tell me, Miss Tanaka, how does a seventeen year old girl with a clean record like yours get wrapped up in Japan's biggest crime syndicate? You should be learning how to drive, going to the mall with your friends, chasing after boys-"

Risa scoffed, reclining in her seat. "Please. The boys in my life now are enough of a headache."

The man's brow pinched toward the middle of his face, as if that were the wrong answer. "Yes, Tadashi Miruno and Benjiro Hashimoto. You three have quite the strong bond, it seems… Your file says you've been friends since elementary school. Since you're all so close, it shouldn't come as a shock to you that your good friend Tadashi has been making these illegal support items for quite some time now."

In response, Risa gave him the least convincing gasp of her life. "No, Tadashi would never!"

His complete and utter lack of response was beginning to make Risa feel foolish for her outbursts. "Selling and distributing black market support items is a serious crime, you know. But funny enough, the items we confiscated from Mr. Miruno seemed to complement yours and Hashimoto's quirks quite nicely. And since we found no money between the three of you, that makes me wonder if he had more… practical applications in mind, when he gave them to you. That would be a whole new can of worms in itself."

The instinct to defend Tadashi flickered in her like a small flame, but Risa forced the volatile emotion away before she could respond. The detective definitely noticed her bristling, because he leaned in closer, his interest now piqued. "I've got to hand it to that young man, however. His schematics really are brilliant. For a teen with with his background and no formal training, this kind of work is almost at a prodigal level. Did he have any help?"

No response.

"So he did it all himself. Fascinating." The detective pushed off of the table, retrieving the forgotten folder for a moment to flip through some of the other documents inside. "And Mr. Hashimoto. He's got quite a remarkable quirk, wouldn't you agree? Being able to transform into any animal he desires on a whim?"

Risa's lip twitched. He'd intentionally misrepresented Benjiro's quirk to see if she'd correct him in detail. In reality, Benjiro could only transform into mammals, and that was only for a limited amount of time before his quirk's backlash began to set in. Noticing her restraint, a thin smile graced his lips.

"All assumptions aside, I cannot deny that the boy is quite beastly. We've taken plenty of small time thugs into custody from all over the city who have had run-ins with Mr. Hashimoto just prior to our arrival. They all sustained serious beatings before we found them, often with the DNA of different species of animals not native to this area somehow left behind on their persons… Some might call that a coincidence. To me, it sounds more like gratuitous assault with a deadly quirk."

Risa watched him carefully. DNA evidence was pretty concrete, too. Maybe they were in more trouble than she thought.

"And then there's you, Miss Tanaka. I'll admit, I've never seen anyone use a quirk like yours quite the way you do, but I'm very interested nonetheless. Out of the three of you, your work seems to be the least refined. But just like your friends, you are not without your potential."

He thought Risa was 'less refined' than Benjiro? She almost snickered. They must not be watching very closely. She was about to respond to his statement, but his words had set in only a moment later. "Wait- my potential?"

The man nodded sagely. "Do you know why you're here, Miss Tanaka?"

She threw him a completely deadpan look. "Because the lounge was full?"

"No. You're here because the hero commission believes in second chances. We have been focusing on villain rehabilitation now more than ever before, and we want to give offenders like yourselves with unrealized potential an opportunity to turn your lives around."

"I am not a villain-"

He waved off her denial with a dismissive hand. "We can argue semantics all night, but the fact is, now that we have you in custody, the commission seems to be quite impressed with your work, as well as that of your friends… They sent me here to extend an offer to you."

She raised a brow. "And what does that mean?"

"It means that today is your lucky day. We're going to turn you kids into heroes."