Noel Kreiss

Noel Kreiss is a playable character and the male protagonist in Final Fantasy XIII-2. He is the last remaining human from 700 years in the future, and has traveled into the past hoping to change that fate. After meeting Lightning by chance, he saves Serah Farron from monsters and accompanies her on her quest to find her sister.

Appearance and Personality
Noel is a young man with shoulder-length brown hair and blue eyes. He wears a black V-neck shirt designed with tribal patterns and a pair of angel wings on the back, along with a simple pendant. On his left arm is a metal bracer, while his right arm is wrapped with cord and he wears a ring on his right hand. He wears large blue -style pants with decorated hems, and low-cut sandal-like leather shoes. A green pouch and hunter's knife are attached to his belt in the back, which itself is adorned with small lavender ties made of cloth. Under the angel wings on the back of Noel's shirt and on his dagger, there are lines of Etro script.

The sword Noel wields with his right hand has two blades stylized like red flames, while the sword he wields with his left hand is a simple yellow-brown blade similar to a gladius. His two-bladed sword is capable of holding his yellow sword within the hollow metal part of the hilt. Both swords are capable of combining and forming a spear that also functions as a javelin. Aside from the angel wings on his shirt, the silver blade in the center of Noel's red sword also has angel wings.

Noel presents himself as a cocky, cheerful, confident but soft-spoken person. He is also a self-sufficient hunter and fighter. Due to the effects of a time paradox, Noel suffers from memory problems. Coming from a future where humanity is almost non-existent, he has some trouble with his speech, so he tends to speak in a straightforward yet fragmented manner, but he is always excited to go to new places and meet new people. Noel is defined by his strong determination to protect his loved ones, evident by how he is strongly protective towards Serah despite hardly knowing her. He is also able of easily asserting himself to others, and remaining calm and collected when facing people with provoked anger, such as the members of NORA.

As a remnant from his time period Noel strongly values life and is reluctant to hurt other people unless forced to. This value makes him have an initial dislike for Snow for his brash personality, always believing himself to be "the hero," and seemingly abandoning Serah and leaving her to fend for herself. In a similar manner to Lightning, Noel firmly stands by his beliefs and morals.

Downloadable Content Outfits
Noel will has four alternate outfits available as part of the game's downloadable content: his "Battle Attire" costume was released on January 10th in Japan, February 7th in America and included with Nordic Edition of the game or as part of the pre-order bonus DLC pack—"Fight in Style"—for Europe and Australia; "Spacetime Guardian" was released in February 2012; and "N7 Armor" was released on March 2012. Finally, "Assassin's Creed" was released in April 2012.

Story


Noel was the last to be born in the Farseer tribe that lived a nomadic existence on the ruined Gran Pulse 200 years after Cocoon came crashing down after its crystal pillar shattered. The event left the world in ruins and killed the majority of mankind. Eventually, only three people remain in the dying world, Noel himself, the seeress Paddra Nsu-Yeul, and Caius Ballad, Yuel's Guardian. Noel becomes Caius's student and after single-handedly killing a Behemoth, Noel is acknowledged by Caius to be strong enough to become the new Guardian for Yeul.

Learning that it means he would have to kill Caius as per ancient Farseer tradition, Noel refuses to go through with it and only wants to defeat Caius. Noel later tells him about his plan to take Yeul on a journey to find other people so that she will not be lonely anymore, but Caius says it is a futile dream. Once learning from Caius that if the Heart of Chaos inside him stops beating, the goddess Etro will die along with him, unleashing the chaos in Valhalla and therefore destroy the past, Noel is forced into a fight and is defeated. Caius leaves for Valhalla to go through with his resolve to free Yeul from her fate.

After Caius's departure, Noel finds Yeul praying at the shrine at the end of her life. Though she wished for a bit more time, the dying Yeul promises a tearful Noel that they will meet again before she disintegrates into light. Noel then realizes the curse of the seeress is to see the future, but every vision gradually eats away at her life, until it finally kills her. Noel realizes that Caius kept the truth about Yeul a secret from him and embarks on a journey to find Valhalla and become a warrior worthy to be recognized by Etro, like Caius, and gain the power of chaos needed to change his fate.

