Cio

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Ciocie Cioelle
Also Known As	Cio; Yab; Yabalchoath, Thief-Queen of the Shadeside Rim, Night-Walker, Life-Plucker; Nukoku, Reborn Sin Against Heaven
Classification	Blue Devil
Gender	Female
Occupation	Fan Fiction Writer, "Historian", Bookkeeper (former), Master Thief (former)
Affiliates	Gilded Cage Guild (former), Allison, Oscar
Debut	KSBD 3:38
Status	Reincarnated as Nukoku

Ciocie "Cio" Cioelle Estrella Von Maximus the Third, is a blue devil and the former bookkeeper for the Gilded Cage Guild. A cigar chomping, kleptomaniac, compulsive liar, Cio is known for her overbearing personality and a tendency to speak in a confusing dialect known as the Black Speech. Cio is rather particular about storytelling.

Praman Nand, lord of the Gilded Cage Guild, is her husband, and Oscar her ex-boyfriend.

Cioelle carries a large book containing fan fiction, spells and her Coat of Arms. The devil-made coat apparently provides her with extra arms.

Appearance

As a devil, Cio has taken on a number of forms over the course of the comic. She is introduced as a short feminine devil with orange eyes and a sapphire blue mask that peaks into two, straight prominent horns. She has purple, insect-like skin, and long raven black hair. She wears circular yellow tinted glasses, though it is unclear if she truly needs them.

Personality

"Well, I'll tell tha a grand secret: people don't really change. They just grow thicker layers over who they really are, and pretend."

Cio has a rather abrasive, overbearing personality. She is very easy to rile up, and she would be quick to cuss people out in her crankier moods. She is also notably impatient, unscrupulous, cowardly and a habitual liar, but she could be surprisingly calm and mature in serious situations. She exhibited most typical personality traits of blue devils.

The first of many cussing fits

Instead of the standard Universal Metaconstant, Cio preferrs to talk in the Black Speech, the thickness of which depended on her mood and who she is speaking to. When at ease or speaking to other devils, her speech became almost incomprehensible to non-devils, while she talked more clearly with humans, with only a few "tha"-s and such mixed in her sentences. During the heist of Yre, she dropped the Black Speech almost entirely, to reflect her impending breakdown.

Probably her most important personality trait, however, is her deep-seated cynicism. Cio believed that people are unable to change, and they instead just construct new personas to avoid having to face their true selves. This belief may have been projection for her own insecurities relating to Yabalchoath - she likewise believed that "Cio" is just a persona she made to avoid having to deal with what she did when she is an ebon devil.

Cio giving Allison advice.

While she presented an expressive personality to the world, Cio is reluctant to reveal her issues and true feelings to people. It took a lot for her to truly open up to someone. This has caused major emotional upheaval as she seems to want to do nothing more than return to the life she once had with Allison.

Abilities

Despite her low rank and small stature, Cio is an experienced and intelligent devil. Her long life has allowed her to amass a lot of knowledge about Throne's underworld and devil politics, and she has many connections around the Red City. Her skills at lying were also notable - she is good at manipulating people and bending them to her will with just words.

Her prior existence as an ebon thief-queen means she is adept at stealth and acrobatics. She is also shown to be a formidable fighter during the Heist of Yre, dispatching many of Mammon's cultists by herself.

The Art

Cio is a rather powerful vatra, proficient in both the Red and the White Art. Most of her spells center around the control of paper, which she could employ to devastating effects by "sewing" magical incantations into them. So far, she's been shown using incantations twice, once to raise a spinning wall of razor-sharp paper (My paper soldiers form a wall/Five paces thick and twice as tall), and once to help Allison cheat in the drinking contest against Vladok (Though she standeth two and five/She drinketh all the oceans wide). However, it has been shown that she could use the Art without incantations as well.

History

Yabalchoath

Yabalchoath becomes powerful after taking Mammon's power.

Cio was once the ebon devil named Yabalchoath, a renowned and widely-feared crime lord who headed a smuggling Guild with her husband Praman Nand. Ambitious in the extreme, Yabalchoath set her sights on robbing Yre, the fractal fortress of Mammon. The Heretic's Court, afraid of her growing ambition, approved the endeavor, hoping that it would result in her death and get her out of the way.

Surprisingly, however, Yabalchoath was successful in robbing Yre, managing to steal a fragment of Mammon's Key of Kings right from his brow. Endowed with the power of the Key, she went on a monstrous rampage of wanton decadence and destruction, building a criminal empire.

