Dan Lei: Tanjiro, mind if I borrow your sister for some research?

Giyu Tomioka implied that Nezuko was the demon who killed the charcoal seller's family, and Tanjiro naturally caught on, so he quickly explained loudly.

"That's not true! I'm the eldest son of the charcoal seller's family up in the mountains! Nezuko is my sister. Mother, Takeo, Shigeru, Rokuta, Hana—she didn't kill them. I also smelled a stranger's scent at the scene; the murdering demon must be the one carrying that unfamiliar smell!"

Giyu Tomioka didn't believe Tanjiro's explanation, because he had seen far too many cases like this. Giyu thought this boy just couldn't accept that his sister had turned into a demon, so he was making excuses to protect her.

But Dan Lei felt the moment was ripe to build goodwill with Tanjiro, so he chimed in along those lines. "I don't know if there's another demon, but this charcoal-selling boy saying his sister isn't the murdering demon should be true. I saw with my own eyes this girl completing her demon transformation on his back. Before that, she likely didn't have the ability to kill."

Tanjiro's words Giyu didn't believe, but Dan Lei's words carried some credibility. Still, this girl named Nezuko was already a demon, so the outcome wouldn't change. Thus Giyu said seriously to Dan Lei, "Even so, this girl is already a demon. Giving her a quick release is the greatest mercy."

To maintain his persona, Dan Lei nodded first at this, planning to find another chance later to prove Nezuko's special nature to Giyu. But Tanjiro, hearing that Nezuko was still going to be killed, panicked. However, his feet were frozen by Dan Lei's ice, and he couldn't break free. So in his desperation, he kicked off his boots right there in the snowy ground, shouting "No!" and charged straight at Dan Lei.

Seeing Tanjiro charging at him again, Dan Lei thought he was still going for a headbutt and prepared to toss him out like before. But instead, Tanjiro dropped into a perfect dogeza as he slid forward, plowing through the snow right up to Dan Lei, and then pleaded with utmost sincerity, sobbing, "Please stop! Don't take anything else from me! Please, spare my sister—she won't eat people. I'll cure her, waaah..."

In Japanese culture, dogeza is an extremely extreme form of expression. In the Taisho era, this gesture hadn't been trivialized by entertainment yet. Performing dogeza for a stranger was seen as a profound humiliation, only used in desperate situations when there was no other choice. Now Tanjiro doing dogeza for Dan Lei could be understood as him saying, "Do whatever you want to me, take my life if you must, but please spare my sister."

Tanjiro's actions threw off Dan Lei's rhythm a bit. Just as Dan Lei was about to use this to teach Tanjiro a lesson, release Nezuko to show a demon's brutality, and then let Giyu witness Nezuko protecting Tanjiro, Giyu—just like in the anime—saw Tanjiro's behavior and exploded.

In the original anime, over the next few minutes, Giyu said more than he did in the entire next season combined. Since it's too long, I won't repeat it here. But to sum it up in one idea: "What are your actions now? What are these tears? Can your tears save your sister? If that worked, tragedies wouldn't happen! You're too weak! Weakness means you can't protect! Weakness means your words carry no weight! Weakness means you only lose! Because of your weakness and incompetence, you lost your entire family, and all you can do is cry here?"

Giyu's words stabbed deep into Tanjiro's heart. Then, as if berserk, Tanjiro roared, pulled the axe from his waist, and swung it at Dan Lei. This time, Kojiro Sasaki didn't intervene, because he knew Tanjiro had no chance of harming Dan Lei.

But Dan Lei felt this was undeserved trouble. "The one scolding you isn't me, so why are you swinging at me?"

Still, Tanjiro's axe strike was easily caught between Dan Lei's two fingers. There was no helping it—Tanjiro at this point had no training, and no supernatural power was channeled into the axe. Such a strike, even Dan Lei could see clearly, and by wrapping his fingers in the Power of the Abundance Destiny, he caught it effortlessly.

For a Pathstrider, covering the entire body with the Power of the Path in battle was basic practice. Only by breaking through that protection could one effectively harm a Pathstrider. Of course, the Power of the Path could also be channeled into weapons and bullets, allowing Pathstriders from less advanced civilizations to breach the defenses of more advanced ones. After all, Pathstriders from low-tech planets weren't necessarily weak in combat.

At this point, Dan Lei was just a fledgling among Pathstriders. He couldn't compare on a cosmic scale, and even within Golden People Alley's small patch, he wasn't the strongest. But it was more than enough to restrain an ordinary person like Tanjiro.

However, the moment Dan Lei caught the axe between two fingers, he sensed that the axe had no real force behind it. Tanjiro hadn't swung with full power at all. From a third-party perspective, Tanjiro's "full-force" swing at Dan Lei actually let go of the axe mid-swing. Then, using his momentum, he lunged left past Dan Lei, immediately springing like a coil to dive right-forward, bypassing Dan Lei entirely and pouncing straight at Nezuko, who was bound in midair.

Normally, given the strength of Dan Lei's magic threads, even if Tanjiro tackled Nezuko, they'd both just hang in the air together. But Dan Lei saw this as a good opportunity and deliberately released the threads, letting Tanjiro knock Nezuko to the ground.

Giyu saw this and thought, "Damn, the demon's restraint is undone—this boy's about to be attacked." But instead, after Tanjiro rescued Nezuko, the first thing she did upon breaking free from her brother's embrace was spread her arms wide to shield him, glaring fiercely at Dan Lei with a look that said, "If you want to hurt my brother, you'll have to go through me."

Seeing this, Giyu was completely stunned. Newborn demons had the strongest urge to feed, yet this demon named Nezuko could suppress that urge to protect her brother without launching any attack—he had never seen anything like it.

Dan Lei, seeing his goal achieved, smiled—half sincere, half teasing—and said to Tanjiro, "Interesting. So there are cases where demons, like Dead Apostles, retain their sanity from the very beginning?

Tanjiro boy, looks like your sister won't have to die for now. But how about handing her over for me to study? I'm curious about her inside and out."

Tanjiro was initially relieved to hear that his sister might not have to die for now, but the second half of that sentence nearly made him lose his composure.

Moreover, Tanjiro's nose told him that this Mr. Dan Lei wasn't entirely joking—he was quite serious about it.

So Tanjiro once again shielded Nezuko behind him and said firmly, "Mr. Dan Lei, I'm sorry, but my sister hasn't reached the age of marriage yet. I can't let you study her inside and out."