Caius Ballad



Caius Ballad (カイアス・バラッド) is the main antagonist of Final Fantasy XIII-2, who has engaged his fated rival, Lightning, in an endless battle on the shores of Valhalla. Caius is an important figure in both Noel Kreiss's past and Serah Farron's future.

Caius is the immortal Guardian of the seeress, Paddra Nsu-Yeul. Having lived since before the War of Transgression, he protected Yeul from any foreign threat. Because his efforts to change the future shorten the seeress's life, he now seeks to destroy the world to end her suffering by killing the goddess Etro.

In the Japanese version of Final Fantasy XIII-2, Caius is voiced by Hiroshi Shirokuma, and in the English version, he is voiced by Liam O'Brien.

Datalog
''Caius Ballad is the man Serah saw in her dream, fighting with Lightning. In 200 AF, he appears with Yeul in the village of Oerba, and attempts to administer justice for Serah and Noel's crime of changing history.''

Noel seems to know this dark warrior, but is unsettled to have encountered Caius in that time period.

Caius Ballad is a former l'Cie and the immortal Guardian of the seeress, Yeul.

''Everything this man has done for the past several centuries has been for the purpose of freeing his charge from her curse of eternal reincarnation. If he can kill the goddess and send the artificial Cocoon plummeting into Pulse, the resulting flood of volatile chaos through Etro's Gate would shatter the boundary between Valhalla and the mortal realm. Life and death would cease to hold meaning, and Yeul's cruel fate would finally be undone. Or so Caius believes...''

Helmwige's Nightshade
''Caius, the peerless hero celebrated in Paddra legend, was a Guardian, appointed to serve and protect the seeress. The sagas sung of his countless victories, of foes vanquished in the thousands. He was called 'Caius of the Ballads,' but despite his renown, none knew his true origin.''

He took the name 'Ballad' because of the one battle that nearly killed him.

''The foe was a fellow warrior of the Farseers. Overwhelmed by the strength and skill of his opponent, Caius was driven back and back, until it was only a matter of time before the final blow would fall. But their duel was interrupted by an enemy attack, and during the ensuing battle Caius's opponent gave his life defending the seeress. Caius believed that it was he who should have fallen in her defense. Thus, to honor the fallen warrior, he took his name.''

Appearance and Personality
Caius is a tall, slender, and muscular man with light bronze skin and purple eyes. He has long purple hair adorned with feathers and tribal beads, and he wears a long, purple and black headband. Caius's form-fitting black and purple armor resembles Bahamut and he wears dark boots lined with white fur. The Etro script on Caius's armor translates to: Undying Witness of Infinite Fate. It is said that the eye on the hilt of Caius's sword is the eidolith capable of summoning Bahamut, which was a gift from the goddess Etro when he served as a l'Cie. Caius is capable of incarnate summoning, which allows him to fuse with Bahamut and become Chaos Bahamut. In his alternate form, he appears as Bahamut does in Final Fantasy XIII, only with a darker color scheme.

Caius is an all-powerful warrior of equal strength to Lightning. As the immortal guardian of the timeline, he has gained knowledge of every possible scenario and uses it to his advantage. He is described as calm, but he rarely displays emotions, making it difficult for others to tell what his thoughts or intentions are. Noel describes Caius as being like "the calm before the storm," that Caius may appear to be silent until he sees a weakness in his enemies, and once he does, he will expose it without mercy. Once Caius's goals are revealed, he becomes more emotional and filled with rage in his conviction, as he is ultimately a man consumed and driven by sorrow and anguish.

Early Life
Born prior to the War of Transgression, Caius was a member of the Farseers, the oldest tribe on Gran Pulse. The Farseers were led by a seeress named Paddra Nsu-Yeul, who was gifted with the Eyes of Etro and thus able to see changes in the timeline, and make prophecies of the future. Caius was made a l'Cie after killing Yeul's Guardian, after which he assumed the role. One day, Caius was in a duel with a formidable fellow warrior of the Farseers. Overwhelmed by his opponent's strength and skill, Caius was driven back until an enemy army invaded Paddra looking for the seeress, interrupting the duel before the final blow could be dealt. In Yeul's defense, Caius's opponent sacrificed himself to protect her.

Believing he should have been the one to die, Caius chose to honor the fallen warrior by taking on his last name, 'Ballad.' To protect Yeul himself, Caius performed an incarnate summon to destroy the enemy forces, a skill that let him become one with his Eidolon but would cost him his life. Etro was moved by Caius's dedication to the seeress and freed Caius from his fate as a l'Cie and infused her heart, the Heart of Chaos, into his body, making him immortal so he could protect every incarnation of Yeul until the end of time. Although given as an act of benevolence, Caius would eventually see his immortality as a curse due to the madness he would have to endure.

