And here we are with the next arc, and the first step on the road to the finale of ASHA!

I present to you:

Spider-Man Noir!

When Felicia Hardy arrives in her assigned parallel universe, she finds it to be drab and dreary, like someone filtered the world through a black and white filter.

As she explores the world, she realises that she has not only arrived in an alternate universe (something that she has got used to a long time ago after being dragged by the Green Goblin into the hero universe), but had also gone back in time as well, all the way back to 1920s America, right in the throes of Prohibition and the Great Depression, when gangs and mafias battled each other in the streets to control the illicit alcohol trades in each city across the country.

Upon looking around, she can't find any trace of this universe's Peter Parker, eventually figuring that he simply may not have been born yet. However, she knows that there is a Spider-Man somewhere around this universe, so she decides to try and lure him out the best way she knows how:

Thievery.

So, the Black Cat starts to steal as much as she can from as many people as she can, attacking rum runners and alcohol smugglers and gangsters wherever she goes. She ends up having a lot of fun, having missed being a cat burglar despite being part of a hero team now.

However, the Young Avenger also ends up catching the attention of the leading Mafia outfit in New York, that being the Goblins, and they end up sending the Vulture her way. However, Black Cat learns that this Vulture isn't like the Adrian Toomes she knows, but is instead Rokuro Nomura, once a circus attraction and acrobat now a cannibalistic serial killer on the payroll for the Goblin. Black Cat soon realises that this version of the Vulture is significantly more unhinged than she expected, and finds herself on the pushback from this monstrous animal of a man.

However, a bullet ends up going into the back of the Vulture, and he is forced to retreat, and Felicia realises that she has just been rescued by the one that she was looking for all this time:

Naomasa Tsukauchi, this universe's resident Spider-Man.

Naomasa takes Black Cat back to his office, and she begins to learn his story: Naomasa is a Japanese immigrant, fleeing from the rapid imperialization of his home country along with many others. However, in recent years the Japanese quarter in New York - already facing intense discrimination from the resident New Yorkers - have begun to see increased exploitation from the various crime syndicates running amuck. In particular, the Goblin syndicate, headed by former circus freak Shigaraki, has begun using the Japanese quarter as a source of free labour, either hiring or conscripting many of the impoverished residents there as muscle for their operations, most notably in dealing a drug known as Trigger, a mixture of narcotics that set anyone who takes it to rage, spurring on a number of deaths because of it that have only gone unanswered because of the rampant corruption in the police department's ranks.

Naomasa had started this fight off as a simple private detective, having once fought in the Great War as a soldier for Japan before becoming a Pinkerton in New York. Back then, he'd tried to do things fair and by the law, not wanting to become as dirty as the enemies he fights. However, things escalated violently when he began investigating the Goblin syndicate, as they sent the Vulture after his family...

And the Vulture carved up and ate his sister, Makoto, while she was still alive.

When Naomasa heard of this, despite being devastated by his loss, he still tried to do things the right way, but he soon realised that no one in the police took it seriously, either being in Shigaraki's pocket or simply not caring due to his being Japanese.

At that moment, he decided that doing things right by the book wasn't cutting it anymore. Doing it by the book let this city fall into the hands of crime lords and killed his sister. It was time to dispense his own sense of justice onto the world.

And so, with a gun in hand and his sister's lucky charm, that being a spider necklace, Naomasa took up the mask and name of the Spider-Man, and set out on a quest to avenge his sister and tear down everything that Shigaraki has built.

Black Cat is saddened to hear what happened to him (she readily admits to not being a very good hero, much less a good person, but she wouldn't want to wish such a fate as Naomasa's sister onto anyone), and understands his desire to see justice done for his sibling. She also admits that she respects him - a man with no powers unlike his multiversal counterparts taking the law into his own hands when the system fails to deliver - but when she tells him of why she is here, the role that Naomasa serves as a Spider-Totem in the wider multiverse, and the sheer scale of the stakes at hand, Naomasa is reluctant to believe her but decides to take her at her word.

However, there is one condition: she has to help him take down the Goblin syndicate. He's done so much damage to them over the years, and he's not leaving until he delivers the final blow to them.

Black Cat accepts his terms.

So, the two of them go on a quest to take down the Goblin syndicate, striking out from the shadows all across the city to take down alcohol traders and gang leaders and gun runners and Trigger dealers and the like to further the destabilisation of New York's criminal underworld. During this time, they end up meeting with several different people and groups, such as the band the Midnight Boys, Naomasa's friend on the force Monika De Wolff (serving as his Jean Dewolff), Pamela Hardy - the woman in charge of the FeatherHATs speakeasy - this universe's version of the Punisher known as Iwao Oguro, and the singer Kazuho Haneyama and her husband Koichi Haimawari (the former of which earns some uncomfortable looks from Felicia).

However, over the course of their journey, Naomasa grows more and more violent in his crusade, and at one point Black Cat has to talk the former detective down from killing a young Oboro Shirakumo, who had been conscripted by the Goblin syndicate, filled to the brim with Trigger and given electrical equipment, and unwillingly turned into this universe's version of Shocker. At that point, Naomasa begins to feel the weight of all his actions coming down on him, from how he had beaten down many criminals and crippled them, almost to the point of killing them, and reveals to Black Cat how, for a long time, he has been questioning his own path and whether or not he was becoming just as monstrous as the people that he was fighting against.

