After sometime, Ishida left the family to their respective home in the near village, as Sakura closely followed him , because they were teammates and Kazuki followed him because he was intrigued by his shown power some moments ago.
The demon the both him and Sakura struggled to fight against, he in less than 30 seconds took down those demons like they were nothing. Wasn't he at the same rank as Sakura, at the lowest rank for a demon slayer !? How could he be so strong !? He needed to know the answer.
But the whole time after defeating the demons to taking the family back to their village, Ishida didn't spoke a single words to Sakura , and for Kazuki, it seemed like for Ishida he was non existent. After the first look , he didn't even look back again.
Although, he tried to speak from front and introduced himself, Ishida just nodded his head looking at another direction, without much facial expressions. And as the family was with them , both Sakura and him didn't speak that much at all.
As Ishida, Sakura, and Kazuki made their way out of the village, the tension in the air was palpable. Sakura, unable to hold back any longer, broke the silence first.
"Hey, can you stop pretending like you can't hear us?" Sakura's voice had a hint of frustration, but also genuine concern.
Ishida paused, turning slightly towards her, his expression softening just a bit. "What?" he asked, his tone gentler than before.
Sakura echoed his question with a smirk, "Why are you ignoring me? And him?" She nodded towards Kazuki.
Kazuki chimed in with a playful grin, "I do have a name, you know."
Ishida raised an eyebrow, a trace of seriousness in his gaze. "And what would that be?"
Kazuki chuckled, "I told you just minutes ago, didn't you hear?"
"Okay, enough of that," Sakura interjected. "Ishida, this is Kazuki. Kazuki, meet Ishida. Now, what happened back there? How did you manage to save the family?"
Ishida shrugged, "They were in trouble. I got them out." He started walking again, leaving little room for further questions.
Sakura caught up with him, persistent. "I need more than that, Ishida."
"What you need is better training," Ishida replied, his voice firm yet not unkind. "You struggled against those demons. How will you handle stronger ones?"
Kazuki jumped in, defending Sakura. "Hey, she's doing fine. You're the one who seems to be way ahead of the curve. By the way, how old are you, scolding her like that?"
Ishida stopped, genuinely puzzled. "My age? What's that got to do with anything?"
"Well, you were lecturing her," Kazuki teased lightly.
Sakura brought the conversation back to business. "Wait, we are going somewhere else with the conversation now. The question was what happened inside !?" She asked.
"Nothing much. I think the leader left before I reached. So , there wasn't much to do" Ishida responded in a uninterested tone, "We need to report back to the Demon Slayer Corps." he said.
"Yeah, I need to report too," Kazuki agreed, remembering his duties.
"You were on a mission here?" Ishida asked, curiosity piqued.
"Yeah, I was sent to save you both," Kazuki replied with a shrug.
Ishida smirked slightly, casting a sidelong glance at Kazuki. "You did a good job, then."
Kazuki laughed and pressed on, "Seriously, though, how old are you? You seemed like you've been training for years."
Sakura nodded, adding, "Yeah, you're really skilled. How old are you?"
With a sigh, Ishida replied, "Fourteen," as he continued walking.
Both Sakura and Kazuki halted, surprise etched on their faces. Sakura's surprise quickly shifted to a playful smile. "Fourteen? I thought you were older than me!"
Kazuki nodded in agreement. "Yeah, man, you're pretty tall for fourteen!"
That's true, Ishida was 5'6" while being just 14. While both Sakura and Kazuki was older than him. Kazuki 18 year old, and he was currently at the rank Kanoe, after becoming Demon slayer almost 5 months ago. Whereas, Sakura was 16 already, and while when she started her training she was the same age as Ishida , now she was older.
With this , The three made their way towards the headquarter of the demon slayer corpse, as it was almost getting dawn time.
In their way, Ishida mostly remained silent , while both Kazuki and Sakura spoke nonstop.
For a moment, both of them reminded Ishida of someone - His late siblings.