Fanfic / The Reason why the Second Meta-Liberation War is going to be Weird

The Reason why the Second Meta-Liberation War is going to be Weird by Mirrond is a My Hero Academia fanfic centered on the Meta Liberation Army.

Midoriya Inko is furious. Her husband — well, ex-husband — All for One took two of their kids in order to raise them into villains. She was not going to take that lightly and decides to make him pay. But first, she needs to keep Izuku safe and asks Rikiya Yotsubashi to take care of him without giving him a chance to explain that he, the CEO of Detnerat, is the Grand Commander of the Meta-Liberation Army.

The story is complete as of 22 November 2022 at 13 chapters and 52,811 words.

Contains Examples Of:

• Abusive Parents:
  • Endeavour is a complicated example. He is a bad father and drove Shouto very hard in training, but he was never outright physically abusive. It doesn't change the fact he had a hand in the family's downward spiral with his obsession with becoming Number One, but the situation isn't black and white.
  • Thunderbolt is a straight example. He assaults his daughter over the flimsiest of reasons and the footage of those assaults being released causes a massive public outcry.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Eri calling Re-Destro “Dr. Destroshmirtz” in chapter 7 causes Ko to fall out of her wheelchair from laughter while Izuku and Re-Destro almost crash into each other in their rush to get Ko back into her wheelchair.
• Adaptational Badass: Inko is a retired Classy Cat-Burglar known as Mischief, who's also deadly enough that she basically wipes out her ex-husband's empire with ease in just a few months.
• Adaptational Diversity: The MLA goes from an organization of Quirk Supremacist extremists to a movement with a broad range of viewpoints that all fit under the general category of not liking Quirk control laws. There are still Quirk Supremacists, but these radicals make up a minority of the party; the vast majority are centrists and moderates who simply feel that the current laws are overly restrictive and prevent people from doing useful things with their Quirks without a Hero License and wants them overhauled so that the average person can use their Quirk in other lines of work, so long as they don't violate any other laws. In fact, not only does Izuku find himself agreeing with the opinion of the moderate wing, but so does pretty much every Pro Hero that hates the Hero Public Safety Commission, which includes All Might.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Zig-Zagged. Nedzu turns out to be a former SSS-rank Villain from the Dawn of Quirks that did human experimentation. And then he got experimented on himself, which gave him enough empathy to become a legitimate hero. Then, he joins the Meta Liberation Army, but they're not monsters here; they want to change a system perpetuated by the HPSC that keeps creating new villains.
  • Aldera Middle School is revealed to have covered up three different suicides caused by bullying at their school.
• Armour-Piercing Question: Izuku ends the sibling rivalry between Geten and Hypothermia by asking each of them pointed questions that reveal the majority of their issues are because they suck at communicating with each other.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Izuku is so good at analysing Quirks Re-Destro himself says he makes the analysts at his company look like clowns, and they are some of the best in the nation.
• Bigotry Exception: Geten is the poster boy of the Meta-Liberation Army's Quirk Supremacist faction, but Izuku giving Geten so many ideas to improve his combat ability results in him treating the Quirkless Izuku as a surrogate brother.
• Blackmail Backfire: The HPSC tried to blackmail Mirko over the fact she's having an affair with Stain, threatening her hero career by sending her a recording of one of their encounters. Her response was first to tell them their camera work was so bad that she couldn't even get off to the sex tape, before threatening them right back by saying it's actually in their best interest that they don't leak the footage, because if she can no longer be a hero, she'll just join up with her lover's hero-killing cause instead. The HPSC quietly backs down.
• Booked Full of Mooks: Re-Destro invites Nedzu to a meeting in Deika City. In order to coerce Nedzu into helping him, on top of the blackmail he has, Re-Destro reveals that everyone in the restaurant they are meeting in, as well as in the general area, is part of the Meta Liberation Army.
• Classy Cat-Burglar: Inko Midoriya back in her days as Mischief, including a Spy Catsuit and remarkably realistic cat ears. She was particularly known for being a Robin Hood type who only stole from the wealthy and gave most of her money to the poor.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Inko's preferred method involves using her Quirk to remove every non-vital part of a person's body she can such as teeth, eyes, and the small bones within their joints then leaving her victims for the heroes to find, just to ensure they'll live a very long life in prison as helpless cripples. Dr. Garaki in particular fears such a fate, noting that his longevity Quirk means he'd be in prison for a very long time before he finally died.
