Cielo

Cielo is one of the main characters in the short story in the Final Fantasy XIII Ultimania Omega titled Final Fantasy XIII Gaiden Shōsetsu: Yumemiru Mayu, Akatsuki ni Otsu. He is an airship freight pilot who admires his colleague, Sazh Katzroy, and soon becomes involved in the efforts to save Cocoon.

Appearance
Cielo is described as a young man with a lean body.

Personality
Cielo has a youthful, energetic, and laid-back nature, unable to stay still and not one to worry much. Being an admirer of Sazh, Cielo looks up to him and regards the senior pilot with great respect. Despite having some confidence in his skills as a pilot, Cielo believes Sazh's abilities to be out of his league. As a pilot, he loves his job as he gets to travel the skies, and praises others who have impressive flying skills.

Story
Cielo has been grounded by an air-traffic controller right before takeoff, so he rests up in his airship's cockpit, putting his feet up onto the control panel. Ever since Sazh, a fellow pilot, had gone on leave over a week ago, Cielo has been working overtime to pick up the slack. The flights Cielo pilots are being regulated and delayed ever since the Purge took place the other day. Growing frustrated with his increasing fatigue, Cielo tries calming himself by thinking about Sazh. Rumors circulated that after the Pulse fal'Cie was discovered in Bodhum, even airship crews that landed there at that time were detained for the Purge. As he worries that Sazh might have been swept up in it, Cielo dismisses the notion as Sazh had mentioned going to Euride Gorge with his son Dajh, and believes he would have heard of something happening to Sazh due to the news of an accident at the site. Then Cielo dozes off and, while humming the tune of the Pompa Sancta, he fantasizes about flying freely not in the skies of Cocoon but a vast sky without borders, wondering where such a sky could exist.

Cielo is awakened from his daydream by a call from the control tower finally permitting him to take off, and he takes off without hesitation. Now airborne, Cielo takes off like an arrow and flies towards the destination of the packages, the city of Eden. He suddenly spots a speeding military aircraft that appears to leave from the remote area around Lake Bresha and receives an order to make an emergency stop in midair. At high speed, unmanned PSICOM attack ships pursue the unknown airship, which Cielo surmises is being piloted by a person as he watches it outmaneuver the PSICOM ships by guiding them into the molten plasma of the fal'Cie Phoenix. He watches the spectacle from the edge of his seat, admiring the skills of the mystery pilot, and secretly rooting for those being chased by PSICOM. Despite hoping for the airship to make it out, it's struck by approaching reinforcements and starts falling towards the Vile Peaks. Without thinking about who might have been the airship's pilot, Cielo prays for the safety of those on board.

Weeks later in Eden, piloting a small military airship abandoned in the chaos, Cielo calls out to a girl named René as soon as she exits a Sanctum building. He tells her to get in since they're the only ones left in the area, and need to get to an active gravity control facility before Cocoon falls from the sky following the announcement made earlier. René boards and yells at him to go to Bodhum so she can activate the AMP gravity controls and save the Purge survivors hiding there. Without asking for any details, Cielo takes off flying with such speed and accuracy that René feels as though their meeting is a form of a miracle. René apologizes for getting Cielo involved with her dangerous mission but he has been waiting for the chance to do something like this.

Defying logic, he flies into Bodhum airspace and lands at the gravity control facility, which already has evacuees nearby, having been led there by NORA's members. Cielo asks René if they can have another "date in the skies" if they survive, but she probably could not hear him as she jumps out of the cockpit without a moment to lose. René begins to install her program to automatically set the ideal gravitational setting when a powerful tremor is felt throughout Cocoon with the fal'Cie Eden's death and the world begins falling. The cities' evacuation areas escape the adverse effects of the acceleration with the AMP tech at its maximum output. However, in parts of the cities not subjected to gravitational control, buildings crumble as if bombed and roads ripple like waves, seas gush, and mountains come apart and fall towards the sky. Then a torrid wind blows throughout Cocoon. René closes her eyes and she and the rest of Cocoon pray to be saved by a miracle. Then René falls unconscious and the world goes dark.

After Cocoon is saved by a giant crystal pillar, Cielo flies René out of Cocoon. He waits a while for her to wake up but gets restless and leaves after the journalist Aoede arrives to keep René company. Sometime later while Aoede and René become acquainted, Cielo calls René from overhead as he pilots his airship and dodges any Pulsian creatures that get close. Aoede informs René that Cielo will re-extend his invitation to her before bidding René farewell and running over to where NORA and others are setting up camp to get more footage for her documentary. René tells Cielo that she did hear him earlier and accepts his offer for a date. René tells him to pick her up and Cielo descends in his airship towards her.