The city of Paddra was destroyed in a civil war that broke out due to the seeress's prophecy of its fall, and Yeul cast away her role as the leader of Paddra. The people who used to follow her would become nomads, and Caius was always by her side as her eternal Guardian. Whenever a Yeul would die, a new one would be born and replace the old one; although the Yeuls are unique, they have the same voice and appearance. As their immortal Guardian, Caius was to remember every prophecy made by the Yeuls, and he had to witness their deaths countless times.

Having visions of the future eats away at the seeress's life until it kills her; this is why the seeress always dies before reaching her twentieth birthday. Having to witness Yeul's death over and over again drives Caius mad, and he begins to wish for a way to release her from the endless cycle. At the same time, Caius wishes to find someone capable of destroying the Heart of Chaos within his chest and releasing him from his curse.

Final Fantasy XIII-2
Starting in 3 AF, Caius watches over Noel and Serah's progress alongside different incarnations of Yeul. Noel and Serah are time travelers trying to find Lightning and prevent a bleak future, but every change in the timeline they make causes Yeul to witness the changes, thus shortening her lifespan. As a seeress, she is forbidden from influencing the timeline to save herself, and Caius, as her Guardian, follows suit.

In 200 AF, Caius reveals himself to Noel and Serah during their visit to Oerba. Noel is shocked to meet Caius, as he mistakes this Caius for the one he once knew in 700 AF, although this is still in Caius's future. Revealing that Yeul had told him of their actions across time, believing them to have been the cause of the temporal anomalies that threaten the timeline, Caius states his intention to punish them. Telling a defiant Noel that he is not the man he once knew, Caius is prepares to deal the final blow before Yeul intervenes, saying that time has already been changed. Caius kneels before her, asking if they can accept it, to which Yeul gives a silent nod. Caius tells her they should go in order to not see the future any further, opening a portal for the two of them to depart through.

Caius takes Yeul to Augusta Tower upon her request, and he allows her to meet with Noel and Serah in private and reveal his nature as her immortal Guardian. Yeul helps Noel and Serah by giving them an artefact that opens a Time Gate to the Proto fal'Cie Adam, and tells them they have the power to restore the timeline. Noel and Serah set out to change the future, and the subsequent change in the timeline causes Yeul to have another vision, which kills her.

Caius picks up the flower Yeul had dropped and then her body, shedding tears and saying he will carry her pain in his heart. Caius laments on how her life was short, just as all the other Yeuls he had known over the years, and carries away her body.

Two-hundred years later in the city of Academia, Noel and Serah are surrounded by countless Cie'th and approached by Caius, who claims they were killed in Augusta Tower after having learned of the "forbidden history," and because they stand before him alive and well, he accuses the two of being paradoxes. Noel finds Caius's behavior to be unlike him, after which Caius summons several Cie'th and leaves Noel and Serah to fight them. Noel and Serah pursue Caius throughout the city, eventually learning from a Yeul who perishes after an attack from an Undying that the Caius they were chasing was not the real Caius and that he was never in the city to begin with.

By 700 AF, Caius is among the last remaining humans in the world and Noel is born in the Farseer tribe. Seeing that Noel is the one with the potential to free him from his curse, Caius takes the boy under his wing to serve as Yeul's protector. If everything goes according to Caius's plan, Noel will able to destroy the Heart of Chaos inside of him and kill Etro. Without the goddess, the chaos of the Unseen World will break free and flow into the physical world, ceasing the flow of time and freeing Yeul.

Upon learning that Noel had defeated a Behemoth on his own, Caius acknowledges the boy is ready to become the one true Guardian and tells Noel he must kill him just as Caius had once killed his predecessor. Refusing to succeed him that way, Noel tells Caius about his plan of going on a journey with Yeul to find other people so she will not be lonely anymore. Caius reprimands him, saying it is a futile dream.

After revealing that his death and Etro's demise are the only way Yeul can be saved from her cursed fate, Noel's continued refusal to kill him forces Caius to drive Noel to the point where he has to fight. Defeating Noel, Caius sees that the boy is not strong enough kill him as he is now. Caius leaves for Valhalla after telling Noel that Yeul's feelings over his actions mean nothing to him, only that she will be free upon Etro's death. With the Heart of Chaos, Caius finds his way to the Unseen Realm of Valhalla where Etro resides, this being the first time he abandons Yeul as her Guardian.