However, Mammon sought to reclaim the stolen shard of the Key and punish the thief of his vault. He bought the loyalty of Yabalchoath's horribly abused slaves, so that when the Concordant Harmonies decided she needed to be brought to justice, none of her servants came to her aid. Her empire is destroyed by the angels and her own rivals. Yabalchoath herself has her mask shattered, banishing her into the Void.

Working at the Gilded Cage

Yabalchoath's husband, Praman Nand, reassembled her mask painstakingly over the course of months, and re-summoned her to Throne as a lowly Blue Devil called Cio. However, she is not entirely the same devil, and thought that she deserved what has happened to her, swearing to never become a monster such as Yabalchoath again. Presumably, Nand is displeased by his lover's new personality, and this is how she may have ended up as a measly paper-pusher.

Kill Six Billion Demons

When Allison first meets Cio, she is working as a bookkeeper in Nand's Gilded Cage Guild. It is known that White Chain has visited her several times before, probably to coerce information out of her. Although Praman Nand is technically still her husband, she is now practically his slave, working as a bureaucrat to keep his pleasure house in Hell 71 running.

Cio quits.

When Allison first meets White Chain, they decide to take her to Cio in Hell 71 to have her remove Allison's Key of Kings. Cio initially tries to throw them out, afraid to deal with Keys again, but she is then forced to help them escape when Omun Vash and Delicious attempt to kidnap Allison to get the Key for themselves. Meanwhile, Number 1 rats out that Allison has a Key, causing the Battle of Hell 71 to break out between the various factions attempting to secure it.

Trying to escape from the chaotic battle, Cio fights her way through the pleasure house, hastily announcing her resignation in the process, and rescues Allison from Delicious. She then transports Allison back to Earth using the White Art of Division.

Wielder of Names

Ciocie Cioelle Estrella von Maximus the Third

Cio makes her next appearance in Wielder of Names, meeting with Allison in the Void, introducing herself as a "fanfiction writer" and offering her services to Allison. Cio claims to be following Allison in order to capture her adventures in writing. When Allison wagers her Key in a drinking contest to have Vladok take her to Mottom's palace, Cio attempts to help her cheat using the Red Art, only for Allison to win the contest fair and square.

Cio dodging questions.

When the Pursuers arrive for Allison, the pair are forced to flee on an Art-infused paper bird, ending up on the world of Mykos. Despite Cio’s complaints, Allison decides to infiltrate the palace as it passes through. When Cio refuses to go, hesitant about revealing her true reasoning for helping her, Allison continues alone, leaving Cio behind to guard her things.

Allison's infiltration ends with a direct confrontation against Mottom, leaving her to be rescued by Cio once more, who comes to her aid with a flying ship she stole called the Yamga, crewed by Nyave, Princess and White Chain. Using the Key of Kings, Allison then teleports the Yamga away before Mottom could attack the ship.

Seeker of Thrones

Cio accompanies Allison on the Yamga during their flight from Mykos. When Allison decides to rob Yre to rescue Zaid, she uses Cio's fanfiction to force her into revealing her past as Yabalchoath. Allison then coerces her into helping her infiltrate Yre.

Cio recruits Oscar to help with the heist; however, since the job will involve a devil crew, a permission from Himself, king of devils, is also needed. She and Allison travel to the White-Eyed Woman devil lair, where Cio is repeatedly faced with reminders of her past self, as well as the vengeful and hostile Heretic’s Court. After bargaining with Himself, Cio suffers a breakdown, proclaiming her attempts to distance herself from Yabalchoath to be futile and pointless.

Cio regresses fully into Yabalchoath.

As she relives her past actions as Yab during the heist, Cio sinks progressively deeper into her identity crisis, coming to identify more and more as her ebon self again. This culminates when Allison, in her corrupted, power-fueled state, leaves her for dead, causing Cio to snap and fully regress into Yabalchoath, and attempt to murder Allison.

Cio and Allison make up and call things even.

Seeing what she’s done, she comes to her senses and collapses in tears, believing she has killed her. When Allison turns out to have survived, she reverts to her regular blue self, cussing her out in the Black Speech in tears. Driven by the emotional turmoil, the two then kiss, and Allison passes out.

When Mottom attacks the vault in search of Allison, with the Priests of the Count fortunately distracted, Cio and the other devils fight through the resulting chaos to reach the Yamga, where Oscar betrays the crew and attempts to recruit Cio back to his side. She rejects the offer, and after the following fight, she escapes with the others aboard the ship.

Cio is later seen when Allison wakes, where they have a tense talk about what took place in the vault and the state of their relationship. The two agree its for the best that, for now, they keep things casual and get to know each other better.