Etro eventually answers Noel's prayers and makes a Time Gate appear to him. After entering the Historia Crux, Noel regains consciousness just as he falls out of Etro's Gate over Valhalla. He is saved by Lightning flying on Bahamut just before her aerial battle with Caius as Chaos Bahamut. Recognizing Noel from her vision, Lightning tells him to guide Serah to Valhalla and work together with her to change the future. She gives him a moogle named Mog to keep Serah safe. Lightning covers Noel's escape as Caius summons a large meteor over Etro's shrine, crushing it as Noel barely reaches the time gate below. In the process, he loses most of his memories.

Arriving on the time gate's meteorite form in New Bodhum 003 AF, Noel comes to Serah's aid when she is attacked by monsters, handing her the crossbow for her to defend herself. After taking care of the monsters together, they tend to an injured Lebreau before Noel introduces himself to Serah, and tells her that Mog is her new 'lucky charm' and gift from Lightning. After Serah asks Noel if he met Lightning in Valhalla, he asks her how she knows about that. Serah tells him that she saw them and Mog in a dream. As everyone goes to investigate the crystal meteorite that crashed earlier, an anomaly causes Cocoon to suddenly vanish, and a Gogmagog emerges from a rift. After defeating it and arriving at the crash site, Noel tells Serah they are seeing images from a bleak future. He tells her that he is from 700 years in the future and offers to take her to Lightning before ending up in a minor confrontation with Gadot. Noel takes Serah's hand and places it against the meteorite, showing that it's actually a time gate telling her that Lightning is in Valhalla, waiting on the other side.

Later, Noel tells Serah and NORA his story, and tells them about artefacts, though some of them still remain skeptical of his claims. The next day, Serah admits to Noel she is still hesitant to believe his claims. He tells her there is a lot that he does not understand himself, but if they find an artefact they can both put their doubts to rest. Noel and Serah ask the locals for information, during which they find Serah's pet cat and Lightning's knife. At one point, Noel meets Serah's students and learns how Lightning used to teach her growing up. He tells Serah how he learned many things from his grandmother though she also spoiled him. After they recover Snow's engagement pendant from Rhett, Serah tells Noel about Snow and his promise to find Lightning for her, causing Noel to ask Serah whether or not she is waiting for Snow in vain. She eventually uncovers the artefact needed for her and Noel to use the time gate.

Noel tells Serah he wants a future with people living in it and reveals to her that he is the last human alive in his time, how he wishes to change that, and how Lightning gave him hope and the chance to do so. After fighting another Gogmagog, they make their way to the time gate. The members of NORA see them off though Gadot still expresses aggression toward Noel for Serah's safety, but Noel vows that he will protect Serah.

They enter the time gate and fly through the Historia Crux with Noel explaining to Serah that it's the crossroads of the time continuum. They come out into the Bresha Ruins 005 AF, and Noel is in awe seeing how Cocoon looks from the inside. Upon arrival they are attacked by a giant arm and during the battle Noel scales up the arm and strikes what he believes to be an invisible giant. Afterward, PSICOM warships fire upon the giant Atlas, causing it to retreat further into the ruins. Noel and Serah are promptly taken into custody, but are soon freed by Academy scientist, Alyssa Zaidelle, who wants to learn about the gates and paradoxes but as long as Atlas is around causing trouble, the ruins will be closed off and she will not be able to get any answers. Noel offers to stop Atlas with Alyssa helping him and Serah as their faraway informant.

At one point, they witness a defeated monster turn into a crystal. To both Noel and Serah's surprise, Mog speaks for the first time and says it is now under their control and Noel remembers Lightning having an army of monsters in battle alongside her. They go into the underground tunnels to find a machine that Alyssa claims is capable of controlling Atlas. Standing before a time gate, Noel gets concerned for Serah and asks her if she is having visions. Upon finding the device, however, Atlas's hand appears and pulls them into a Temporal Rift. Solving the anomaly activates the machine, weakening Atlas enough for Noel and Serah to defeat him by destroying the crystal on his head. With Atlas gone the Bresha Ruins are restored to their former glory. Upon finding a nearby graveyard, Alyssa shows them the grave of a friend of hers who died during the Purge, revealing that she is a Purge survivor.

