The Reckoning Files

The notebook was already open when I found it.

Not on the desk where I'd left it. Not tucked in the drawer with the other evidence bags. It sat in the middle of the interrogation table, spine cracked, pages yellowed at the edges like it had been sitting in the sun for years. I hadn't touched it. I hadn't even opened the evidence locker since Tuesday.

But there it was. And the handwriting on the first page wasn't mine.

I pulled out my phone and called Nedzu. He picked up on the first ring, like he'd been waiting.

"You found it," he said.

"I didn't find anything. It found me."

A pause. I could hear the click of his claws on a keyboard, that rhythmic tapping that meant he was already three steps ahead of whatever I was about to say. "Interesting. Bring it to U.A. tonight. All Might's expecting us for dinner anyway."

"Principal, this isn't a dinner conversation."

"Everything is a dinner conversation, Tsukauchi. You just haven't had the right dinner."

He hung up before I could argue. That was Nedzu. Always ending conversations when he'd already won.

---

The notebook sat on my passenger seat the whole drive to Musutafu. I kept glancing at it, half-expecting it to burst into flames or start talking. It didn't. It just sat there, ordinary and wrong.

The handwriting was neat. Precise. The kind you'd see on a doctor's chart, or a villain's manifesto. The first page had a single sentence: *This is the story of how I destroyed hero society.*

I hadn't read past that. I was afraid to.

---

All Might's townhouse was smaller than I expected. I'd been to his agency, the towering glass monument in Tokyo with its marble floors and the elevator that played his theme song. This was just a house. Two stories, beige siding, a mailbox shaped like a tiny American flag. The kind of place you'd drive past without noticing.

He answered the door before I could knock. "Tsukauchi! You're early."

"Traffic was light."

He stepped aside to let me in, and I caught it immediately. The smell of something burning. Not food. Something electrical, like a fuse about to blow.

"You're cooking?" I asked.

"I'm trying." He led me toward the kitchen, where David Shield stood over the stove, poking at a pan with a spatula while Melissa watched from the counter, her face caught somewhere between horror and laughter.

"Uncle Might, I think the rice is supposed to be white, not black," she said.

"It's a new recipe."

"It's charcoal."

All Might sighed, that big theatrical sigh he did when he wanted you to know he was suffering, and I felt something loosen in my chest. This was normal. This was just dinner with friends. The notebook could wait.

Except it couldn't. Not really. Not with what I'd seen on that first page.

---

Sir Nighteye arrived ten minutes later. He brought wine and a look that could cut glass. He and All Might had barely spoken since he'd left the agency, and the air between them now was thick enough to chew.

"Toshinori," he said, stiff as a board.

"Mirai." All Might's smile was too wide. "You didn't have to bring anything."

"I did, actually. It's polite."

The silence stretched. Melissa stepped in like a referee at a boxing match, all bright smiles and outstretched hand. "Sir Nighteye! I've read all your case files. The work you did on the Scarlet Syndicate case was incredible."

Nighteye blinked, thrown off. "You... read my case files?"

"I'm a support engineer. I study hero tactics. Your predictive combat models are the reason I started designing adaptive armor."

Something shifted in his face. Not a smile, exactly. But close. "That's... unexpectedly flattering."

David Shield stepped forward, wiping his hands on a towel. "Sir Nighteye, I've wanted to meet you for years. Toshi talks about you constantly."

"Does he?"

"Usually while complaining that you left his agency. But affectionately."

Nighteye's mouth twitched. "That sounds like him."

I drifted toward the corner, where Nedzu had materialized on the arm of a sofa, sipping tea from a cup that was almost as big as his head. "You brought it," he said.

I pulled the notebook from my jacket. "It's in my car."

"Good. We'll discuss it after dinner."

"Principal, the first page says—"

"I know what it says." His black eyes didn't blink. "I read it three days ago."

I stared at him. "How?"

"I have my ways." He took another sip of tea. "The question isn't how I read it. The question is who wrote it."

"You don't know?"

"Oh, I have a theory." He glanced toward All Might, who was laughing at something Melissa had said, his head thrown back, his whole body bright with joy. "But I'd rather confirm it before I say anything. Some theories are dangerous when spoken aloud."

---

Dinner was a disaster.

The rice was inedible. The chicken was raw in the middle. All Might had somehow managed to burn the salad, which I hadn't known was possible. But everyone ate it anyway, laughing and passing dishes and telling stories that didn't matter.

Melissa talked about her latest project, a set of gauntlets that could absorb kinetic energy and redistribute it as a shockwave. David talked about the classified work he couldn't talk about, which somehow took up fifteen minutes. Nighteye and All Might slowly thawed, their conversation moving from clipped formality to something almost warm.

And I sat there with a notebook in my car that promised the end of everything.

After dinner, Nedzu clapped his paws together. "All Might, I believe Tsukauchi has something to show us."

All Might's smile faltered. "What's this about?"

I stood. "I need everyone to see this. Including you, Sir Nighteye."

I went out to my car and brought the notebook inside. When I set it on the coffee table, everyone went quiet.

"What is that?" Melissa asked.

"I don't know. But it appeared in my interrogation room three days ago, and I think it's a message."

"A message from who?" All Might asked.

I opened to the first page. *This is the story of how I destroyed hero society.*

The room went cold.

And then the notebook flipped itself to the second page.

We all saw it. The pages turned on their own, slow and deliberate, like a hand was guiding them. And on the second page, in that same neat handwriting, a new sentence appeared.

*Chapter One: The Day All Might Died.*

All Might's face went pale. Melissa grabbed his arm. Nighteye's eyes widened, his quirk activating on instinct, seeing something the rest of us couldn't.

"What do you see?" I asked him.

He didn't answer. He just stared at the notebook, his face a mask of something I'd never seen on him before.

Fear.

"Nighteye," All Might said, his voice steady but wrong. "What do you see?"

Nighteye looked up. His eyes met mine, then Nedzu's, then All Might's. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.

"I see the future. And it's already started."