King of Swords

Cio is not going this time.

By book four, Cio, Allison, White Chain, and the others have resided on Throne for a year and have settled into a comfortable living situation. However Cio refuses to open up to Allison, which reaches its breaking point when, after Gog-Agog arrives to inform them of Zaid’s captivity under Solomon David, Allison decides to compete in the Ring of Power tournament to save him. Cio, happy with her current life and no longer wishing to hurt anyone, sadly refuses to join.

Later in the tournament, Cio returns when she is called to help Allison with her rescue plan, revealing that she’d been there the entire time, and finally expressing her desire to communicate better with Allison. With the other contestants closing in, Cio suggests Allison to wear her mask. Allison puts her trust in her and accepts, and the two fuse into the devil skin warrior, Allicio and make quick work of the other fighters.

When White Chain attacks them, Cio and Allison use their combined strengths to fight back, and Cio is there to talk sense into White Chain at the tournament’s end. When White Chain is nearly destroyed during her fight with Solomon David, Cio is ready to jump in to save her as well. And following the angel’s victory, Cio is seen standing among the protagonists as White Chain names her boon.

Breaker of Infinites

Cio finds her fears proven right when Jagganoth arrives

Cio, Allison, and White Chain as Aspected Chaos.

   Cio is present, along with everyone else, during Jagganoth’s surprise attack on Rayuba. As the group attempt to escape, Cio is seen to be clearly irked after her previous beliefs--that people would get hurt--are seemingly proven right. Jagganoth however, manages to stop them all from leaving. As the other demiurges work together to bind him, Allison, White Chain, and Cio are forced to accept that the situation is inescapable, and without their help, Jagganoth may win. With that, Cio becomes one component of the fusion Aspected Chaos, along with Allison and White Chain, and assists in temporarily binding Jagganoth.

Cio provides a distraction for Allison to act.

    After Gog-Agog betrays the group, the trio are dealt a brutal blow from Chakravartin Jagganoth, and sent falling from Rayuba’s upper atmosphere. Cio is there to once again rescue Allison from drowning, and, initially enraged at how the situation has played out, breaks down in tears. As Solomon takes out Jagganoth, Incubus appears to force Allison to fight again, and Allison--spent, injured, and traumatized--angrily refuses. Cio, realizing that Incubus is prepared to kill Allison, uses the Red Art to fashion a sword and stabs Incubus, to buy them a distraction to get away. Allison hesitates, and Incubus kills Cio as she watches on in shock.

After Allison’s three-year coma, during her stay with Jadis, Allison finds a shard of Cio’s mask lodged in her other arm. Its discovery makes her realize that even if what comes next will be painful, she needs to keep moving forward. She uses it to remove Jadis’ prosthetics before leaving.

Wheel-Smashing Lord

Nukoku's entrance.

After Allison's return, the shard of Cio's mask Allison has been carrying flies towards a pale demon. Allison recognizes the pale demon as Cio and, feeling guilty about Cio's death, scares her away to try to keep her safe.

Cio continues to follow Allison around from afar. When Allison visits Gog-Agog and is offered immortality and a return to her cottage life through assimilation with Gog-Agog, Cio reveals herself, accepting Gog-Agog's deal. Cio is rebuked by Allison upon attempting to take the worm offering, who redeclares Cio's death at Allison's hands. Cio's carapace breaks apart: revealing her to be an as-of-yet-before seen Ivory Devil, by the name Nukoku and bearing the epithet Reborn Sin Against Heaven. Nukoku says she finds this intolerable, unable to live like this, both her and Allison being mutilated flesh, staggering on, so different from who they once were and were meant to be. She wants her old life returned and strikes against Allison, choosing to accept Gog-Agog's offer and accept the worm to live on in the next cycle. As she is about to eat the worm, Allison launches herself forward, taking it out of her hand and eating it herself.

Trivia

• Cio's name is a pun; "Ciocie Cioelle" is pronounced the same way "coca cola" is spelled. Nukoku is also a pun; "Nukoku" is the japanese pronounciation of "new coke".
• She wears a red gemstone on her forehead; it is unclear if this is a ley-stone used to increase her ability with the Art, or a sign of a former bearer of a Key.
• Abaddon has said that he imagines Cio's voice to resemble Eartha Kitt's with a Northern English or Yorkshire accent.
• Cio's ebon name Yabalchoath may be a reference to Yaldabaoth, the Gnostic "platonic Demiurge" with an envious, fiery nature.
• Cio is one component for the Devilskin Warrior ALLICIO.
• Cio has a cousin with the unfortunate name of Effay Wygeeo.