Noel, Mog, and Serah eventually re-enter the Historia Crux and travel to Yaschas Massif 010 AF. They see the area darkened by a solar eclipse, causing Noel to recall a story about a fal'Cie blocking out the sun 500 years before his time. After learning what year it is from a researcher, Noel and Serah believe the eclipse is being caused by a paradox. Trying gain entry into the Paddra Ruins, an Aloeidai appears to challenge them. As the monster is sucking them into a vortex after its defeat, they are saved by the Academy leader, a 24-year-old Hope Estheim, who reveals to have full knowledge of Noel due to the events at Bresha five years ago. Noel and Serah also meet up with an older Alyssa, who is now Hope's assistant. After learning from Hope that a tribe of Farseers led by a seeress once lived in the ruins, Noel runs off in amazement, looks into the sky and asks, "Can you see me now? Standing here in this place..."

Later, Hope and Alyssa talk more about the Farseers and a seeress named Yeul, who had the ability to see the future, and had foretold the city-state's destruction. Noel uses one of Hope's tools, an ancient device called the Oracle Drive, and induces a vision of Lightning and the events leading up to Fang and Vanille's sacrifice to save Cocoon ten years before. Hope uses the device to display grainy images of Lightning's battle with Caius in Valhalla. Noel and Serah decide to use the artefact given to them by Hope, and resolve the paradox affecting the area, and in turn the Oracle Drive.

At Oerba 200 AF, Noel, Serah and Mog see the area being torn apart by a void. Mog says it's because of different time periods merging together. After restoring the village by solving the anomalies, Serah activates the Oracle Drive on the old schoolhouse, producing images of her reunion with Lightning. Noel and Serah are confronted by Caius and his companion Yeul, who says that she has seen them. Noel grabs Yeul calling out her name but she tells him she is not his Yeul. Caius tells them Yeul does not exist as a single person, and that he has come to punish Serah and Noel for tampering with time. After battling Caius, he tells them that they will pay for their crimes with blood and sends blades of magic toward them. Noel pulls Serah out of the way to protect her before Caius manages to take them down. Noel tells Caius he doesn't want to fight him, but Caius does not listen. Before he can kill Noel, Yeul steps in, saying time has already been changed and she and Caius leave.

Returning to the Yaschas Massif in 1X AF, they see an alternate reality where the eclipse never occurred. Upon entering the ruins, Yeul appears to Serah and Noel, giving Serah a cryptic message before leaving. After repeating their introduction to Hope, they see the now clear images of Lightning in Valhalla, and the Oracle Drive projects images of Caius and Cocoon falling. Noel tells Serah that in his time, the world fell into ruin after the fall of Cocoon. A panicking Alyssa asks Noel if Cocoon is going to fall soon but to her relief, he says it will happen in a couple of centuries. Serah assures him that it does not have to be that way, and they could change the future and prevent Cocoon from falling.

The next time gate they enter takes them to the Void Beyond, which Noel notes resembling Valhalla. Serah asks if Lightning is here and he says that she is not since the area looks different. As Serah begins to doubt the possibility of finding her sister, Noel tells her a legend about Etro that recites: "'Never give up, for the Goddess Etro watches always, and helps those who help themselves,'" and how thinking about those words helped him through hard times. Noel reassures Serah that they are one step closer to Lightning with each time gate they pass through.

After he, Mog, and Serah arrive at the Sunleth Waterscape 300 AF, they come across a trail of Miniflan. Seeing more of them appear out of nowhere, they assume the phenomenon is caused by a paradox. Serah has another vision and Noel catches her as she falls unconscious. She knocks Noel down after coming to and runs off. Noel follows her and they find Snow being attacked by a group of Miniflan. As he tries to protect Serah from Royal Ripeness, Noel comes to their aid. He tells Snow that he will handle things and that he should go, but Snow shoves him aside and the three of them fight the monster together. In a joint effort, they defeat Royal Ripeness. However, the Miniflan come together and reform the monster, causing the party to retreat at Noel's insistence.