• Covert Pervert: No one except Soma knows that Ko is a massive pervert. Her very first thought on Izuku was how she planned to "break his pelvis like a twig". She also has quite a few imagine spots about him involving some form of kinky sex or other.
• Death by Adaptation: Overhaul and nearly the entire Shie Hassakai Yakuza are killed when a deal with the MLA goes horribly sideways and the Overhaul kaiju formed from him and his many lackeys are killed by All Might and the JSDF.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • The MLA leadership are surprised to hear that the Quirkless Izuku supports their agenda which is about Quirk Rights.
  • Re-Destro is dumbfounded to hear Izuku is close enough to several underground big-names to call them family, and is acquainted with a lot more underground figures.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Re-Destro, in an early chapter, reveals that he has started entertaining "the most ridiculous theories he can think of" due to how insane things have already become after only a few weeks around Izuku. Absolutely all of them turn out to be true, to the point where after a slew of them are revealed at once, he holds off asking for confirmation of his craziest theory (All For One being his stepfather, while All Might is his biological father) because he just doesn't want to handle that much insanity at once.
  • At the start of the story, All for One specifically did not kidnap Izuku under the idea that he was useless due to a lack of quirk, feeling that he would be of no use to his plans to dismantle hero society. Though Izuku doesn't consciously set out to do so, by the end of the story, all his actions ultimately lead to the MLA successfully overthrowing the government in a bloodless coup d'état and reforming hero society in a mere four months.
• The Dreaded: Despite officially being just a thief, basically the entire villain community is terrified of Inko. A few organizations flat-out refuse to even consider taking a job against her.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Rikiya's daughter Ko, whom he'd do absolutely anything for.
  • Shigaraki has a girlfriend he met online, herself the daughter of another villain.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Trumpet and Re-Destro are both disgusted by Aldera's actions, stating that they're villains but they're "villains with moral standards".
• Every Man Has His Price: Izuku is initially reluctant to outright join the Meta Liberation Army but agrees instantly when Re-Destro offers him the chance to analyze all of their Quirks.
• Exact Words: When the various signs saying "Not an Exit" on every window are pointed out to him, Izuku notes that he didn't exit through a window; he entered through a window.
• Fantastic Legal Weirdness: There's a whole set of laws that governs Quirk use that Izuku finds stupid. Japan already has laws for criminal acts. To him, adding another set for when crimes involve Quirk-use is completely redundant (especially in the era when almost EVERYONE has a quirk) and the licensing system to let a Quirk-user use their Quirk for anything other than Heroics is nigh-impossible to pass if they're neither rich or have the "right" Quirk. This is why he's sympathetic to the MLA's cause. An example is provided with Toxicity, a member of the MLA. Her quirk makes her body to a various degree poisonous, however it also makes her breath into a combination of sleeping gas, sedative, and a painkiller that doesn't cause an allergic reaction. However, since she came from a poor and troubled family, she couldn't hope to become a hero or obtain a quirk license. This led to her falling into a bad crowd, accidentally killing someone, and de facto being set into villainy for life, despite being a 'walking anesthesiologist miracle' that could easily earn a living legally with her quirk.
• Fiction 500: Re-Destro explicitly calls himself the richest man in the country, so the economic feasibility of a sword made for himself is a non-issue.
• Fountain of Youth: Eri accidentally de-ages Curious to when she was a young adult.
• Freudian Excuse: Invoked. Aldera Middle School being the hellhole it was is due to All for One making it that way in the hope that it'd either drive Izuku to villainy, or suicide, in which case it'd hopefully turn his younger siblings to villainy.
• The Gadfly: Ko enjoys flustering Izuku a lot, especially by using lewd comments.
• Gaslighting: Played for laughs. Ko flusters Izuku by making lewd comments, and when he asks Ko to repeat herself, she pretends she said something normal. Soma who sees all that can only roll her eyes.
