It's purgatory for those who have sold themselves to a demon. It's a dark and rancid place, but Homura has held tea parties in all kinds of places. She even managed to hold a tea party in her despair, so who is she to complain?
She pets Kyubey and his paws meekly press against her thighs. Homura sighs as she takes a sip from her cup.
"Are you sure he's okay, Akemi-san?" Tamayo asks, settling her teacup down on the table to look at the messed pet.
Homura chuckles. "I rule this place, Tamayo-san." She scratches Kyubey's neck. He doesn't respond.
Tamayo sighs, knowing she could never protest against her anyway. Homura almost feels bad. She could at least respect people like Tamayo.
The scent is sickeningly sweet—something akin to perfume and sugar. It's strong, yet it isn't anything that could make him faint. The best it did is give him a headache. Tanjirou clutches his sword in his hand, watching the silent debacle in the middle of the Butterfly Estate garden.
The butterflies have long since disappeared from the garden, but new, glassy ones shone under the moonlit night, fluttering by in what seems to be a decoration of white lace and a table. The girl is drinking from white porcelain cups, her violet gaze fixed upon Tanjirou.
His heart races and his throat constricts. It's maddening. If Muzan is defeated, shouldn't the rest of the demons in this place at least go into hiding now that their king is dead? Have the Corps somehow missed a valuable equation in these hundreds of years? Tanjirou's mind wanders to all sorts of choices. Should he run? Wake Zenitsu and Inosuke up? Should he inform the Pillars? It has been weeks since Muzan's defeat, yet his physical and mental states aren't adequate enough for battle and Tanjirou couldn't run far enough to even be in recovery training.
The girl, in the middle of this warped garden, emanates the same energy as Muzan.
Tanjirou lets out a breath.
With what feels like a full minute, the girl speaks. "Kamado-san, it's rude to stare." She tilts her head, and her long black hair flows with the wind. On her lap lies a white creature, indiscernible of a rabbit nor a cat. Its red eyes gaze at nothing, shaking slightly in her hold. "Join my table. I have freshly brewed tea."
The Clara dolls chase each other with the pink thread. Muzan lies on the ground, right by their feet as his mangled body spreads around the limbo.
"Not even an invitation?" He bravely says, interrupting them from their peaceful rendezvous. Tamayo spits on him, and with a stand from her seat she kicks him until his eye bled. Homura is unimpressed.
"Even in death, Muzan, you never fail to disgust me." Homura drops Kyubey and nudges him with her foot. "For you, Kyubey. As a treat."
Kyubey eats his eye and Muzan could only watch as the creature trembled before him.
"Don't think I will ever forgive you for ruining Her world."
"I don't know who you are." Tanjirou retorts, his teeth clenching. "Why should I trust you?"
Her gaze never wavers. "Kamado-san," his name drawls on her lips. "Do you think I am in any way like Muzan? There is no use for me to be power hungry like him. After all, that's not what I'm here for."
Tanjirou steps forward, his hand never leaving his sword. The scent is stronger, now mixing with wilting flowers. There is no animosity that radiates from her, no threat of attack. Tanjirou fears, even with the lack of ill intent. The girl still stares. So much for being rude, he thinks.
His looks shifts from her to the trees. There's rattling in the bushes. The girl, whose eyes never broke away from him, raises her brow. "Well? I'm not going to eat you. The Clara dolls have a habit of making a ruckus, but they're not interested in you."
And somehow, it pains Tanjirou that she's right. Not a single drop of blood could be detected anywhere, not even the liquid that swirls in her cups. Slowly, without removing grip of his sword, he traverses towards the dream-like chaos around him. It wasn't anything like Tamayo's illusions—everything seemed as if it was real even though it wasn't normal. The fragrance wafts through the air as petals floated and decomposed, hanging like wisteria and raining down like cherry blossoms. He smells a river, one that's heavy like cream. The strongest scent was of spider lilies, red ones that grew beneath his feet yet nothing that could be felt.
The Clara dolls, as she calls them, run behind the bushes and laugh. Tanjirou shivers. He feels their eyes peeking, but he doesn't know where they are.
He averts his gaze from the bushes and back to the girl, who rests her chin on her hands. "Who are you and why are you here?" How do you know Muzan and how do you know my name? Tanjirou all wanted to ask, his curiosity eating him alive. Only the low grumble of his voice managed to get out.
The girl sighs, and with the wave of her hand, the porcelain teapot floats, silently pouring the cups with the swirling purple tea.
Homura carefully explores Muzan's purgatory. It reeks of decay, and if she were human she would have vomited by now. She thought she heard the silent wails of a family, one that she thought of seeking out someday. The remaining members did manage to defeat Muzan, so she wants to thank them.
"This is disgusting." She says plainly. Tamayo trails behind her, carrying Kyubey in her hands.
It wasn't like her labyrinth. Though, if anything, this was one of the closest things that resembled one. Instead of the wails of the people a demon eats, it was of her own. All that screamed for Madoka while the Clara dolls cry with her.
The Nutcracker Queen steps on what seems to be the flesh of Muzan.