Afterward, Noel criticizes Snow for wanting to stay behind and fight, telling him that people like him who do not know when to retreat don't live long. Snow rubs off Noel's comment before the latter tells him that humans are weak and die easily. Noel demands to know why Snow left Serah behind and what he is doing in the future. Hearing Snow's explanation about Lightning asking him to protect Cocoon's crystal pillar in a dream, Noel decides to put their differences aside and work with him. The three of them see the trail of Miniflan and decide to follow them in the hopes of finding an artefact.

As the party follows the Miniflan, they come to a valley where Noel believes they should turn back when a giant Enlil appears. After Snow gets Enlil's "permission" to ride on its back, Noel warns him that Enlil can swallow him whole, but Snow disregards Noel's warning and jumps onto Enlil's back. Serah, Noel and Mog follow suit and they manage to get through the valley and find some Miniflan gathered around an artefact. Defeating the creatures puts it in the party's possession. Noel learns that Fang and Vanille were similar to him in how they were also from Pulse, and found themselves in an unfamiliar world. Snow promises he will introduce them to Noel someday. Coming at a gate, Noel tells Snow not to do anything stupid and wait for him and Serah to return.

In the Coliseum, Noel, Serah and Mog encounter the Arbiter of Time, who demands them to leave while mentioning an omen of sorts. Noel believes the omen to be an artefact, and tries to bargain with the creature. He gestures Serah to stay back and tells the Arbiter of Time they will leave in exchange for the omen, and the creature vanishes leaving an artefact behind. Serah says Snow is waiting for them and Noel replies that he is not waiting quietly. Noel says that Snow thinks he is everyone's boss, and is the type to charge into danger without thinking and abandons concern for their own safety. He says Snow is the type to believe that self-sacrifice will save everyone but ultimately gets innocent people killed. Noel tells Serah that unlike Snow, he knows the difference between fantasy and reality and not to compare him to Snow, still believing that he abandoned her without considering how it might hurt her.

They return to Sunleth and use another time gate. Arriving in the Archylte Steppe in an unknown year, Noel saves Serah from nearly being trampled by a group of hunters riding chocobos, and being a hunter himself, Noel believes they are chasing after prey. Learning that the cause of a storm in the area is a dragon sucking Miniflan through its mouth, they figure that it's the cause of the anomaly in the Sunleth Waterscape. After Noel and Serah defeat the Faeryl and resolve the anomaly causing Royal Ripeness to continue growing, Noel says they should hurry before Snow does something foolish. He tells Serah that he never thought about the fact that she is separated from someone important to her since he grew up in a world where people never knew when they would have to part, and they had to cherish every moment like it was their last. Returning to Sunleth, they find Snow not waiting for them as he promised, but on the ropes in front of the monster that has reduced in size.

After defeating the giant flan for good, Noel asks Snow why he continued fighting despite knowing he didn't stand a chance. Hearing his answer, Noel tells Snow he hates people like him more than anything and accuses him of never truly saving anyone or thinking about how the consequences of his actions might hurt the people he is supposed to protect. Snow tells Noel that he has been looking after Serah, and he must have protected loved ones back in his own time. Noel says that he couldn't protect them all which is why he is now all alone.

Snow says that Noel is right like he said before, about not being able to return to the people you have protected if you do not live long enough. Snow entrusts Serah's safety to Noel and starts to vanish. Noel thinks it is because Snow does not belong in this time and the paradox had been dealt with. Serah notices a Pulse l'Cie brand on Snow's arm before he fades away. As Serah despairs, Noel says that Snow might not have been transformed by force, but may have asked for it. Serah says that no one would ask to be made a l'Cie, but Noel says Snow probably did it for the power to accomplish a mission he could not normally do. He also says that people like Snow would become l'Cie of their own free will for the power to protect others. He says that he despises Snow for that but understands him as well.