• Groin Attack: Inko warns Rikiya that if he fails to take care of Izuku properly, "his testicle privileges will be violently revoked".
• If Only You Knew: Izuku freaks out when Re-Destro randomly shares what he thinks are ridiculous ideas of All Might having a transferable quirk, Best Jeanist being a furry, Hawks being a governmental assassin and Miruko having a relationship with Hero Killer Stain because he knows several of those are true.
• I Was Quite the Looker: Downplayed. Inko is still reasonably attractive, but when she was younger she was apparently the star of more than one doujinshi, with Trumpet referring to one of them as a "classic of adult entertainment".
• Lethal Harmless Powers: Inko's minor telekinesis Quirk only lets her pull small objects towards her. While threatening Wolfram, she makes clear just how many parts of the human body qualify for her Quirk, including teeth, fingernails, and eyes.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Despite just watching Inko brutally murder All for One, All Might nonetheless tries to find if anyone has a video of it, citing "Holy shit that was hot."
• Locked Out of the Loop: Re-Destro lampshades how apparently every villain in the nation is familiar with the Midoriyas except for the MLA, wondering if they're not invited to Inko's tea parties because they're too secret.
• Love Confession: At Geten's prompting, Izuku confesses to Ko in the last chapter.
• Mama Bear: Even before Re-Destro understands exactly how dangerous Inko is, she threatens that if anything happens to her son, she will "violently revoke his testicle privileges." Inko then proves why she is not someone to be messed with by singlehandedly demolishing All for One's criminal empire in the course of months when the heroes together couldn't manage that in the decades they had.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The HPSC and their cronies all panic when they realise Hawks escaped with their blackmail material.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Dabi accidentally helps Fuyumi's case that while Endeavour is a bad father, he was not outright abusive when Dabi releases a video where he goes on a demented rant threatening to murder not just Endeavour but everyone connected to him, which causes the public to see Dabi as the deranged murderer he is instead of a victim.
• One Degree of Separation: Every villain in the story is connected to Inko somehow.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Invoked. Re-Destro maintains an air of perfect control over himself most of the time so that the times he isn't is much more impactful.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • Hawks' initial disguise amounts to a very bad wig and a fake mustache he got out of a happy meal from McDonald's.
  • All Might's "Texan cousin" is known as Y'all Might and is just All Might in a cowboy hat and fake mustache.
• Point of Divergence:
  • Izuku telling Re-Destro that Overhaul could cure his daughter's disabilities leads to them meeting Overhaul, who did heal her, but also them discovering that Overhaul is abusing Eri, and that he's working on a viable Quirk-Erasing drug, which leads to them saving Eri and stealing Overhaul's research.
  • Izuku outing Endeavour as a terrible father starts a long chain of events that eventually results in Hawks deserting the HPSC and joining the MLA and giving the latter organisation extremely compromising evidence of the former.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Furious with her ex-husband, Inko goes on a rampage against All for One's empire. It is so successful his empire is crippled and his remaining associates are more scared of her than they are of him. It ends with Inko killing All for One at Kamino.
• Rule of Cool: Re-Destro is fully on board with having a giant sword he can infuse with his Quirk specifically because it sounds incredibly cool.
• Running Gag:
  • Geten using windows instead of doors for entering and exiting buildings.
  • Geten being reduced to Stunned Silence when hearing Izuku's analysis of his abilities and immediately trying out the new ideas Izuku comes up with, which often leads to the aforementioned There Was a Door moments.
• Sense Freak: Ko has a lot of trouble adjusting to being able to see, having been blind her entire life. She apparently almost fell down the stairs because she thought the stairs were growing bigger as she got closer, not understanding how binocular vision works.
• Shipper with an Agenda: Played with. The various MLA executives start out thinking Ko's crush on Izuku is cute but they later take advantage of it to convince Inko to not kill them for turning Izuku into a villain by technicality of him being a member of a Villain organisation.