"I've never been inside a demon's labyrinth before…"
Tamayo doesn't know what Homura talks about. "I'm not sure what you mean, Akemi-san."
Now that Homura thinks about it, in a sense, she prefers his purgatory than her soul gem's own.
"I'm not a demon, Kamado-san. I'm simply here to commend you for defeating Kibutsuji Muzan. A rather long and grueling task, isn't it? It took you centuries, too."
Tanjirou's face contorts in disgust. "It doesn't matter how long it took. He's gone now, right? I don't see what the point is, unless I have to face you."
The girl takes a sip of her tea, smacking her lips and letting go of the delicate china as it sinks lightly on the table. "You remind me too much of this girl I knew. She also wielded a sword, like you slayers." She flips her hair and Tanjirou fights the urge to scoff. "I didn't like her, but She loved her. She was Her friend after all. Isn't that wonderful, Kamado-san? A friend by your side, defeating the evils of this world. Have you thanked Agatsuma-san and Hashibira-san yet?"
His hand unsheathes the sword, pointing the blade towards her. "This is between us, so I suggest you leave them out with whatever you're planning to do."
She shakes her head in negation, petting the fur of the trembling creature. It jerks with her touch, and Tanjirou grips his sword tighter.
"I would never, Kamado-san. I am before you and it would be useless for me to call out your friends. After all, I'm not looking forward to wasting your efforts with Muzan."
"What, so She wouldn't be upset with you?" Tanjirou guesses, and the twitch on her face affirms it.
She looks away, and Tanjirou's mood sours. The girl is suspicious, but the sadness from the garden weighs him down, as dreadful as the moment he saw his family's death. He hasn't visited that grief in a while, but everything the garden—no, her twisted tea party, emanates seems to inject in his bloodstream.
"You guessed correctly." Her expression turns stoic at the mention of who the hell She is. The creature on her lap turns to Tanjirou, whose blood red eyes stares at him. "Let me ask you a question."
"You still haven't answered mine." He doesn't know who this girl is but had the nerve to know who Tanjirou is. How could something... undemonic radiate the presence of Muzan? Even worse, something stronger than him?
"Tamayo-san, I hope you know that your actions haven't gone unnoticed."
Tamayo's smile is strained. "Thank you."
Homura knows how it feels, to venture a thankless duty. Tamayo has long lost contact with the world of the living, but it doesn't mean Homura couldn't pass on the gratitude of the slayers to her. "Kamado Tanjirou would have thanked you. They all would."
The Clara dolls are crying. For their Mistress Good-for-Nothing, they mourn the decay of Kibutsuji Muzan. For now, at least. They have cried for eternity in her wake! Couldn't they at least squeeze out a few fake tears for others? They were bored of her! They're doing her a favor, and their ugly cries weren't for the Mistress!
By her feet, Homura steps on what's left of Muzan's eye. The Clara dolls sobs and it drowns Muzan's own moans of pain.
How lucky that Muzan could only see the dolls. How would he feel, if he felt Homura's labyrinth? "Your divine punishment is equivalent for every life you've taken, for you will not be absolved until every soul has known peace."
The girl leans on her elbow, tilting her head at Tanjirou in morbid curiosity. "Even with Muzan gone, would you still fight? There's nothing left for you to do now, right?"
His shoulders drop. He fought because his family was killed. He fought for Nezuko. For her humanity. That was the only reason he was here in the first place. Yet the question didn't seem malicious, no matter how badly the girl worded it. The despair that surrounds him grows stronger, but he isn't angry. The question lingers.
Would you still fight?
Tanjirou's eyes lower.
"I'm here now, aren't I?" His sword pierces the ground and the spider lilies all move away like repellant. He stares at his broken reflection in which the sword was dug into. It's all deranged, this world he's currently in. All because of that girl in front of him. He doesn't question it.
The girl stands and she inches closer to Tanjirou. The threat doesn't spill, and her heart is bare. The fragrance dulls, and everything from that girl screams despair. Tanjirou is nauseous and he feels like he wants to cry.
He doesn't know her, but one look at her face made him feel her pain, just like all the screams of all the people Muzan slaughtered, all the rotting smell of the corpses he left behind. It was sad. It was painful.
"It's all over now." Her words are factual, discomforting. "All your friends died to fight, but there isn't any reason for you to be here anymore."
"But I'm still here. I still wish to fight. Isn't that enough reason for you?"
"Even if you saw how cruel this world is?"
The massacres that lusted for blood. The thousand of murders born from a cannibalistic desire. The craving for power that tore each other down, demon to human, human to human. Every mission hurt his heart. He saw how everyone killed each other. Everyone who died, demon or human, held with them a pain that all stem back from the same kind of cruelty that never ends.
"I still have to live, don't I? I wasn't born for nothing." He swallows and blinks away the tears in his eyes, trying to quell the despair that the twisted garden dispels. "Because I'm still alive and happiness is what everyone deserves, at least."
She smiles. It was a smile of understanding, a smile that buried the years of mistakes and regrets. For a moment, Tanjirou understood her.