Back in the Void Beyond, Noel asks Serah if she has had any more dreams ever since they met, and she tells him she has had dreams since then. Serah asks Noel about Yeul and if she is also traveling through time like them and Snow. Noel believes that the Farseer tribes all had a girl with the same appearance and power, so the name Yeul must have been passed down through the generations. When Serah asks him how his era will change if they solve all the paradoxes, Noel believes it will be a future where he does not exist but is fine with it, because of all the sadness in his time, the world would be better off if it never happened.

The trio arrives at Academia in 400 AF where people are mysteriously transformed into Cie'th. After they fight their way through the city, Noel pretends to surrender in order to reveal the person behind the events. Caius appears and mocks Noel for his strategy. Noel tells Caius he has no reason to be fighting him and Serah, but Caius does not listen and calls them enemies as they are contradictions in the timeline, giving him enough reason to kill them. He says that Serah and Noel were killed after learning the forbidden history within a tower two hundred years ago and have appeared before him alive and well, a paradox in itself. Serah asks if it is an event that has not happened yet. Noel tells Caius he has no intention of killing him, but Caius does not listen and summons a horde of Cie'th, leaving Serah and Noel to die.

They soon find Yeul wandering the streets alone and being attacked by Cie'th. Noel helps her up but she is grabbed and thrown by Zenobia, prompting Noel to charge it. After the battle he holds Yeul in his arms as she tells him about her vision of death, and how she is a contradiction to the timeline as long as she lives. Serah frets that their actions are making the fate awaiting Yeul unavoidable. Before she dies, Yeul tells them Caius wasn't in the city.

They use the artefact given by Yeul to travel 200 years in the past, to the Augusta Tower, where Noel and Serah learn that Hope had created a Proto fal'Cie to keep Cocoon airborne without its pillar. They soon find footage of them from Academia, causing Noel to believe that Caius may have been watching them from the tower the whole time. He also confesses that he sensed something off about Caius in Academia, and thinks that he probably wasn't the real Caius. Noel tells Serah about how he and Caius were Yeul's Guardians, how Caius abandoned them, how Noel came to be the only one left, causing him to leave on a journey until a time gate appeared to him and he ended up in Valhalla. A moment later Noel says he can't remember what happened after Caius left him and Yeul and how she died, although he still remembers her face. As they explore the tower, they notice something off about its people, and also see Caius wandering the premises.

Noel, Serah and Mog eventually meet an artificial duplicate of Alyssa. As they ascend the levels of the tower, a blurry video of Hope, Alyssa, and other scientists being attacked by machines plays. Alyssa disassembles into blocks of light and forms several machine monsters for Serah and Noel to fight. When she reappears, she tells them they just saw a recording of the incident that occurred in the tower 187 years ago at 13 AF: Hope and the real Alyssa were killed as they were in the way of the Proto fal'Cie's A.I. The Alyssa duplicate disappears leaving Noel and Serah to fight. Afterward, she reappears, telling them they now know the tower's forbidden history and therefore can never leave and disappears for good.

On the tower's top level, they encounter the Yeul they met in Oerba, who gives them an artefact and implores them to protect time. She reveals that Caius is immortal and retains memory of all timeline events. Yeul tells them that even before they had met, history had been changed in accordance to the changing future. She says Lightning disappeared because the future had changed and if Serah and Noel solve the paradoxes the past will return to how Serah remembers it. Yeul tells them the Caius from Academia was a copy made by the Proto fal'Cie Adam, the source of the paradox, and the real Caius is in the tower, then implores that they show her a new future.

Noel, Mog and Serah emerge from a gate and enter a battle against Adam, who keeps returning whenever defeated until Serah manages to get it erased from existence by scolding Hope out-loud for creating it. After Adam disappears from existence, Noel grabs Serah just before she falls over the platform's edge. She has another vision of the future and fall unconscious. Noel calls out to her and brings her back and Serah tells Noel that he worries too much. Returning to where they spoke with Yeul, Noel jokes about how Serah resembles Lightning when she is mad causing Serah to warn him that Lightning may be watching.

