Noel Vermillion

Noel Vermillion is the tritagonist and lead heroine of the video game series BlazBlue. She is a former lieutenant of the Novus Orbis Librarium who was assigned to return the AWOL Jin Kisaragi to his post. She is the Master Unit Amateratsu who used Mu-12 as a vessel until they separated in the first-half of Central Fiction. In the last game's progress, it is revealed that Noel, Mu, Izanami, and the Origin's portion are revealed to be one of Saya's halves who were split into each body during Relius' experiment on Saya, with Noel and Mu started have two halves of Saya's soul in one body.
She is voiced by Kanako Kondou in the Japanese version and Cristina Valenzuela in the English version.
==Information==
What is known is that Noel was adopted at a young age after being found in the burning fields of Ikaruga by the Vermillion family. Her strong fighting and magical abilities won her a spot in the Library's military academy where she ended up in the same class as Jin Kisaragi, Carl Clover, Tsubaki Yayoi and Makoto. One day when Noel was out in the forest, she was attacked by a strange wolf-like creature. As if answering her calls, Arcus Diabolus: Bolverk appeared on her hands. Bolverk is used to supress Noel's emotions and keep them under check, but without it she turns into a weak little girl mentally. Even so, Rachel seems to think that Noel could be the key to ending the time loop affecting everyone in the story.
==Calamity Trigger==
Throughout the story, Noel seems to get the short end of the stick. She is tasked by the NOL Intelligence Chief Hazama with tracking down Jin after he fled his post. However, Carl tries to kill her, Jin hates her for her resemblance to his dead sister (and also tries to kill her), and in one story arc she even gets eaten by the Black Beast after V-13successfully merges with Ragna. On top of that, she holds an inferiority complex about her breast size and is strangely attracted to the cute, fuzzy panda Litchi wears in her hair (even shouting "Hands off the panda!" when fighting Litchi in-game). Near the end of Noel's story, she sees flashes of herself in a hospital bed, and ends up speaking robotically when she comes into contact with v-13, unable to comprehend the reason. Apparently, Noel is μ-12 , and like v-13 was somehow created from Saya's DNA, which explains why Jin seems to find her appearance familiar.
During the True Ending, Noel manages to catch Ragna and pull him back before he falls into the Cauldron with v-13, thus breaking the time loop that had affected everyone in the game. Rachel reveals that Noel is apparently supposed to carry the true Azure Grimoire instead of Ragna. Noel then ends up finding out Hazama's true form as the evil being Terumi, but accidentally shows him the power of the Grimoire through her gaze (don't ask me to explain this). Afterwards, Hazama later orders her former classmate Tsubaki to hunt her down with Jin in the epilogue.
==Continuum Shift==
Noel tries to follow Ragna after the end of the last story and find more about who he is and why he's become a fugitive, but Ragna is uninterested in talking and tells her to piss off, so they part ways and Noel finds herself at a playground where she sits on a swing when she ends up running into her friend Makoto by accident. She's happy to finally meet an old friendly face in this harsh enviornment.
Later, Noel hears that Jin was transferred into a hospital ship above Kagutsuchi after fighting Ragna, so she goes to meet him. However, by the time she gets to the port, Jin has disappeared again, and Noel decides to go around Kagutsuchi to find him. While she continues her search, Noel finds that both Sector Seven and the Library are trying to capture her. Noel runs into her friend Tsubaki only to discover that she's been ordered to kill her as well, but Noel manages to defeat her instead. She runs to the top of the Library to fight against Hazama for manipulating her friend into fighting her, but Hazama succeeds in screwing with her mind instead.
He reveals, among other things, that Noel is not exactly human, but more of a copy of an experiment by some scientists who grew a little too curious about what mysteries lied beyond the other side of the Boundary, and Noel was one of those units created to find out. However, they didn't quite know when to stop. Thanks to the power of the Azure Grimoire, she is able to observe things as they truly are (hence Takamagahara referring to Noel as "The Eye"), but at the same time she sees some downright horrible things that threaten her sanity. After screwing with her head enough, Hazama convinces Noel to release the seals on her Bolverk. While the guns served as a useful tool for Noel's self-defense, it also turns out that they served as a limiter on her true power. With the limiter removed, Noel soon becomes transformed with the real Azure Grimoire into the form of Kusanagi called Mu-12.
Obeying Hazama, she heads down to the cauldron and prepares to destroy the Amaterasu unit, possibly leading to the destruction of the world. However, she is stalled by both Jin and Hakumen, and then Ragna sacrifices his own left arm to destroy Mu-12's armor and bring Noel back to the surface.
After the battle, she is seen meeting with Tager and Makoto, ready to off into Ikaruga.
