Croix Meridies

Modern Magic Professor of Luna Nova Academy (formerly)

Magitronic weaponry

Charisma

### Hobby

Aiding Ursula/Chariot in her quest for Grand Triskellion (formerly)Antagonizing Akko and Ursula

Performing experiments behind everyone's back.

### Goals

Claim Grand Triskellion for herself with any means necessary, even if it means rid of anyone who stands on her way including Akko and her former best friend Ursula/Chariot(succeeded, formerly)Be the world's greatest witch.(formerly)

Aid Akko and her allies to destroy Noir Rod(succeeded)

Find the way to break Wagandea's curse (ongoing)

### Crimes

Crippling the magical powers of othersAttempted murder

Destruction

“ You can convert strong human emotions into powerful magical energy. That is why I am probing the hearts of people around the world — anger, hatred, sadness, jealousy, fear, anxiety — I want to completely absorb all of those emotions! „ ~ Croix revealing her true colors to Akko.

“ I swear upon the Nine Olde Witches! One day, I will release the seal on the ultimate magic! I'll become the world's greatest witch! „ ~ Croix Meridies as a child, Wagandea

“ Do you know the reason I keep interfering? It's because, Akko is...**your last chance for your dream**. „ ~ Croix planning to kill Akko to Ursula Callistis.

**Croix Meridies** (in Japanese: クロワ・メリディエス, *Kurowa Meridiesu*) is the former villain turned anti-hero of *Little Witch Academia* franchise, serving as the main antagonist of its 2017 TV Series adaptation of the same name before being replaced by her creation Noir Rod as of third and fourth parts of the four-parter second cour finale (second season on Netflix).

She is a former friend of the main protagonist Atsuko "Akko" Kagari's teacher and mother figure, Chariot du Nord (currently known under alias Ursula Callistis), who previously helped her in searching for the Seven Words of Arcturus, but grew spiteful towards her over not being chosen to wield the Shiny Rod. Her resentments from the deep-rooted disapproval of what happened back then ultimately saw her tricked Ursula to employ sinister spell called Dream Fuel Spirit on her spectators (where young Akko and Diana happened to be two of them) as early steps of her Noir Fuel Spirit plan to unlock the Grand Triskelion with her own way, crippling their magical powers in the process and caused their friendship ended by that point.

Ten years later, she returned to Luna Nova, having developed magitronics to help improving her former academy's life standards with her techno-magic skills so she could continue what she started there, directly responsible for many misfortunes and problems that protagonists faced in her pursuit of that goal. Yet, despite how far she had fallen to the point of Chariot initially believed her former best friend had since beyond hope of salvation, Croix turned out still able to go back as her fall from grace was the result of Woodward's both jaded nature and negligence towards her all along. Coupled with seeing how much her friend still cared with her and understanding errors in her way, Croix eventually decided to atone her misdeeds starting from helping the gang destroying her out-of-control creation and later, finding the way to break Wagandea's curse.

She was voiced by Junko Takeuchi in the Japanese version, and Caitlyn Elizabeth Muncy in the English version.

## Appearance

Croix is a young woman of tall stature with white skin complexion. Her eyes are aqua, which she paints with a dark pink eyeshadow. Her wavy lilac hair is slicked and styled into some sort of short mullet with a lock that covers her left eye. After getting beaten up by the noir rod, her hairstyle unravels, becoming a bit messier and her forehead is covered by her bangs.

She wears a suit that covers her body with a neck that reaches the height of her ears. She has a brown leather saddlebag, a large cape, and high-heeled boots. Sometimes as a student Croix wore her hair long and had glasses, an inversion of Chariot's (whose hair was originally short and who started wearing glasses) disguise as Ursula. However, Croix kept her original hair color.

## Personality

Croix is a highly logical and charismatic witch who can remain uncannily cool under pressure no matter the situation. Back in her school days, she was once a timid and reserved, yet kind and considerate close friend to Ursula aka. Chariot. While dismayed that both Shiny Rod and her dream to obtain Grand Triskellion ended up on the latter's hands, Croix nevertheless reassured Chariot that she indeed worthy and will support her the best she could. Sadly, her inability to let go whatever resentments that born from the Rod's rejection, coupled with Woodward's negligence towards her and Chariot's apparent lack of focus in their quest, eventually consumed her and turned her into bitter, selfish, and calculating person who forcefully played her role in her stead by bypassing the traditional ways of opening the Grand Triskellion, even if it meant she had to betray Chariot by tricking her to employ Dream Fuel Spirit on innocent audiences including young Akko and Diana as part of the said scheme and ended their friendship in process. Croix's descent into villainy from that point also saw her committing a number of fairly horrific deeds with utter lack of hesitation nor remorse, such as nearly ruining the bonds between Akko and Chariot, harming innocent people as part of her Fuel Spirit experiments, coming close to sparking a potential all-out war between England and its rival nation just to activate Noir Rod. In addition of this, she displayed utter lack of hesitation to kill or at least demoralize those who stood in her way.

Despite how different her adult personality seemed to be, her concern in Chariot's well-being despite their feud and later, remorse following the fallout with Woodward as well as discovery of Grand Triskellion being not like what she perceived to be, proved that Croix still has what remains of her past self. Her entire actions revealed to partly motivated by the desire to gain Woodward's approval, only to ultimately expose the ancient witch's true color as detached and jaded person who concerned more with the restoration of magic in the world above all else along with perceived favoritism to Chariot for the same reason in the end. This ultimately redeemed Croix before Chariot's eyes, who then fight to protect her from her then out-of-control Noir Rod despite her pleads to save herself and everything she had put Chariot through.