The trio returns to Academia in 4XX AF to find another alternate reality, where the city is peaceful and the Proto fal'Cie is gone. Hope and Alyssa appear saying this is the future they had protected. Serah and Noel are cautious from the events of Augusta Tower, but their minds are promptly put at ease. Noel and Serah notice the Thirteenth Ark in the sky, wondering if it was always there and the Proto fal'Cie was hiding it from them. At Academy headquarters, they learn that in 13 AF, Hope created the plan for the Proto fal'Cie but scrapped it after seeing Serah yelling at him for doing so through the Oracle Drive, and he and Alyssa went into the future in a time capsule he invented. They have now devised a plan to build a new man-made Cocoon that will be made airborne through the use of five Graviton Cores. After finding the cores, Noel and Serah get an artefact from Alyssa.

Serah asks Noel if Caius will try to interfere again. He says that Caius will if it's what it takes to protect Yeul, but wonders why the real Caius didn't intervene with the events in Academia. Noel remembers that he and Caius used to argue about how to protect Yeul, but the memory suddenly slips from his grasp, and he cannot remember whether or not he and Caius argued at all. Before they leave through a new time gate, Hope and Alyssa come to see them off. Hope tells them how his friends saved him from being consumed by hate, and how Serah's wish for him and the others to save Cocoon motivated them to work together, and that to this day, Fang and Vanille continue to fulfill that wish. Noel says that it is human nature to repeat the mistakes of the past but learning from them to create a better world is what truly matters most. Promising to meet again in the future, Noel, Serah and Mog part with Hope and Alyssa.

After entering the Historia Crux, Noel becomes separated from Serah and Mog as a result of Alyssa betraying them. He emerges in the Void Beyond and engages Caius, but is defeated and impaled from behind. Noel falls as chaos emerges from his body and disappears into a dream world based on his homeworld, reliving the highlights of his past without acknowledging Serah watching and following him. When Noel is being pulled off the ground toward a light in the sky, Serah grabs hold of his arm and calls out to him, causing him to remember her. As they levitate, she tells him that he was living in a dream and would have been happy forever and apologizes for having to take him away from it, but he thanks her, saying that all people have to wake up from their dreams sooner or later. Falling out of the sky together, they battle Gogmagog.

Light is restored to the Dying World and Noel tells Serah he has regained some of his memories. He tells her that a seeress's power to have visions of the future shortens their lifespan, and they die young, just like how the Yeul he knew died at only fifteen years old. Despite now having full knowledge of her impending death from her cursed power, Serah decides to continue in their quest to change the future since it's what Lightning wants them to do. Activating the Oracle Drive at the Farseers' Relic, Noel finally gets closure with Yeul and vows to settle things with Caius once learning that he is the one causing the paradoxes.

They emerge from a paradox and find themselves in what appears to be New Bodhum in 700 AF. The village is now a wasteland and Noel calls it similar to his era. On the beach, Lightning emerges from a portal before them, and says they are in a future that she could not save. After Lightning explains everything to them, she says that Caius plans to destroy Etro while she sleeps in Valhalla and unleash an immense amount of chaos out into the world through an unseen doorway that opens for the souls of the departed. Hearing Lightning say the door would open wide enough if a large amount of people died all at once, Noel says that would be possible if Cocoon fell. Lightning says if that were to happen a world of chaos would appear and time would become meaningless.

After Serah points out that the world would essentially become like Valhalla itself, Lightning believes that it is Caius's plan to create a timeless world. Noel says that Caius wants to sacrifice countless lives and remake the world in order to save Yeul from her cursed fate. Lightning tells them that in 500 AF, Caius will attempt to bring down the old Cocoon and Hope's new one in one fell swoop. Serah asks Lightning if they will be together again when the fight is over, but Lightning responds "One thing at a time, Serah", and leaves.

