Drip, drip, drip.
The incessant sound of water droplets echoed in Emiya's ears, his vision blurring and consciousness flickering in and out.
All around was darkness, broken only by scattered flickers of torchlight dancing before his eyes. Occasionally, he caught glimpses of a man in a white coat drifting hazily in and out of view.
The surreal experience felt as if he were trapped inside a dream.
Caw! Caw!
A raven's shriek jolted Emiya slightly awake, granting him just enough awareness to barely examine his surroundings.
One eye half-open, the other firmly shut, Emiya felt as though he was thoroughly drunk, barely clinging to consciousness.
Clink! Clank!
He instinctively tried raising a hand to his head, only to find his limbs tightly bound against the wall, completely immobilized. He was pinned like a poster, unable to even struggle.
What…happened?
His last clear memory was Esdeath standing before him, murmuring something. When he awoke again, he found himself here, imprisoned.
He recalled nothing else, except for a faint, dreamlike recollection of an icy-blue world.
Emiya's projected weapons could only reflect what he'd witnessed. The future was full of infinite possibilities—impossible for anyone to foresee. Similarly, when Emiya projected a weapon, he only gained the current abilities of its wielder, not potential future growth.
His projections also lacked their own souls or wills. That was precisely why multiple people could simultaneously use his replicas of Teigu: stripped of their sentience, these weapons no longer selected their users. Other than certain physical requirements, anyone could wield them.
They became mere tools—powerful, but without true adaptability. Their potential evolution depended entirely on Emiya's understanding of them.
Unless Emiya consciously projected Incursio with the intention to resist cold, the armor wouldn't spontaneously evolve such a defense. Even if it somehow did, his changing perception would cause it to shatter.
His projections didn't vanish due to internal mana exhaustion, as no core existed to sustain them indefinitely. Rather, when Emiya's perception changed, the weapon's form destabilized and dissipated.
Furthermore, Tatsumi's Incursio had yet to evolve to its limits—otherwise, he wouldn't have struggled so desperately against Liver's attack. Who could say what the ultimate limit of Incursio truly was? Could it eventually adapt to allow its wielder survival in space, or might the Danger Beast sealed within break free entirely? No one truly knew.
Ultimately, Tatsumi's merging with Incursio occurred only because the Teigu had evolved beyond his physical and mental limits—not necessarily because it reached an absolute evolutionary ceiling.
These were things Emiya himself couldn't possibly know.
If there seems to be an issue, just treat it as the author's setting—otherwise, it would create plot holes.
But right now, Emiya had a far more pressing concern:
Freeing himself from these restraints.
To ensure Emiya wouldn't escape, they hadn't merely chained him. They'd injected him with multiple potent drugs—nerve toxins, paralytics, poisons that sapped strength—and nailed him securely to the wall.
After all, Emiya had fought evenly with Esdeath, even suppressing her at times. Such a dangerous captive required extreme caution. Upon searching him, they'd found nothing aside from his reversed blade.
"[Trace—On]!"
Without hesitation, Emiya chose the best possible projection to break free:
Incursio.
So what if he was nailed to the wall? Projection didn't require weapons to appear specifically in his hands, nor did he need to physically wield them to activate their powers.
The armor materialized instantly, forcibly covering his restrained body.
BOOM—!
Stone shattered loudly as Emiya burst free from the wall, the surface behind him crumbling to rubble.
Apart from the spikes still deeply embedded in his hands and thighs, the armor's emergence had forcibly broken every other restraint.
To fully immobilize him, they'd crafted cuffs that tightly adhered to his wrists and ankles without any room for movement. But Incursio had disregarded this, manifesting over his body, forcefully expanding to shatter the cuffs and the wall behind.
Emiya didn't understand how this armor defied basic physics—but he was a magus; logic could be conveniently ignored.
Naturally, the deafening commotion drew immediate attention. Above him, Emiya could hear footsteps rushing toward his location.
Gritting his teeth, Emiya painfully pulled free the spikes still lodged in his flesh. Despite wearing Incursio, his body remained weak and dizzy from the lingering drugs.
Such potent toxins were designed to incapacitate even someone as dangerous as Emiya, and they wouldn't dissipate so quickly.
Now, magecraft was his sole remaining advantage.
He stabbed his spear into the floor, using it to shakily pull himself upright.
As the footsteps from above began retreating, another set of footsteps approached swiftly from his level.
Emiya raised his gaze toward the ceiling above.
Though his consciousness blurred, his strategic thinking remained intact.
Why follow these twisting passages and risk unnecessary confrontations? In his current state, prolonged battles were impossible—he urgently needed a place to rest and recover.
With his remaining strength, wouldn't simply breaking through the ceiling be far more efficient than navigating a labyrinthine prison?
He didn't know for certain if the prison layout was complicated, but this solution seemed far simpler.
BOOM—!