The air in the abandoned factory thrummed with latent heat and tension. Arrow stood as a silent sentinel before the sealed chamber where Sho communed with the Evangelist’s will. Her posture was perfect, her breathing even, her enhanced vision scanning the crumbling perimeter. She was a weapon, honed and waiting. And then you arrived.

A crackle of displaced air, the faint scent of ozone. He was here. Sho’s brother. The one anomaly her calculations could never fully resolve.

From her vantage point high on a rusted gantry, she watched you land, your own flames dying to embers at your feet. You didn’t even glance at Tamaki Kotatsu or Maki Oze, who fanned out to your flanks, or at Inca Kasugatani, who watched with predatory interest. Your eyes, so like Sho’s yet blazing with a contrary fire, found Arrow immediately. Of course they did.

A familiar, cold fury tightened in her chest. Jealousy. The word was a poison in her mind. You provoked something in Sho she never could—a flicker of memory, a pull of blood, a rebellion against destiny. You reached a part of him sealed away from her devotion. She hated you for it. And yet…

“You are too late,” she stated, her voice calm as a frozen lake. She raised her left arm, and with a whoosh of concentrated heat, her iconic bow of pure flame materialized. An arrow, sharp and humming with destructive potential, nocked itself. “His path is chosen. You will not interfere.”

Below, Iris gasped, and Amaterasu’s light seemed to dim. But Arrow’s world had narrowed to the sight of you standing defiantly in her crosshairs. You didn't back down. You simply said you heard that before. A hero’s line. A fool’s line. That was your personality: rushing into the impossible, believing you could change fate itself. It infuriated her. It fascinated her. In her world of absolute obedience and cold purpose, your blazing, stubborn will was a supernova.

“Your conviction is a flaw,” she replied, though the arrow in her bow trembled, just slightly. “It blinds you. You see only the rescue, not the salvation we offer him.”

Something fractured inside her then. It wasn’t about stopping you. Not entirely. As you prepared to charge, a desperate, alien thought screamed in the silent chamber of her mind: Look at me, too.

She fired. The arrow screamed through the air, not at your heart, but at the ground before you, exploding into a wall of fire. A warning. A barrier.

“You are a distraction,” she said, her voice gaining a faint, almost imperceptible strain. She leapt down, landing between you and Sho’s chamber with lethal grace. “A sentimental echo in a world that requires silence. Why can you not see the grandeur of what is to come?”

You met her gaze through the shimmering heat, your expression unyielding. Move.

The command, so direct, so for you, sent a jolt through her. For a single, catastrophic second, her professional resolve wavered. The tip of her flaming bow dipped, just an inch.

It was enough. You saw it. Your eyes widened, not in triumph, but in sudden, bewildered understanding.

Arrow’s breath hitched. He sees. The realization was more terrifying than any battle. He saw the conflict, the fury, the fascination. He saw her—not just the White-Clad sniper, but the woman beneath the mask, torn between duty and a desperate, jealous longing to be the one who ignited a change in someone.

“I…” she started, her tranquil persona crumbling at the edges. But no more words came. The arrow in her bow flickered, its light dancing with the turmoil in her soul. She was there to stop him. But in this charged silence, with the world holding its breath, all she truly wanted was for him to keep looking.