From Valhalla, a realm without time or death, Caius sees every era and every possibility in the timeline. While he cannot time travel, he sends messages to his past self from the Unseen Realm. Using the knowledge of foresight he has obtained over the centuries, Caius creates a series of paradoxes to shape the timeline and create the right circumstances to execute his plan to force Etro's Gate to open so the chaos of Valhalla can enter Gran Pulse. As elaborated in Final Fantasy XIII-2 Ultimania Omega, Caius is well aware that his creating paradoxes across the timeline shortens Yeul's life, but his plan is to destroy the world in a way that minimizes the adverse effects his time-changing has on her. When Serah and Noel solve the paradoxes the possibilities of the future broaden, but at the same time, Caius proceeds to cut them down. Because of Caius's desire to reduce the number of possibilities for the future to the point where only the world's inevitable destruction remains, he allows Serah and Noel to solve the paradoxes, as the world is still heading towards its doom. Caius knows the world will end in 700 AF anyway, and he wants to ease Yeul's suffering by destroying the world sooner than it is meant to happen.

While Caius's plans of creating paradoxes across the timeline are unraveling, he is simultaneously trying to kill Etro as she sleeps in her shrine. The goddess is being protected by Lightning, a warrior who was brought to Valhalla by waves of chaos and became Etro's champion. Unknown to both, the battle they wage in Valhalla is an endless loop, continuing for an eternity.

Back in the Dying World, Yeul dies in Noel's arms, and she passes on to Valhalla. Noel believes he is the last human in the world, and prays to Etro to give him the power of chaos to follow Caius to Valhalla. Caius lays Yeul's lifeless body to rest in the waters off Valhalla's shore and she disperses into light. A saddened Caius asks if she never asked for this kind of eternity. He sees Yeul's implanted vision of Cocoon crashing into Gran Pulse and Etro's shrine. Enraged, he summons a swarm of Pantopoda and other Rift Beasts to challenge Lightning to a battle. Caius's army is countered by her summoned army of monsters and Eidolons. Though he gets frozen by the Shiva sisters, Caius breaks free and grabs Nix before throwing her into Stiria. As Caius sees Lightning riding Odin towards him, he conjures a barrage of comets to counterattack.

After Lightning dodges Caius's onslaught, he sends a blade of energy towards her. Lightning deflects his attack and they meet face-to-face. Caius admits he is impressed by Lightning's strength before they cross swords. Caius grabs Lightning's gunblade and aims it directly at the Heart of Chaos inside of him, which begins to glow. When Lightning backs away in shock, Caius transforms into Chaos Bahamut and sends Lightning flying over Valhalla. Lightning remounts Odin and she and Caius continue their duel as he chases her and Odin along the beach and into the city. Lightning slashes him from behind, but Caius promptly returns with a head-on surprise attack.

After Odin saves Lightning, Caius returns to his human form. He fires magic projectiles at Lightning, but she sends them back at him. They continue to clash in a gravity field he creates with his power over chaos. Caius states that oblivion is the fate of all things and calls Lightning a worthy opponent before she takes him down, and he gets buried under a pile of rubble. Noel falls from the sky of Valhalla through Etro's Gate, the goddess having answered his prayer. Lightning saves Noel and Caius emerges from the rubble as Chaos Bahamut and continues to engage her in an aerial dogfight over Valhalla and summons a meteor above Etro's shrine. Lightning asks Noel to bring her sister, Serah, to Valhalla, and sends him through a Time Gate to New Bodhum in 3 AF, where Noel and Serah will begin their quest to find Lightning and save the future as travelers through time.

Learning of Lightning's gambit, Caius takes advantage of Alyssa Zaidelle, whose extended life is a paradox, in Academia 4XX AF. Caius has Alyssa give a booby-trapped artefact to Noel and Serah, and when the two use the artefact to open a Time Gate, they get separated in the Historia Crux and end up somewhere within the Void Beyond. Caius goes after Noel first, stabbing him in the back to release Noel's chaos before placing him in a dream world where Noel relives his past. Caius creates an illusion of Yeul to talk to Serah before personally engaging her in battle.

Caius admits he is impressed by Serah's strength and reveals how Etro's interference with the events of the Day of Ragnarok caused a time distortion that cut Yeul's life short. Revealing his goal to her, Caius impales Serah from behind, releasing her chaos as well as she enters her dream world. Believing himself to be free from the time travelers' interference, Caius journeys back to Valhalla and continues his battle against Lightning.

