Fanfic / Another Form Of Power

Another Form Of Power by Jade Tatsu is a My Hero Academia fanfic. It’s partially inspired by Sanctuary, where one criminal and one politician combine forces to manipulate the system. Tomura is the criminal who tears down Hero Society, while Izuku is the politician who capitalizes on his actions to get changes through Parliament to legally enforce a change in society. It’s a set up by All For One, who has realized that just conquering society is easy, maintaining control is the real key.

Summary: After Izuku is rejected by All Might, All For One makes an alternative offer, promising Izuku that he can save far more people if he follows his path. Izuku accepts and becomes the face of the legitimate side of All For One’s empire. That is, he takes over the businesses. He then enters parliament and as Tomura is tearing down society, Izuku is using the conflict and the revelation about the corruption of heroes to pass new rules that society would like, but ultimately lead to the destruction of heroes in society. After this is done, Izuku takes control of the League and ties up the loose ends from both the hero and villain side of society.

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Tropes:

• Action Politician: While Izuku does have bodyguards, there are several times when he’s not afraid to take physical action himself.
  • Izuku has a physical confrontation with Katsuki Bakugou when the new requirements for qualifying for the heroics course come into effect, and Katsuki confronts him about it.
  • Izuku takes out several enemies during the course of the fic, notably Overhaul, after Tomura’s destruction of the Shie Hissaikai, when Overhaul confronts him, having realised, he is the guy behind the scenes, controlling everything. Izuku also personally takes out All Might when the man is endorsing Mirio Togata, during his run for parliament.
  • The final confrontation is between Izuku and Katsuki with them settling their differences with a hand-to-hand, quirk-to-quirk fight.
• Affably Evil/Faux Affably Evil: Zig-zagged; Depending on the situation or to whom he is speaking to, Izuku can sound like a genuinely pleasant person to be around or someone who wears a mask of politeness that hides his cold, calculating mind.
• Artistic License – Politics: There’s no difficulty in getting Izuku elected to the House of Representatives.
  • There is also never any difficulty in getting legislation passed as it is popular with the people.
• The Bad Guy Wins: By the end of chapter 16 (chapter 12 if you don’t count the prologue and interludes), Izuku’s new identity has won, with the passing of legislation requiring heroes to be integrated into existing structures like the Police, Military and Emergency Services.
  • By the end of Chapter 31, Izuku has gotten personal vengeance and removed the weaker links between him and the League, meaning his position is secure.
• Beyond Redemption: Izuku has absolutely no interest in being redeemed. As he tells All Might when the League confronts him, Izuku tells All Might that with the path he’s chosen, he’s saved far more people than All Might ever has.
  Izuku: I have saved more people than you ever have. Every single want to be hero, who the Assessment's picked up. How many of them did I save from a premature death when they got into something they weren't prepared to handle? How many Endeavor's have I prevented by banning those who are only in it for personal gain? How many deaths have I prevented when a hero engaged a so-called villain without consideration for the surrounding people? How many now benefit because the police have the quirk training they need to be effective, rather than having quirk restrictions applied because only heroes can use their quirks? How many have been saved from disasters by the rescue forces who are now free to act as best as they can?
• Bittersweet Ending: At the conclusion, after defeating his enemies Izuku doesn’t know what to do.
• Brains and Brawn: Izuku acts as the brains for the League of Villains, while Tomura, and the League itself are the brawn he uses to achieve his goal of bettering society.
  • Later in Another Form Of Power Izuku is the brains, while the Nomu form the brawn.
• Break the Haughty: With the changes Izuku makes to society, Katsuki learns that he’s not above the rules, and Izuku takes comfort in letting him know that.
  • As part of the legislation Izuku gets passed, Hero students are required to take mandatory psychological assessments to determine that they want to be a hero for the right reasons. Katsuki fails.
  • As part of the legislation Izuku gets passed, Hero students can retest their psychological assessment to show that they’ve thought about things and are trying to be better. There is a limit to the number of retests available. Katsuki runs out of retests, failing permanently.
  • Katsuki confronts Izuku’s politician persona, demanding that he get the laws revoked. Izuku uses his public quirk to overpower Katsuki’s and whispers to Katsuki that if he wants to be a hero that badly, he should take a swan dive off a roof to be reborn with a better attitude.
  • An older Katsuki, knowing the truth about who Izuku’s politician identity really is can’t convince others of this, and also goes to fight Izuku. Izuku uses his public quirk, which is on paper very weak, to gain victory.
• Condescending Compassion: While All Might is a good hero, he believes that people with no quirks or impractical quirks should leave the dangerous heroing to people who won the Superpower Lottery. Which sounds practical on paper...if All Might hadn't completely forgotten the institutional discrimination and social ostracization people with no quirks or impractical quirks face.
• Corrupt Bureaucrat: All For One gave Izuku two quirks. One as his public quirk and one that allows him to convince people that he is right. He uses his second quirk to ensure that the government in power thinks his ideas are good and vote them into legislation.
• Corrupt Politician: Izuku uses the second quirk given to him by All For One, to ensure that other politicians agree with him and vote for the changes in legislation he wants.
• Criminal Procedural: When one of Izuku’s henchmen from the League of Villains is captured, Izuku sends a defence attorney to get them off all charges.
• Easily Swayed Population: The population has an Irrational Hatred towards the quirkless, but just by pointing it out, Izuku gets people to vote for him as he promises to make it better.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: While Izuku willingly accepted All For One’s offer, he never stops loving his mother, and after All For One’s death, he meets her again in person and takes a personal interest in her missing son, Izuku Midoriya, having the case reopened, and offering her hope that her son doing something great. Additionally when Inko takes a bullet for him and dies, he organises a particularly gruesome death for the person who shot her.
• Evil Gloating: When the League confronts All Might, the hero recognises him through his fake identity, and as Izuku kills All Might, he gloats and explains why he is doing this.