"She would love you, Kamado-san." She whispers. "I don't know what She thought of this world, but it was still what She fought to protect." The white animal trembled beneath her fingers, red eyes unblinking. "To try to protect."
"I don't know what or who She is, but I don't need Her to tell me to save this place."
It was horrible. But since she was the Devil, it didn't hurt to at least make Muzan feel her world of grief.
The Clara dolls' wails were heard throughout the procession.
Each with a tissue in hand, Tamayo and Homura cry as Muzan's mangled body is carried by the souls that he ate. His fingers were being tossed around by children. The organs are punched, kicked, and stepped on by ones leading his body toward the guillotine.
Tamayo wipes a tear away and tries to stop herself from laughing. "Pitiful Kibutsuji Muzan. Who knew the body he died in would retain in the afterlife?"
Homura, whose tears would never fall, feigned the saddest face she could muster. "Hell does not know forgiveness."
Kyubey, by Homura's feet, nibbles on the stepped-on eye.
Her table dissipates into rotten petals, but the smile doesn't leave her face. "There are infinite universes out there. All She protected, and all She fought for, even when it was out of her reach. Even then, there would be a universe out there where Muzan could have killed you, you know?
"It would have been far easier for me to kill you, too." A petal grazes his cheek, and it reeks of tears. "I could kill Nezuko with one snap."
The sword is pulled from the ground, and his arms swing for her neck.
"After all, I'm the very existence of evil. I'm not a demon like Kibutsuji Muzan. I'm the Devil!"
With a clap, Tanjirou's sword slips from his hand. Tanjirou charges, and a scream escapes his mouth.
He falls to the ground with his fingers strangling her neck.
The corner of her lips pull up to a smirk. "I, however, am not cruel enough to take it all away from you." She doesn't struggle nor choke. Her eyes still stare into Tanjirou's, and it pisses him off. Tanjirou's grip tightens. "It's not what She would have wanted."
He instead finds the white animal sliced in front of him, cut clean with his sword in his grasp, stained with the smallest speckle of blood.
Tanjirou looks up and exhales a shaky breath, watching the world around him disintegrate and collapse. "Who are you?!"
The teacups overflow of the purple tea and the river turns a murky gray. The flowers that hang and float all shrivel up and die. The spider lilies wilt beneath him, and the butterflies shatter with each flapping wing.
The Clara dolls, ever so voyeuristic, laugh with the sound of a sob, tossing around a spool of pink thread that never seems to find its end.
"I don't exist to feast on you." Akemi Homura, the girl etched in his mind, stands like a doll in the middle of the apocalypse. "I only exist because I defied my God."
Homura and Tamayo station themselves by the guillotine. The Clara dolls' cries turn into screeches, mourning the end of mourning. Homulilly never knew her end. Homura thought Muzan should at least be thankful she's showing him an end, right before his eternal punishment.
"So this is what my sins have come to?" Muzan looks up. His torn head, frayed with all its vertebrae and tissues, are being carried by souls of children. Ah, it's like when Kyubey all fooled us, she thinks, looking down at Muzan with disdain. Tamayo's hand grips the rope tightly, as if nervous to finally execute the demon that cursed upon their land.
"No sin goes unpunished," Homura says, crouching to grab a fistful of his hair. He looks horrible and ugly. The slashes of the swords cut his skin as if the blades where dull. The human that's left in him oozed of blood and pus, with his body disarrayed and painfully disjointed. He is nothing left but remnants of flesh, and with Homulilly's labyrinth, everything from flesh to bone will feel nothing but pain.
Muzan attempts to spit back at her. Pitiful, pitiful Muzan, he is weak and fragile and couldn't do anything to the ruler of demons. The Devil, who turned her back from the laws of God.
Her sins did not go unpunished. Soon, after meets with Tanjirou, she will return to her Hell, and walk through the procession of her funeral once again.
She pulls Muzan's hair into the guillotine, and with one look, Tamayo lets go and the blade decapitates the sinner.
"Kibutsuji Muzan, you are condemned to eternal damnation."
Homura's despair wasn't the only hell that she knew of. In this world, there are sufferings in which she chose not to bother. Hell is whatever it needs to be to Muzan, and she couldn't care enough to know what unrest is doomed upon the measly king of demons.
Tamayo cries in relief, and Homura thinks of inviting her over someday.
Tanjirou blinks and he's in the garden with the sun rising up.
He doesn't remember why he's outside.
"Tanjirou!" Zenitsu calls from the window. "You're so loud! It's so early in the morning and you can't even let us sleep!"
"Sorry, Zenitsu," Tanjirou chuckles apologetically. "I wanted to get back to training real soon and I can't help it!"
Inosuke throws a pillow at Zenitsu and Tanjirou laughs. Zenitsu and Inosuke's fighting drowns out as his eyes close and the dread in his chest slowly fades away. He sighs, unsure of what happened.
A name is on the tip of his tongue, but his memories of the night trickle away like his dreams, never to be remembered again.
He returns the sword to its sheath, only to find a lone spider lily in his palm.