Catching her off guard after she sees a vision of Serah dying from her Eyes of Etro, Caius strikes Lightning down. Before he can deal the finishing blow, Lightning is swallowed by chaos. Yeul's spirit summons Caius to fight Lightning in both his human and Chaos Bahamut forms, but Lightning emerges victorious. Caius goes to Academia 500 AF to proceed with the mass genocide of the new Cocoon's populace that will force Etro's Gate to open. Final Fantasy XIII-2 Ultimania Omega scenario interview with Toriyama and Watanabe reveals that Academia 500 AF was so badly affected by chaos that Caius was able to come back there from Valhalla.

Serah and Noel escape their respective dream worlds and pursue Caius to Academia 500 AF. As they approach the Academy's headquarters, Caius transforms into Chaos Bahamut and swoops at them before flying off towards Hope Estheim's new Cocoon, but Serah and Noel catch up to him atop an airship piloted by Sazh Katzroy. After the initial battle, Caius reverts to his human form, telling Serah he is impressed by her determination to change the future despite she not surviving to see it due to being a seeress like Yeul. After fighting Serah and Noel atop the airship, Caius strikes Serah down and prepares to kill her, but Noel comes to her rescue.

Caius remarks Noel would have made a worthy Guardian and says everything he ever did, he did for Yeul. Believing the Yeuls being born only to die young is meaningless and cruel, Caius reaffirms he will stop at nothing to free them even if reality itself must be destroyed to achieve it. Sazh flips the airship vertically, sending Caius flying and allowing Noel and Serah to strike him in midair. Caius transforms into Chaos Bahamut and flies into a wormhole that opens in the sky.

As Noel and Serah descend into Valhalla after Caius, and they are caught by Odin in Gestalt Mode. As the Eidolon carries them across the dark sky, Caius blasts them down and continues their battle on the beach, where he has the field advantage due to the surrounding chaos. Refusing to face defeat, Caius tells Serah and Noel they cannot kill him. As Noel asks Caius why he believes causing mass-destruction will make Yeul happy, Caius asks which one he is referring to, since he has known and protected many Yeuls throughout the years and each of them was her own person regardless of being a reincarnation of the same being.

Noel attempts to convince Caius that Yeul continued to be reborn out of her own will and she kept coming back to see him again. Caius does not listen, and he and his former pupil trade blows for a time before Noel slashes him across the chest. Caius falls and uses the chaos of Valhalla to transform into Jet Bahamut that launches a ball of fire at Noel and Serah sending them falling into a bottomless abyss beneath Valhalla's waves of chaos. The two are saved by Lightning, who sends them to the battlefield where the two must defeat Jet Bahamut, along with his supporters, Garnet Bahamut and Amber Bahamut.

Having lost the final battle, a weakened Caius returns to his human form and falls to his hands and knees on Valhalla's shoreline. He tells Noel that if it is truly his fault that Yeul keeps being reborn, he must be killed for her sake. When Noel refuses, Caius attempts to provoke him by claiming he had killed Lightning and condemned her to an eternal slumber. He says that since time does not flow in Valhalla, the "things that shall happen" in their future have "already been decided" in his past, and knows exactly how their encounter will end. When Noel refuses to give in, Caius is impressed with the youth's value of life, yet provokes him by attacking Serah. Noel disarms Caius and lunges at him with his sword.

Though Noel stops himself from killing Caius at the last second, Caius takes Noel's blade forces it through his chest, destroying the Heart of Chaos. The chaos within the dying Caius's body erupts into the sky and Caius fades away. Upon returning to Pulse in 500 AF, Serah has a final vision through the Eyes of Etro and dies in Noel's arms. After Noel's sword destroyed the Heart of Chaos within Caius, the goddess Etro was also killed, which unleashes the chaos of Valhalla into the Mortal Realm and connects Gran Pulse and Valhalla. As revealed in the secret ending, "The Goddess is Dead", a revived Caius sits on Etro's throne in the Void Beyond. Final Fantasy XIII-2 scenario interview suggests that even though Caius's physical body was destroyed, he can live on through chaos. Caius states that no matter where Noel and Serah's journey took them, the alternate timelines converged and concluded with Etro's death and the two were helping him achieve his goal. Telling Yeul they are free of their respective curses and can begin anew in a world without the goddess Etro, Caius digs his sword into the ground, summoning chaos to commence the end of time. As a curious detail, Caius's eye briefly glows red in the secret ending; the same effect happened during his fight against Lightning in the game's intro when she came close to striking his Heart of Chaos.