• Sneeze Cut: Played with. All for One doesn't sneeze but gets the feeling he should at the same time as when Re-Destro asks who turned Aldera Middle School into a hell-hole and wonders if even the legendary Quirk Thief was that evil.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Beast tells All for One that the best way to stop Inko's rampage against his empire is to just return her kids to her and pray that's enough to appease her. All for One thinks Beast is right.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Izuku is good at sneaking into the high-level meetings of the Meta-Liberation Army and surprising the leaders with his presence.
• Sole Survivor: Kendo Rappa is the only survivor of the Shie Hassakai's defeat due to not being present for the battle.
• Sucky School: Aldera Middle School is an exaggerated example, being a school that encourages bullying and Quirk Supremacism that shocks even the Meta Liberation Army executives at how over-the-top bad they are. It is quickly revealed that Aldera is like that because All for One made it that way in an attempt to drive Izuku to villainy through him being bullied for being Quirkless.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: Endeavour trained Shouto so hard because he felt one of his kids failing to become a hero would make Touya's "death" meaningless.
• Take That!: The story takes shots at both fanon and canon.
  • Framing Dabi as purely being a victim gets briefly mocked, as when Endeavor's crimes come to light, Dabi responds with a rant that's so psychotic and unhinged that, once broadcasted, all of Japan "sees him for the psychotic murderer he is rather than a victim".
  • The popular fandom idea of Aldera being a Meta Liberation Army recruiting site is ruthlessly mocked by Re-Destro. Not only is the MLA disgusted to learn everything that's happening at that school, but even if they were somehow okay with it, he points out that not only is it far too close to both U.A. and Nedzu for their comfort, but the school faculty are even more extreme than several of the MLA's actual radicals, and the students are completely untrained brats with barely any regard for authority. At best, such a school would get them some untrained cannon fodder. At worst, it'd reveal them to the whole of Japan and kill their operations on the spot due to public outrage. If they were going to use a school as a recruitment center, they'd at least use a hero school in a different city or prefecture, so they'd at least get trained soldiers out of it.
  • All For One allegedly planning basically everything that occurred between the Kamino Raid and breaking out of Tartarus is poked at with AFO lamenting that he can't "luck into an army of one hundred thousand trained soldiers through a series of unlikely coincidences then pretend it was part of his plan all along".
• Tears of Joy: Inko cries so many happy tears at the footage of Izuku and Ko kissing that Re-Destro thinks it might be a second Quirk.
• There Was a Door: There's a Running Gag of Geten using windows to enter and exit buildings instead of using the actual doors, to Re-Destro's exasperation.
• Three-Way Sex: Discussed. Ko tells Soma she thinks threesomes are hot.
• Throwing Off the Disability: Ko Yotsubashi was born blind and the first manifestation of her Quirk ruined her legs. On Izuku's advice, her father Re-Destro takes her to Overhaul who can and did cure her of her disabilities.
• Took a Level in Badass: Thanks to Izuku providing new insights into his Quirk, Geten goes from getting easily beaten by his sister to actually winning a battle against her.
• Villain Has a Point: The MLA raises several good points about how incredibly restrictive Quirk laws are, particularly that not only do normal laws cover pretty much everything relevant, but that it's almost impossible to obtain a license to use your Quirk unless you're a Pro Hero. Even the Quirkless Izuku agrees with them that the laws need a massive overhaul at minimum since while he gets absolutely nothing from the reforms, he is insightful enough to understand how much the current situation just plain sucks.
• Weirdness Magnet: Re-Destro eventually realises that every crazy thing he experienced since meeting Izuku is either a direct or indirect result of something Izuku did. It reaches the point that if something crazy happens, he thinks Izuku is involved and the world instantly makes sense again.
• Why Didn't I Think of That?: Izuku suggests to Re-Destro that he could use a sword coated in excess stress energy, leading to this response:
  Re-Destro: Notebook, my boy. When it comes to creating support equipment, one has to consider not just "how good something is" but also whether it's economically feasible and whether the designs can work, as simplicity is important. Making things more complicated makes them more likely to be damaged in combat or malfunction.
  Midoriya: [looks down]
  Re-Destro: [dryly] However, this is a sword. And I'm the richest person in the country. [to engineers] SO WHY THE HELL DON'T I HAVE A GIANT KATANA TO CUT MY ENEMIES DOWN WITH?!

---