Noel, Mog, Serah travel to Academia 500 AF, the time of the prophecy of Cocoon's fall, and Noel wonders if the world is already falling apart since the city now slightly resembles Valhalla. As they traverse the city's floating block platforms to reach the Academy headquarters, they hear Yeul's voice telling them not to fight Caius and risk killing Etro, but Noel says they have made the choice to go onward. While approaching the Academy headquarters, Caius as Chaos Bahamut swoops down at them before flying off toward the new Cocoon. A horde of monsters appears to challenge them, but Hope and a squadron of soldiers arrive to give them backup support. Atop a PSICOM warmech piloted by Sazh Katzroy, they pursue and fight Chaos Bahamut. He damages the airship but Serah saves Noel from falling over the edge before Caius challenges them in human form.

When Caius is about to strike Serah, Noel intercepts and protects her with Caius telling Noel he would have made a worthy Guardian. When Sazh flips the airship vertically, Noel and Serah strike Caius in midair sending him flying. A wormhole opens in the sky and Chaos Bahamut flies into it. Another warship pulls up beside them with Hope telling them that they can catch Caius. Serah implores Hope to go back and make sure Fang and Vanille are safe, which he does.

Noel, Mog, and Serah jump into the wormhole and come out in Valhalla. Odin saves them from their fall before they face off against Caius on the beach. Noel asks Caius if he believes causing destruction will make Yeul happy. He says that in her last moments, she always smiled because she believed that she would be reborn, and that she kept coming back in order to meet Caius again. Caius does not listen and Noel clashes blades with him before slashing him down, but Caius comes back to life in the form of Jet Bahamut. As he attacks them, Noel tries to cover Serah from the blast. As they fall into a bottomless abyss, they are saved by Lightning, who pulls them back toward the surface, then disappears.

After the final battle, Noel tells Caius he still does not intend to kill him, even for Yeul's sake. Caius tries to force Noel to kill him by saying that he killed Lightning and sentenced her to an eternal sleep. As Noel still refuses to kill him, Caius lunges at Serah, provoking Noel to take action. He stops himself from stabbing Caius at the last second, but Caius takes Noel's blade and forces it through his chest while telling him to bear the burden of the eternal paradox. As chaos slowly leaves Caius's body, Noel laments how Caius had been consumed by sorrow and despair due to watching so many Yeuls die, and how he sought to die in Valhalla so all the Yeuls wouldn't have to endure their cycle of rebirth. Noel however only wants to be with reunited the Yeul he knew, knowing that they will meet again someday in the future. Taking Caius's sword, Ragnarok, Noel places it in front of his former friend as a grave marker, hoping that Caius finds peace.

When a series of gates appear throughout Valhalla, Noel asks Serah if she feels any pain but she tells him no. Serah asks him if Caius really could have killed Lightning, but Noel says that he couldn't have since death does not exist in Valhalla. Mog jokes they might see Snow again, and Noel says it may be up to Lightning. Noel, Serah and Mog leave Valhalla and return to Pulse in 500 AF to find Hope's new Cocoon, named Bhunivelze, afloat. After the gate to Valhalla closes, Serah thanks Noel but suddenly has another vision and dies in his arms. When Hope arrives from Academia to greet them, Noel tells him that Serah didn't make it. As Noel mourns for Serah and how he failed to protect her, the world turns dark and Mog begins to weaken as he reveals that Etro is no more. Noel remembers Caius's words about the Heart of Chaos, realizing that he unknowingly played into Caius's scheme and killed the goddess as Gran Pulse and Bhunivelze are infected by chaos, making the world resemble Valhalla.

Abilities and Equipment


Noel has the ability to capture and tame monsters, who will then fight alongside him and Serah on their journey. Noel begins with the Commando, Ravager, and Sentinel roles. He majors as Commando and Synergist, and is a decent Medic. Noel also makes a good Sentinel for his high health stat. He is not as proficient as a Saboteur and he learns only a few spells for that role. Noel's Full ATB Skill is Meteor Javelin, a Commando ability that hits the enemy multiple times, but clears the chain gauge. The ability is thus best used when the enemy is about to recover from stagger.