  Izuku: I'd say 'let's see' but you won't be around to see, so I would ask you to trust me, and take my word for it.
  Izuku: I should have expected you to continue to try. But what did you tell me? That it was useless to try unless you were suited? So let me tell you, there is no way out of this, and you will leave no warning.
  All Might: I didn't give in to him. I will not give in to you.
  Izuku: I don't expect you to give in. I expect you to die.
• False Utopia: The hero and government system presented initially within Another Form Of Power appears to be perfect and fair on a surface level. Underneath the surface, however, is a horrifically corrupt system. Civilians worship heroes as infallible gods that are always right, Heroes that actively abuse their powers and commit crimes get them covered up by the Hero Commission so the public doesn't lose faith in them. It is Tomura’s job to show the fallings of the Hero Commission and the Heroes, while it is Izuku’s job to push legislation through Parliament that pushes for fair changes the people will want, after their eyes are opened to the truth.
• Fantastic Ableism: The public has an Irrational Hatred for the 20% of the population who are deemed quirkless, pushing them to live in slums and ghettos, and nicely forgetting that they are human too.
• The Government: Izuku uses the government to ensure that the changes he wants to be made are passed into law. The Government does serve the people, but they are not immune to having popular policies, and with the troubles caused by Tomura, showing the failings of Hero society, Izuku’s proposed policies are popular.
• Government Procedural: The current government of Japan is a two-house system. The one presented in Another Form Of Power is a single House of Representatives. It is Izuku’s job to pass legislation through the House into law that the electorates will find acceptable, but which also limit the power of heroes and the Hero Commission.
• Inherent in the System: The system of Heroes run by the Hero Commission is flawed, allowing Heroes, in some cases, to be the sole arbiters of justice, especially against those deemed villains. There is also no thought or care given to the real issues a Hero might face in their daily life.
• Landslide Election: While Izuku is an independent politician throughout the fanfiction, he never has an issue being elected.
• Lawful Evil: Izuku does not often break the law but as a politician, he is responsible for creating the laws and is seen to be obeying them in public.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: As part of All For One’s plan, Tomura is to highlight the failings of society. When the Heroes and the Public are in crisis, Izuku then offers solutions to the Government, who pass the required legislation that effectively renders many of the heroes in training ineligible to become heroes and when the legislation is expanded later many Heroes are then legally required to take mental health breaks.
• My Greatest Failure: Izuku is this for All Might. A lack of tact and callous words crushed Izuku’s dream and left him ripe for manipulation by All For One
• Never Hurt an Innocent: During Another Form Of Power, Izuku is careful only to kill those who he sees as not innocent. Through the first half, before the time skip, he does not directly kill anyone himself.
• New Era Speech: Izuku is a politician, and thus has to give several speeches over the course of the fic, including how he believes the world should be.
• No Party Given: Izuku is elected as an independent to the House of Representatives. He attends several party meetings and uses his quirk to ensure that the ruling party votes the way he wants.
• Persona Non Grata: After the fall of hero society, those who did not reintegrate into society and engage in vigilantism are hunted down by the Special Forces. Katsuki is a vigilante, and while he has contact with other members of Class 1A, he’s definitely not welcome by most of them.
• Plot-Relevant Age-Up: After Izuku accepts All For One’s offer, he is artificially aged up, using a quirk so that he can be elected into parliament. This way, Izuku takes over All For One’s business empire aged approximately 30 years old with a new identity and the contacts to be able to run it.
• Rejected Apology: When the League confronts All Might, who has passed on One For All to Mirio, All Might realises who Izuku’s secondary identity is and apologises to Izuku. It’s not accepted.
  All Might: Did I hurt you that much?
  Izuku: Yes.
  All Might: (bows) I am sorry.
  Izuku: It's too late.
• Surpassed the Teacher: Izuku is taught a lot by All For One about business and politics and how to control people but once legislation is passed disbanding Heroes as a profession, Izuku can’t have the original supervillain return, and so he organises to visit his mentor, and have the contents of a quirk erasing bullet injected into him.
• Villain Cred: All For One is very proud of his apprentice’s actions, and recognises that Izuku has done something that will kill him. He’s not upset, just happy that the world is in good hands.
• Villain Has a Point: Izuku campaigns on removing discrimination against the quirkless, or those who are deemed to have bad quirks. He couldn’t have that campaign platform if there wasn’t abuse and discrimination against the quirkless and those with ‘evil’ quirks.
• Villain with Good Publicity: As part of the companies Izuku owns, there are several news outlets, that ensure the message is what he wants, and talk up the good work he is doing.
• Visionary Villain: Izuku has a vision for the future, one where heroes are integrated into society and are not a class apart and he campaigns on that.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: In taking on hero society, Izuku doesn’t immediately have legislation that removes them. He works up to it, by first introducing a Bill that states that ‘Heroes Must be Heroes’ which implements basic psychological screenings on hero students. Later the Bill is extended to heroes, to maintain their mental health in the stressful job they conduct. After all, most of them never get mental health check-ups, if they did, Endeavor would be discovered. In principle, the heroes agree with all of this, in practice, they know what’s coming. The public likes it, which means The Government likes it.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: While the heroes are aware of what Izuku’s alter ego is doing, they wake up to the threat too late. Tomura has destroyed any public credibility they have, and the government just wants the issue to go away.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Once the legislation to integrate heroes into society is passed, Tomura wants to run wild to show that the League has won. Izuku doesn’t allow that and has him killed since having villains partying in the streets would lead to the retraction of the legislation. Tomura has done his job.

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