Giyu Tomioka had implied that Nezuko was the demon who killed the coal seller's family. Tanjiro had naturally noticed, so he hurriedly called out an explanation.
"No, I'm the eldest son of the family that sells charcoal up on the mountain!
Nezuko is my younger sister. She didn't kill our mother, Takeo, Shigeru, Rokuta, or Delia.
I smelled someone unfamiliar at the scene, too. The demon who killed them must have been whoever carried that unfamiliar scent!"
Giyu didn't believe Tanjiro's explanation. He'd seen too much.
He thought the boy simply couldn't accept that his younger sister had become a demon, so he was making excuses to protect her.
But Dan Lei felt the moment was right. It was time to win Tanjiro's favor, so he picked up where the boy had left off.
"I don't know whether there was another demon, but I believe this boy when he says his sister isn't the one who killed them.
I watched with my own eyes as the girl completed her transformation into a demon on his back. Before that, she probably didn't have the ability to kill anyone."
Giyu didn't believe Tanjiro, but Dan Lei's words carried some weight.
Still, the girl named Nezuko had become a demon. That didn't change the outcome.
So Giyu told Dan Lei gravely,
"Even so, the girl is a demon now. Granting her a swift end is the greatest mercy."
To maintain his persona, Dan Lei nodded at first. He planned to find another chance later to show Giyu how special Nezuko was.
But when Tanjiro heard that Nezuko was still going to be killed, he panicked.
His feet were frozen in ice by Dan Lei, so he couldn't break free. In his desperation, he kicked off his boots right there in the snow, shouted, "No!" and charged straight at Dan Lei.
Seeing Tanjiro charge again, Dan Lei assumed he was going to try another headbutt and prepared to toss him aside as before.
But Tanjiro rushed over and dropped into a perfect dogeza. His head plowed through the snow until he slid right up to Dan Lei. Then, with a tearful, utterly earnest voice, he begged,
"Please, stop! Please don't take anything else away from me. Please, spare my sister. She won't eat anyone. I'll cure her. Please...!"
In Japanese culture, a dogeza was an extremely drastic gesture. In the Taisho era, it hadn't yet been turned into a comedic act.
At the time, performing a dogeza before a stranger was considered a terrible humiliation. People only did it in the most extreme circumstances, when they had no other choice.
Tanjiro's dogeza before Dan Lei could be understood as saying, "Do whatever you want to me. You can even take my life. Just please spare my sister."
Tanjiro's actions threw Dan Lei off his rhythm a little.
Dan Lei had been preparing to lecture Tanjiro and let Nezuko down, showing him how vicious demons could be. Then Giyu would see Nezuko protect Tanjiro, and Dan Lei could make his point.
But just as in the anime, Giyu exploded at the sight of Tanjiro's actions.
In the original anime, Giyu said more in the next few minutes than he did in the entire season that followed. It was too long to repeat here.
But it all came down to one thing:
"What are these actions of yours? What are these tears supposed to accomplish? Will they save your sister? If this kind of thing could help, this tragedy would never have happened!
You're too weak! Weakness means you can't protect anyone! Weakness means your words carry no weight! Weakness means all you can do is lose!
You lost your entire family because you were weak and useless, and now you're going to stand here and cry?"
Giyu's words struck Tanjiro deep in the heart. Then Tanjiro seemed to go into a frenzy. With a roar, he pulled the ax from behind his waist and swung it at Dan Lei.
Kojiro Sasaki wasn't going to intervene this time. He knew there was no chance Tanjiro could hurt Dan Lei.
Dan Lei, however, felt he was suffering an undeserved attack. I'm not the one insulting you. Why are you trying to chop me?
But Dan Lei easily caught Tanjiro's ax between two fingers.
Tanjiro hadn't undergone any training, and there was no supernatural power imbued in his ax.
Even Dan Lei could see a swing like that coming. He simply wrapped his fingers in the Power of the Abundance Destiny and caught the ax with ease.
For a Pathstrider, coating the body in the Power of the Path when fighting was basic practice. To injure a Pathstrider effectively, you first had to break through the protection of their Power of the Path.
Of course, the Power of the Path could also be imbued into weapons and bullets, allowing Pathstriders from less advanced civilizations to pierce the defenses of more advanced ones.
After all, Pathstriders from technologically primitive planets weren't necessarily weak in battle.
Dan Lei was still a novice among Pathstriders. He wasn't anywhere near the strongest in the universe—not even in the tiny stretch of Golden People Alley.
But he was certainly more than a match for an ordinary person like Tanjiro.
Still, as Dan Lei caught the ax between two fingers, he immediately felt how little force was behind it. Tanjiro hadn't swung with all his strength.
From an outsider's perspective, Tanjiro had let go of the ax halfway through his supposedly "full-strength" swing. He used the momentum to charge past Dan Lei's left side, then twisted like a spring and sprang diagonally to the right, darting around Dan Lei and straight toward Nezuko, who was bound in midair.
Normally, with the strength of Dan Lei's Magecraft Thread, even if Tanjiro reached Nezuko, he would simply end up hanging beside her in midair.
But Dan Lei saw the opportunity and deliberately released the Magecraft Thread, letting Tanjiro knock Nezuko to the ground.
Giyu immediately sensed something was wrong. The demon had been freed, and the boy was about to be attacked.
But after Tanjiro rescued Nezuko, she broke free of her brother's embrace. The first thing she did was spread her arms and stand in front of Tanjiro, glaring fiercely at Dan Lei. Her stance said that if he wanted to hurt her brother, he'd have to go through her first.
Giyu was completely stunned.
Newly transformed demons had the strongest urge to feed. Yet this demon named Nezuko could resist that urge and refuse to attack anyone, just to protect her brother. Giyu had never seen anything like it.
Dan Lei had achieved his goal, and he broke into a smile. Half sincere and half teasing, he said to Tanjiro,
"How interesting. Just like Dead Apostles, demons can also retain their reason from the very beginning?
Tanjiro, it looks like your sister doesn't have to die just yet. But how about letting me study her? I'm curious about every last part of her."
Tanjiro was happy when Dan Lei said his sister didn't have to die just yet, but the rest of what he said nearly made him lose his composure.
What's more, Tanjiro's nose told him that Mr. Dan Lei wasn't entirely joking. He was pretty serious.
So Tanjiro stepped in front of Nezuko again and said firmly,
"Mr. Dan Lei, I'm sorry, but my sister isn't old enough to marry. You can't study every part of her."
Before you continue