"Well, you really made a mess of things!" Standing in the dungeon of Château de Yggdmillennia, Shirou crossed his arms, wearing an expression that was three parts teasing and seven parts amusement as he looked at Astolfo, who was nailed to the wall.
That was right, nailed to the wall—the kind of nailing where four stakes pinned all four limbs. To put it bluntly, the current Astolfo looked strikingly like a tattered rag.
"How is it? Still want to act up? You've learned your lesson now, haha!"
Just as Shirou said, the fate of Astolfo ending up as a neighbor to the Red Faction's Berserker, Spartacus, was entirely brought upon by his own doing.
It was originally just a matter of letting a homunculus escape. Given the Grand Duke's brilliant and mighty nature, at most he would have received a scolding, and the matter would have been dropped.
Yet, very unluckily, he happened to cross paths with the Saber pair and the rest of the Black Faction, appearing right after Gordes finished recounting the sequence of events.
Well, since the primary parties involved in the matter had all shown up, there was naturally no room left for Gordes, right? This led us straight to everyone's favorite Q&A session—
The Black Faction Rider's Master Sereinik: "Rider, where is that homunculus you took away?"
Astolfo: "I don't know."
Sereinik: "Wasn't he the one you brought out?"
Astolfo: "That's right, but I left him after handing him over to Ruler."
Sereinik: "Then where is Ruler?"
Astolfo: "I don't know."
Sereinik: "Do you even know how important that homunculus is to Caster's Noble Phantasm?"
Astolfo: "I know."
Sereinik: "Then hurry up and tell me where that homunculus is!"
Astolfo: "But I really don't know."
Not knowing, not knowing, not knowing—three "I don't knows" in