The White-Haired Little Girl Was Gojo Satoru? Something Was Very Wrong with This Picture

The door opened.

Not slowly. Someone kicked it open from the inside.

The door slammed into the wall with a dull bang, sending dust drifting down from the frame.

Outside, March 7th reflexively stood up straight, folded her hands over her stomach, and put on her most perfectly polite smile.

Welt adjusted his glasses and straightened his back.

Himeko leaned against the corridor wall with her arms crossed, a faint smile on her lips.

They were all waiting.

Waiting for the legendary Female Lord to emerge.

According to the Stellaron Hunters' intelligence, the Female Lord stood over six feet tall and had an overwhelming presence. When she spoke, even the air seemed to freeze. She was the kind of person who could make ordinary people's knees buckle with a look, without lifting a finger.

March 7th had even rehearsed her bow three times in her head.

The door was open.

The person who came out was not a tall woman.

She was a little girl.

She looked seven or eight, with messy white hair, tiny black sunglasses that covered almost half her face, and a lollipop in her mouth that puffed out one cheek. She swaggered along like a cat that had just stolen a fish.

One hand was tucked into her pocket. She gave a casual wave with the other.

"Yo."

The little girl's voice was clear and still had a childish lilt, though she deliberately pitched it low.

"I'm the—this young lady is the Seventh Seat of the Divine Court!"

The corridor went silent for three seconds.

March 7th's smile froze.

Her hands still folded, she lowered her head bit by bit, as if her neck had rusted, until her gaze fell on the white-haired girl who did not even reach her waist.

"...Huh?"

Welt frowned.

He said nothing, but his fingers tightened slightly around his cane. There was no trace of stellar power coming from the girl. None at all. But he could sense something else—an uncanny force that warped space, like invisible hands twisting creases into the air before silently smoothing them out.

It was not the power of a Stellaron.

Nor was it power from any known system.

Himeko straightened up and uncrossed her arms. She raised an eyebrow and looked the girl over twice.

"That's...the Female Lord?"

"Who knows?" Welt said quietly. "Be careful."

The girl seemed not to notice their reactions at all. Lollipop in her mouth, she swaggered past March 7th. Her sunglasses slipped down a little, revealing a pair of startlingly bright blue eyes that flicked toward March 7th.

Then she stopped.

"You." The girl pointed the lollipop stick at March 7th. "You look so dumb."

March 7th: "..."

She took a deep breath.

She told herself not to argue with a child.

The girl kept walking, stopping in front of Welt to look up at him. Welt looked down at her. They held each other's gaze for two seconds.

"Old man, you've got sharp eyes," the girl said. "But that cane is ugly."

Welt: "..."

Himeko could not help laughing.

The girl turned to Himeko and gave her a once-over, then nodded as though she had confirmed something.

"This big sister's all right," she said. "Better than the dumb one."

March 7th snapped. "Hey! Who are you calling dumb?"

The girl ignored her.

She took the lollipop out of her mouth. Its wrapper glinted in the sunlight: orange flavor. She licked her lips and popped the candy back in.

"Come on, quit standing around," she said around the lollipop. "I'm hungry. Got anything to eat?"

March 7th's mouth twitched.

She looked at Welt, Welt looked at Himeko, and Himeko shrugged.

This was nothing like the intelligence report.

The Female Lord described in it was cold, powerful, and sparing with words. She could quell a rebellion across an entire planet by herself. The white-haired girl in front of them, on the other hand, looked like a runaway schoolkid, apart from her arrogant swagger.

But Welt did not let down his guard.

That space-warping force was still there, like an undercurrent beneath the water—invisible but undeniably real. He could tell it came from the girl, and its depths were impossible to fathom.

In all his years, he had seen the corrosion of Stellarons, the corruption of the Antimatter Legion, and all kinds of strange energy systems. None had been like this.

The force did not spread outward. It contracted inward, like a constantly spinning black hole that crushed the surrounding space bit by bit, then restored it. If he had not been unusually sensitive to spatial fluctuations, he would never have noticed it.

"What's your name?" Welt asked.

The girl tilted her head.

"Su Chen," she said. "Remember it, old man."

"Su Chen..." Welt repeated the name. He could not match it to anyone on any list of known powerhouses.

"Don't bother thinking about it. You won't find anything." Su Chen waved a hand with the air of someone far older. "If I told you where I came from, you'd be scared to death."

March 7th rolled her eyes.

If an adult had said that, she might have been a little nervous. Coming from a white-haired girl with a lollipop in her mouth, it sounded exactly like a child boasting.

She crouched down to meet Su Chen's eyes.

"Hey, little one," March 7th said, trying to keep her voice gentle. "How long have you been here by yourself? Where's your family?"

Su Chen's expression changed.

She took a step back, her eyes narrowing behind her sunglasses.

"Don't talk to me like you're soothing a child," she said. "I've lived longer than you've eaten rice."

March 7th paused.

Then she saw Su Chen's eyes.

The sunglasses had slid to the tip of her nose, leaving those blue eyes fully exposed. They were not a child's eyes. Something indescribable lay within them, like snow that had gathered for a thousand years, cold enough to send a chill through her.

Cold sweat broke out across March 7th's back.

She instinctively drew away.

But it lasted only a second.

Because Su Chen sneezed.

"Achoo!"

The little girl let out an enormous sneeze. Her sunglasses flew off, spun twice through the air, and landed on the floor. The sneeze left her white hair sticking out everywhere, making her look like a little dandelion.

March 7th stared at her.

Su Chen stared back at March 7th.

They held each other's gaze for three seconds.

"...What are you looking at?" Su Chen's face went red as she scrambled to pick up her sunglasses. "Never seen someone sneeze before?"

March 7th's heart melted.

The cold, the snow, the uncanny power—one sneeze had swept them all away.

She looked at the white-haired girl crouching on the floor to pick up her sunglasses, hair in disarray and cheeks flushed, and felt something burst inside her chest.

It was maternal affection.

An overwhelming flood of maternal affection.

"Aww!"

March 7th spread her arms and lunged toward Su Chen.

"You're so cute! Come give your big sister a hug!"