From Noel's joke ending, it can be deduced that Noel is lacking in the culinary arts. When Noel was left to be the replacement chef at a local chinese diner where she comically prepares the same poisonous dishes to every when of the customers. The only one capable of eating and even enjoying the food was Hazama.
==Appearance==
Noel is a young girl with long blond hair (although she covers her hair in her blue balmoral cap, making it seem like she has short hair), and green eyes. She wears an NOL blue cloak with a hood, long black socks, and blue military boots. When she is in battle, she wears a jolting sapphire NOL uniform dress with a white collar and a short red tie, with two separate long sleeves that have two heavy metal bands and a long red strap, white gloves, and carries two giant pistols linked together, the Bolverk. As a replica of Saya, Noel shares her physical appearance
When she was adopted by the Vermillion family, she had her hair cut short and wore a white shirt with long sleeves, a black tie, a long, black skirt, and white stockings with dark brown shoes. However, in Amane's Astral Heat, she is shown wearing a red tie, and a blue skirt.
In Chronophantasma, Noel dons a whole new outfit somewhat similar to her original outfit but doing away with the sleeves, replacing it with a collared cloth and no sleeves. She has also done away with her beret, letting her long hair flow freely with the addition of a blue-colored hairpiece. She has distinct features in her current attire that resemble Mu.
==Personality==
Noel is the definition of the "shrinking violet" archetype. She is shy, clumsy, and tends to get worked up over the smallest things. Noel is extremely self-conscious, especially regarding her notoriously flat breasts. She can be socially awkward at times, but this has served as an endearing trait, which earned her Tsubaki and Makoto's friendship. Despite this, she is shown to be quite passionate and determined when motivated and is loyal to her friends and allies.
Then there's the soft and unfettered side to her personality that shows compassion to every person and being, and how everyone is being treated. With her job out of the way, she enjoys relaxing with friends and reminiscing, nostalgically. When she cares for others' well-being, she overlooks her traits and is much more responsible.
Then there's the typical Japanese school girl syndrome about her, always late, apologizing profusely, and even her outfit looks a lot like a school uniform of a Japanese girl. All of this changes when she is reverted into her true form: Mu-12. In Chronophantasma, the experiences Noel has gone through have caused her to develop a new level of self-confidence and a determination to protect her friends.
The term Lacking Lady, by Taokaka, directed at Noel Vermillion, is one thing she can't seem to stand, though being called a boy or a man is worse. Each sets off a domino effect. The first makes her feel vulnerable and then ponder her role as a woman as she looks to other women with bigger breasts. The second trigger a dormant volcano of emotion that is then directed at the person who remarks. When she is finally angry, she puts aside all shame and forlorn and builds up the confidence to abuse her title of the position to call it, "Obstruction of Justice!"
==Powers & Abilities==
Noel appears to be a professional gunslinger, effectively wielding the Nox Nyctores, Bolverk with incredible effectiveness under the Drive, Chain Revolver. Bolverk appears as a pair of large-barrel handguns, though it can take on other forms. Her style of fighting is a direct reference to the fictional fighting style known as 'gun kata', in which the practitioner uses stylized moves using firearms with the conclusion of the battle involving clashing the hammers together. Unfortunately, the Bolverk is Noel's only means of offense, becoming utterly helpless when stripped of it. Being the true successor of the Azure and the perfect Murakumo Unit, Noel can assume a stronger form and persona known as Mu-12.
Being awakened as "the Eye of the Azure" in Continuum Shift, Noel has gained the ability to see the distant and recent memories of people she touches, as seen with Carl Clover, Tsubaki Yayoi, and Lambda-11.
In Continuum Shift, she has some new moves. Also, her aura during Chain Revolver is now colored black, the color of Ragna's Blood Kain (it was originally colored green in Calamity Trigger).
Noel, being a replica of Saya, is also shown to have inherited some of Saya's memories from her childhood.
==Trivia==
*When Noel's Fenrir initial hit connects, causing to give an additional blow, she will often yell: "Nemesis Stabilizer", implying that Nemesis Stabilizer is the name of Fenrir's Additional Blow.
*Her name comes from Noel; Noël being the French word for Christmas. She was also born on December 25, otherwise known as Christmas Day.
*Interestingly enough, when Ragna ends his Astral Finish, he unfolds a black/red demonic wing from his left side. Similarly, Jin ends his Astral Finish by unfolding a blue/yellow angelic wing from his right side. While Noel has no angelic features, her right gun emanates a blue aura while her left gun features a crimson aura.
*She holds an inferiority complex about her breast size (this is referred to several times in gag sections and by Taokaka) and is comically obsessed with the panda that Litchi wears on her hair (even going as far as yelling in English version "Hands off the panda!" when fighting her in-game).
