[h3]PHILIA VON EINZBERN[/h3][B]Apartment, Innere Stadt, Vienna[/b]

The summoning was complete.

The tool of the ritual was once more an individual. An individual that, had she been truly human rather than a shallow facsimile of one, would have been disappointed by the result. The risk that had been inherent to her hastily-obtained catalyst may have been judged to be acceptable, but even tempered expectations did not change the fact of the situation: Philia von Einzbern had failed in manifesting the hero-king of Assyria; in its place was another figure entirely.

[i]Aššur-bāni-apli.[/i]

It was not an unexpected Heroic Spirit that now occupied the Servant container of the Archer class. Given the origins of the catalyst in the ruins of Nineveh, the likelihood of the tablet fragment having been once part of Ashurbanipal's great Royal Library was staggering, and for that reason, it was not Ninurta who stood before her, but the King of Knowledge himself, called back into the World by the history exuded by a piece of his greatest work.

Except that Ashurbanipal appeared to be a woman.

Illuminated in the pale moonlight pouring through the apartment window, the regal hero that stood within the remnants of the summoning circle could not be anything but a woman. Even if history remembered the King of Assyria as the [b]son[/b] of Esarhaddon, it was undeniable to Philia von Einzbern that Archer was female.

This was the true Ashurbanipal that had been contracted to her.

She held up her left hand, allowing her Servant to behold the three, ornate markings that had carved themselves deep into her pale white skin. They seemed to gleam in the darkness, the crimson lines pulsing with a magical power that could bring Heroic Spirits to heel like mere familiars. The greatest creation of the Makiri, a Mystery that stood testament to the strength of the Human Order.

And by the connection between her seals and Archer, the proof that she was a Master in this Heaven's Feel.

Her even gaze met that of the hero's.

"I am Philia von Einzbern," she declared simply. "I am the Master of Archer."