Weapons
Noel fights with two swords, which he can combine into a spear to jab enemies, and throw it like a javelin. In Noel's memories, it is revealed that he chose to fight with two swords because he wasn't able to best Caius with a single blade. Most of the names of Noel's swords are taken from Zidane Tribal's Thief Swords in Final Fantasy IX, such as Exploda, Rune Tooth and The Tower.


 * See: Noel's Swords

Creation and Development
As with the other playable characters in Final Fantasy XIII-2, Noel's face was designed by the character designer Tetsuya Nomura, while his body and clothes were designed by Yusuke Naora. Noel was first revealed in screenshots and a teaser video from the 2011 E3 trailer of Final Fantasy XIII-2. Noel is designed as a newcomer character who knows little about Cocoon and Gran Pulse, because the developers wanted to have Noel in a similar position to a newcomer player to Final Fantasy XIII. Naora designed Noel with his profession as a hunter in mind. He gave Noel lightweight clothes and a pouch to store a hunter's knife.

Developers also draw several differences between Noel and Snow. The game's director, Motomu Toriyama, describes Noel as "having a different type of chivalry from Snow", while the game's producer, Yoshinori Kitase, describes Noel as "attractive and stylish", as opposed to Snow being "the tough guy type". Comparing him to Lightning, Toriyama calls Noel "a brave young man burdened by a heavy destiny – a different type of a protagonist to Lightning". Yusuke Naora has said that he based the colors of Noel's Flame Fossil sword, red and yellow, on those of the original nameless protagonist from Final Fantasy III in Yoshitaka Amano's artwork.

As said by Kitase, Noel was created as a male protagonist with a similar age to Serah as a counterpoint after she was named the main female lead. Noel's appeal as a character comes from the fact that he comes from a vastly different environment from Serah's, therefore making him "a protagonist well beyond his years."

Square Enix has collaborated with Ubisoft allowing them to offer a downloadable costume for Noel. The costume is Ezio Auditore's appearance from the latest game in the Ubisoft franchise of Assassin's Creed - Assassin's Creed: Revelations.

Musical Themes
In Final Fantasy XIII-2, "Noel's Theme", composed by Naoshi Mizuta, is a slow, brooding, and acoustic orchestral variant of the main theme, "Wishes". It represents the loneliness Noel feels due to being the only human left in his time, and his desire and determination to change the future.

He has another theme, titled "Noel's Theme ~Last Journey~," which is a lyrical version of his original theme with vocals performed by KOKIA. Variants of his theme include the main battle theme, "The Last Hunter", "Full Speed Ahead", and the melancholy orchestral version titled, "Memories for the Future". His theme is also heard in "Endless Paradox" and the "Closing Credits".

A remix of Noel's Theme is to to be included in the Original Soundtrack PLUS and a segment of it is the background theme on the soundtrack's website.

Etymology
"Noël" is French for "Christmas", but originates, like other Latin-derived language forms for the word, from the Latin "Natalis", which means "Birth". In German, "Kreis" means "Circle"; the second "s" may be added purely for pronunciation.

Trivia

 * Noel shares certain characteristics with Fang, who was originally designed as a male character, in the ways that he has a straight-forward cocky personality, has trouble remembering parts of his past, wears tribal clothing with a similar color palette and has a red double-bladed weapon that can also be used as a spear.
 * Noel appears on the 500th cover of Dengeki PlayStation magazine with Lightning, Serah, Noctis, Machina Kunagiri, and Rem Tokimiya.
 * In a Live Trigger in New Bodhum -003 AF-, he proclaims that his favorite food is Adamantoise, even though they are not present in his hometown.
 * One of the scrapped playable character ideas for Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings was a ninja aegyl who was supposed to be the last survivor of his village. The character was scrapped as the game's co-director, Takanari Ishiyama, felt that there would have been too many playable characters. This character idea may or may not have been reused by Toriyama for Noel Kreiss, considering their similarities (both dual wield weapons and have "wings" on their back, and are last survivors).