**Noel's seiyū, Kanako Kondou, also likes pandas.
**Kondou is also a cook, which is very ironic because Noel is a horrible cook herself.
*Noel can be seen as her franchise's counterpart for Guilty Gear's ​Dizzy story-wise, being a kind-hearted girl who was a destructive weapon that is kept asleep. She also possesses a relationship with the game's main character (Noel being a replica of Ragna's sister, while Dizzy being possibly Sol Badguy's daughter from Justice) as well as the main rival (though this is heavily inverted; while Dizzy ends up presumably marrying Ky Kiske, Noel is treated horribly by Jin). The recent development in Continuum Shift drew more similarity whereas more people (such as Kokonoe or Terumi) started hunting down Noel for her being the true owner of the Azure Grimoire, just like Dizzy being put on a bounty and was hunted by everyone.
**Noel also serves as the counterpart of Guilty Gear's Elphelt Valentine. Both are gunslingers and are kind-hearted girls who were artificially created by the main antagonists' to be an instrument to ultimately end the world. They were born from a series of replicas that are modeled after the main hero's loved one(Noel resembles Ragna's sister, Saya, while Elphelt looks like a younger version of Aria, Sol's deceased lover)and saved the main character's life at some point. Both characters also wield destructive powers that are accompanied by more violent alternate personalities: Noel's Murakumo personality, Mu-12, and Elphelt's Awakened Valentine persona. They also have a profound fear of bugs.
*It's also worth noting that Noel could perhaps be the counterpart to Bridget in terms of appearance and color patterns, who is usually mistaken to be a girl. Noel is constantly being mistaken for a boy by Bang Shishigami and they both have blond hair as well as a mainly blue and white outfit.
**Other similarities to Dizzy are colors, both share red, blue, yellow, green, black, and white. Both of them are also said to have the same birthday, December 25, which is also shared with Axl Low and Elphelt Valentine.
*Noel's fighting style is what is known as a fictionalized style of weapon-handling known as 'gun-kata' which is borrowed wholesale from the movie Equilibrium. Her victory pose and the pose at the end of her Astral Heat are poses performed by John Preston, the protagonist of Equilibrium.
*In her sprites and story mode artwork in Calamity Trigger, she is one of the only playable female characters not to have any undergarments that are directly shown, aside from Nu, who wears a full-body outfit when not in her battle form.
*It would seem that Noel's Distortion Drives and Astral Heat have names that allude to Norse mythology. Thor is a Norse god, Fenrir is a Norse wolf, and the Valkyrie is a Norse holy warrior.
*Noel comes in second for having the most musical themes in the franchise; the first being Ragna.
*If Noel meets a lady with a smaller chest size than her, she feels that they can become great friends, as seen in her Help Me, Professor Kokonoe! section.
*Of all three known Murakumo Units, Noel is the only one that is known to have partial memories of Saya's childhood, as well be the one that resembles her the most (even than Saya herself after her appearance at the end of Continuum Shift).
*Despite them being usually referred to as revolvers (underlined by her drive, Chain Revolver, and her move: Revolver Blast), Bolverk is a pair of pistols, not revolvers. However, in one prototype sketch of Noel seen in the Material Collection, she's seen wielding a pair of revolvers instead, along with a more gag-like approach where she wields Equilibrium-styled "Clericguns". Noel also tends to drop used bullets while finishing her Chain Revolver, the same as with revolvers and shotguns.
*Her fourth color scheme in Continuum Shift resembles the Intelligence Department's color-suits.
*Noel and Nu were featured in a montage of characters who were voiced by their current voice actress, Cristina Valenzuela. The montage was drawn by Alex Ahad, the art director from the fighting game Skullgirls.
**Noel, along with Taokaka, has been drawn as fan art from the artist of the fighting game Skullgirls.
*So far, Noel is the only playable character to have two entirely different costumes. She is also the only character to have a scrapped victory pose.
*She is featured in the spin-off Queen's Blade.
*Noel's cooking is notoriously atrocious, having been referred to as "Death Dinner" in BlazBlue: Remix Heart. It even incapacitates many who eat it. However, it seems that Hazama and Mai Natsume can tolerate Noel's dreadful cooking: Hazama is the only person who can stomach Noel's cooking in her gag ending, and he even compliments it, while Mai can enjoy Noel's cooking thanks to her supertaster ability, allowing her to taste Noel's innocence within the food.
*Noel, as well as Ragna, Jin, and Rachel, is a playable character in the MOBA game; Chaos Heroes Online.
*Noel is featured in Lord of Vermillion Re: 2 as a playable character along with Ragna the Bloodedge and Jin Kisaragi.
*In the character poll, she is the second most popular character in the series, only to be beaten by Tsubaki.
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