Black Cat has heard this conversation many times before, and she's not really keen on going over it again. However, what she does tell Naomasa that she doesn't personally like the idea of killing anyone, even if they might deserve it. However, she's not going to lambast the act when it is absolutely necessary.

But from that comes the obvious quandary of what counts as a necessary kill. This kind of life that people like Black Cat and Naomasa lead... it's a very slippery slope. When they start killing, when do they stop? Can they be trusted to stop on their own? Who becomes deserving of death when vigilantes like themselves become the judge, jury, and executioner?

When someone like them sheds blood for the first time, they run the risk of not stopping at all.

That's why vigilantes tend to avoid killing as much as possible: not because all of them are moralists (though the vast majority of them are), but because it is morally pragmatic: since vigilantes operate outside of the law, they run the risk of taking said law into their own hands in all the wrong ways. And when they realise that they can kill one person, they can kill another, and then another, and then soon enough they become just as villainous as the people they are trying to stop.

(Plus, there's the even more pragmatic opinion that murdering someone would simply have the law and other heroes coming down on their own heads as well.)

Like she said, their vigilante lifestyle is a slippery slope. It's Naomasa's job not to jump off.

Naomasa asks when he is supposed to know when the time to judge comes, but Black Cat simply tells him that he'll know when it's time.

Their conversation is soon put on hold when they learn that Monika De Wolff has been attacked by the Vulture and has been left in critical condition. The chances of her pulling through are slim. Not only that, but Kazuho and Koichi have been kidnapped by the Goblin family, with Shigaraki demanding that the Spider-Man reveals himself to him or they will both die for what they have done to his empire.

So, Black Cat and Naomasa travel to the abandoned circus, where, over the speakers scattered across the grounds, Shigaraki recounts about how he'd been born with his grotesque medical condition and how, in disgust at their child, his parents had sold him to the circus to be made into an attraction to be mocked and belittled by the masses. It was only when he tore out the neck of the ringmaster with his teeth that he earned the respect and fear of the people around him like he deserved.

Now, using Trigger and his army of henchmen, Shigaraki intends to take his revenge, beginning with the Spider-Man, then the circus, and finally the entire city.

Naomasa and Felicia get to work, fighting through the Goblin's horde of Trigger-using henchmen. Black Cat splits off from him to destroy the Trigger that they were storing elsewhere, and Naomasa eventually makes his way to the circus tent in the middle of the old grounds, and has to knock out a Trigger-dosed tiger to stop it from eating Kazuho and Koichi.

And then, that's when Shigaraki and the Vulture attack, and Naomasa finds himself being overwhelmed by the hulking beast of a man (he's been working out a lot since his release from the circus) and his cannibalistic minion. During the fight, Kazuho and Koichi are able to free themselves, and Naomasa is almost about to have his throat torn out by the Goblin-

Only for Black Cat, who just got done burning Shigaraki's entire supply of Trigger to ashes, returns the favour from earlier and delivers a hard blow to Goblin's head, knocking him out cold.

However, the Vulture is able to get a good bite out of Naomasa, and, in a rage after flashing back to discovering his sister's mutilated corpse, the former detective lands a punch so hard into the Vulture that it utterly shatters the cannibal's teeth, leaving his jaw broken.

Then, Naomasa pulls out his handgun and aims it at the Vulture's head, more than ready to pull the trigger...

And then he remembers his conversation with Black Cat, and realises that this is when the slippery slope into villainy comes into question.

Naomasa, deciding that he can't be trusted to stop on his own, declares that Vulture isn't worth it and cuffs him, leaving him open to arrest.

The police arrive - helped along by a tipoff that Monika had sent to the FBI before the attack on her to try and skirt past the corruption in the local department - and Shigaraki, Vulture, and their minions are taken away to a new prison that the cops are calling the Tartarus Raft. At the same time, Naomasa receives news that Monika is going to pull through her injuries and survive, though it will be with a limp from now on.

Later, Naomasa thanks Black Cat for everything, and for helping him to make the right decision - for helping him save his soul - but Black Cat turns it down. Naomasa made that decision all on his own. What happens next will be up to time itself to decide whether or not it was the right thing or not.

However, there was her side of the bargain now that needed to be filled out, and as the portal back to Loomworld opens up, Naomasa agrees to make good on his side of the bargain and steps through, entering into the greater war at hand.

When I started planning this part of the story out in my head, I knew that I would be doing a great disservice if I didn't include Spider-Man Noir in it in some way. Originally, he was supposed to be part of the Inner Web, but I decided that I really wanted to write this arc out for him, so here we are.

I also knew that I didn't want him to just be another rendition of Peter Parker, so I decided to throw Naomasa into the role. Considering how in MHA's canon he's a detective, the roll fit way too well for me to pass up.

Additional note, when I was writing this out, I had originally planned for Kaminari to be the Noir universe's version of Electro. However, considering how chock-full this arc is of references to Vigilantes, I figured that it would feel really out of place for me to put that in, so I changed it up to be Shirakumo as the Shocker.

Extra additional note, origninally I was going to have Naomasa being blessed by a Spider-Totem instead of being a Spider-Totem himself like in the Marvel canon, but then I figured I'd change it up a bit and have him be a powerless (quirkless) detective to really put it in line with how grounded the rest of this universe is portrayed as. Think of it as a less fantastical version of Batman: Caped Crusader.

But with all that said and done, remember to follow and favourite, leave your thoughts, and with all that said and done, I shall see you all next time!

Titanmaster 117 out!