Creation and Development
Caius's armor was designed by Yusuke Naora, who also designed Serah's and Noel's outfits. Naora's design was chosen after several designs from various members of the development team were drawn and compared to select the best one (similar to Mog). Naora stated he was inspired by Yoshitaka Amano for the look of Caius's armor and accessories—Leon from Final Fantasy II was particularly inspiring.

According to lead writer, Daisuke Watanabe, Caius is a unique villain in the Final Fantasy franchise due to his main objective being to save Yeul, as opposed to trying to destroy the world, and how nothing will stop him from reaching his goal. As a result, Caius doesn't necessarily appear as a "bad" person, and he was made to come across as a bewildering enemy to players.

Musical Themes
Caius has an eponymous leitmotif, titled "Caius's Theme", composed by Naoshi Mizuta. It is a prominent theme in Final Fantasy XIII-2, it and its variations playing whenever Caius appears. "Caius's Theme" is also included in "Promise to the Future", "Endless Paradox", and the "Closing Credits".

Battle
Even in his human form, Caius can cast powerful magic and use chaos to suit his needs and assume the form of Chaos Bahamut, and later that of Jet Bahamut.

In his human form, Caius is fought by Serah and Noel five times: in Oerba 200 AF, the Void Beyond, Dying World, Academia 500 AF, and Valhalla.

As Chaos Bahamut, Caius is fought by Lightning in Valhalla in the prologue, and by Noel and Serah in Academia 500 AF.

With the Paradox Scope activated, defeating Caius will trigger various paradox endings.

If the three battles against Caius activated by the Paradox Scope are counted separately from the six times he is fought during the story and during the "Requiem of the Goddess" DLC, Caius holds the record of being the most recurring boss in a single Final Fantasy game, with a grand total of nine battles. The number increases to thirteen if one counts the four battles against Chaos Bahamut and Jet Bahamut. The second most recurring boss is Final Fantasy X-2's Ormi, with seven battles.

Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade
Caius appears in Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade.

Final Fantasy Trading Card Game
Caius appears in the Japan-exclusive Final Fantasy trading card game published by Square Enix.

Etymology
Caius is an alternate spelling of Gaius, a common Roman given name. It was a praenomen of many famous Romans throughout history, including Julius Caesar, and through his line, Augustus Caesar and Caligula, Gaius Cassius Longinius (a leading conspirator in Julius Caesar's assassination), and Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, the famous historian. Coincidentally, a villain in Final Fantasy XIV uses this alternative spelling for his given name.

Caius's name means "to be sorry" in Russian (Я каюсь), possibly a reference to how he feels apologetic for the fate of Yeul and wants to save her.

The name Caius could be a direct or indirect reference to "chaos", for reasons related to his persona and/or attacks.

Caius's surname, Ballad, could come from the French world "ballade", which means either a little song, or a poetic form. A ballad is characterized by describing unusual events; "divine" powers are frequently mentioned in them, which alludes to how Caius is a "god" in his own way as he has massive power and is immortal.

Trivia

 * Caius's Sword is a weapon in Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade.
 * During a scene in Valhalla's shade, Caius and Serah are seen back to back, similar to a scene featuring him and Lightning during their battle in Valhalla, and also similar to his debut appearance in the game's first trailer.
 * Caius shares his English voice actor, Liam O'Brien, with Red XIII from the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Kain Highwind from the DS version of Final Fantasy IV and Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, and Cu Chaspel from Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates.
 * Caius putting Yeul to rest in the ocean in Valhalla at the start of Final Fantasy XIII-2 mirrors the scene where Cloud rests Aerith in the lake in the Forgotten Capital in Final Fantasy VII.
 * Caius freezing time while fighting Serah is reminiscent of the fight between Squall and Ultimecia in Dissidia Final Fantasy.
 * In the Bestiary, Caius is listed under the section "Protector", rather than "Guardian".
 * Some people in Academia 4XX AF will claim that they've seen "a man in black armor and a girl with green eyes" on the city's outskirts, referring to Caius and Yeul. A boy who claims this says the man must be "a bad guy", as only "bad guys" wear black.
 * When asked if Hope knows Caius in a Live Trigger scene in the Yaschas Massif 1X AF, he recalls reading about a man with the name of Paddra Ballad-Caius.
 * In the "Requiem of the Goddess" DLC, Caius changes between Commando, Ravager, and Medic roles, Lightning's primary paradigm roles in Final Fantasy XIII.
 * Caius was named Best RPG Villain in Game Informer's 2012 RPG of the Year Awards.