After helping the gang stopped Noir Rod and reviving Yggdrasil at the same time, Croix, having comes full circle from being the first person to espouse the importance of believing in one's magic to being reminded firsthand of why such sentiment was correct all along, eventually reverted to her original kind and considerate self, promising to Chariot to find the way to break Wagandea's curse as the first step of her atonement. Overall, she proved herself as both a dependable ally at best and terrifying adversary at worst for Chariot.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Magic**: Croix is a skilled witch, but generally prefers to use her Magitronic devices over casting magic, and when she does cast, it is often through Magitronic mediums like her tablet, though she still retained the ability to use wands.
* **Intelligence**: Croix is very intelligent, combined with her charisma, enabling her to become a skilled manipulator.
* **Charisma**: Croix proved to be charismatic as she can easily persuade and manipulate people to get what she wanted.
* **Master Engineer**: Croix is a highly skilled engineer as she pioneered the field of Magitronics, which combines magic and technology not unlike Constanze.
* **Expert Tactician**: Croix was able to plan and execute faerie strike at Luna Nova, sending her Noir Fuel Spirit Devices to interfere the duel between Amanda and Louis at Appleton Academy, executing the attack on Wild Hunt Event, and even heat up the riot that caused by controversial soccer verdict.

## Equipments

* **Sorcery Units**: A roomba-like magitronic device which she described as "evolved" Magic Broom. In addition of enough strength to support a human being and withstanding blows, this equipment is designed with many functions, among which holographic projection, built-in weapons, and storing Pixels. Like roomba it based on, Sorcery Unit can clean floors.
* **Pixels**: Floating cube-like devices that capable of absorbing emotional energy from people and convert it into magical power through a process called Noir Fuel Spirit. They can combine into different monsters under Croix's control as well as possessing objects to control them.
* **Noir Rod**: The massive, magitronic replica of Shiny Rod that can transform into different configurations and powered by negative emotion-based Fuel Spirit via. Pixels that make up some parts of it. It is also designed with enough power to undo the seal of the Nine Olde Witches in which Grand Triskellion was kept, but the amount of negative emotion-based Fuel Spirit resulted it not only eventually developed a sentience and turned against her, but also corrupted its programming that it eventually breaks free from her control and aimed to destroy the world.

## Etymology

Her first name, "Croix", taken from "Croix du Sud" (French term for the Southern Cross constellation), is the French word for "cross". Meanwhile, her surname, "Meridies", is the Latin word for "noon" and "south". Thus, "Croix Meridies" can be translated as the Southern Cross constellation. This both a reference to the similarly named antagonist group from *Inferno Cop*, a previous work by Trigger, and Croix's position in the final of an anti-villain.

## Trivia

* The monster that appears during Shiny Chariot's magic show in the flashback at the beginning of Episode 1 resembles Croix's magitronic devices closely and makes the same sound before it materializes.
* Croix's character is depicted as both foil and dark reflection of Diana Cavendish. Croix and Diana are both rivals and friends of bearers of Shiny Rod, both of them wished to be chosen as bearer of Shiny Rod only for the Rod choose their friend/rival (Croix was dismayed that Shiny Rod choose Chariot over her, Diana was similarly upset upon finding out that Akko has become the current bearer of Shiny Rod after learning Rod's true nature and purpose), and are very frustrated at the current bearers of the rod's lack of interest on their duty to restore magic. However, whereas Diana starts as a rival to Akko but develops a friendship with her over time, and her intention to gain Shiny Rod was for a noble cause; Croix starts as a friend but develops a strong envy against Chariot, proceeds to forcefully play her role in her stead by bypassing the traditional ways of opening the Grand Triskelion, and just wanted to be the world's greatest witch.
* Croix's favorite food happens to be ramen, which coincidentally, ties to her Japanese VA's more famous role as Naruto Uzumaki from the *Naruto* series.
	+ Like Naruto, Croix' motivations (a dream to become something famous), prior foil-based rivalry based on a prior-friendship, neglect by someone else in the past and her achievements based solely on her efforts are eerily similar to his albeit on a flipped scale; Naruto remains true to his beliefs and dreams where as Croix has retained her jealously and resentment of being unacknowledged by Woodward.
* Croix however, is much more in common with Jugglus Juggler, antagonist-turned-antihero from Ultra Series for following reasons:
	+ Both of them were rejected by an artifact of great power they sought in favor of their best friend (Shiny Rod/Claiomh Solais rejected Croix in favor of Ursula/Chariot while Halo of Light prevented Juggler from reaching Orb Calibur within but allowed Gai instead). Interestingly, the manner said artifact rejected them eerily similar (electrical energy shock).
	+ Both of them initially put aside their resentment toward their said best friend until an unfortunate turn of events pitted them against one another as fierce rivals (Croix lost her faith in Ursula/Chariot during their struggle to unlock the Final Word to no avail and plagued by anguish over the uncertainty regarding the future of magic in the world while Juggler similarly denounced his support for Gai after his perception regarding true justice the latter believed in shattered by the conflict between War Deity and Queen Bezelb).
	+ Both possesses a dark counterpart of their respective rival's iconic item (Noir Rod (magitronic replica of Shiny Rod) for Croix and Dark Ring (darker counterpart of Orb Ring) for Juggler).
	+ Both eventually redeemed themselves by joining forces with their rivals in combating a great threat they ironically released to the world (Croix assists Ursula/Chariot along with Akko and co. in combating Noir Rod she initially created to break the seal of Grand Triskellion at Arcturus Tower while Juggler eventually assisted Gai/Ultraman Orb in defeating Maga-Orochi/Magata-no-Orochi he initially unleashed to prove his point that darkness being the only thing that was eternal in everyone in the universe).