Ultimate Warriors from Ancient Times (story arc)

Ultimate Warriors from Ancient Times (太古から来た究極戦士) is the fourth story arc in Battle Tendency.

It narrates Joseph's fight against Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli, the awakening of three other Pillar Men known as Wamuu, Esidisi, and Kars, and Joseph and Caesar's loss against Wamuu, who can create violent wind gusts by twisting his limbs.

Summary
After their abrupt introduction, Joseph, Caesar and Speedwagon gather around a large fountain. Despite Speedwagon's attempts to diffuse the situation, Caesar dismisses Joseph, claiming him to be inadequate, ignorant of the Stone Mask, and weak with Ripple. Angry, Joseph challenges him to a fight but ends up being thrown into the fountain by a passing woman hypnotized by Caesar.

Caesar follows this by jumping into the air and introducing his secret technique. Oozing soapy water from his gloves and infusing it with the Ripple, he launches a flurry of lethal bubbles toward Joseph. Not only do the bubbles strike Joseph with such force they send him flying, but they also gather into a large bubble imprisoning him. Trapped in his soapy prison, Joseph sees Caesar rebuke him and attempt to break the Ripple hypnosis on the woman by kissing her. However, Joseph reveals that he had hidden a Ripple-infused pigeon inside her mouth, which flies into Caesar's as he tries to kiss her, just as Joseph predicted. The fight ends in a stalemate.

Meanwhile, one of the Pillar Men has just ended his long slumber. In the depths of the Roman Colosseum, the Nazis find the three Pillar Men preserved in a stone wall littered with Stone Masks. Having set up several ultraviolet lights to prevent their awakening, they prepare to cut up the stone and send it to Germany for examination. Suddenly, a hole opens in the forehead of the middle Pillar Man, and strange sounds come out, frightening all the soldiers present, despite the reassurance of their superior officer. The officer sends several men to examine the hole, but a horn shoots forward, shredding the heads of several men and covering the lights in blood. The Pillar Man then fully awakens and emerges, speaking Latin to express anger at the futile attempt to imprison him.

The Pillar Man immediately utilizes blinding speeds to cruise through the soldiers in a graceful and swift motion, manipulating their anatomy to join them all at their hands. He impales the leader and drains all men present of their insides by means of a chain reaction, only leaving the skin. He walks back to the stone wall and, exclaiming his name "Wamuu", touches his two masters and awakens them.

Wamuu reports to his leader that he overheard a soldier saying Santana was defeated in Mexico by a possible Ripple warrior, to which the second Pillar Man mentions that they should have wiped out the Ripple clan 2,000 years ago. Undaunted, the leader of the Pillar Men finally inquires about the Red Stone of Aja, which appears to be a great source of power.

Still mutually hostile to Caesar following their match, Joseph is forced to wait several hours along with Speedwagon before Caesar's German contact Mark picks them up and brings them to the Colosseum in Rome where the three Pillar Men are kept under watch by the Nazis stationed there. Along the way, explaining that he had formed an alliance with the Nazis due to their shared interest in stopping the Pillar Men, Caesar expressed pride in Mark planning to marry the girl the Italian introduced him to. The group arrives to "The Mouth of Truth", which serves as a secret entrance into the Pillar Men's resting place.

They arrive at the underground cave where the Pillar Men are, learning that they have already awakened and killed the Nazis platoon overseeing them. Mark attempts to run away, only to lose half of his body when one of the Pillar Men, Wamuu, casually walks into him. Caesar is forced to put the dying Mark out his misery before attacking Wamuu to avenge his friend. But unlike Santana, the three Pillar Men are revealed to have dealt with Ripple users in the past and have developed counters as seen in Wamuu's headdress and Wind Mode.

After Caesar is defeated, Joseph takes over the fight to show off his Ripple-infused clackers. Wamuu accepts Joseph's challenge once the other two he calls his masters allow it. Wamuu then slices Joseph's wrist to the artery so the bleeding can serve as a timer for their fight. Joseph proves to be a capable fighter despite his lack of Ripple training, managing to wound Wamuu before pummeling the Pillar Man for various reasons that include just not liking him. But Wamuu's only allowed Joseph's hits to connect as punishment for underestimating his opponent and being scarred by him, eventually taking out Joseph with his Divine Sandstorm attack despite the human barely being caught in its crosshairs.

Wamuu is about to kill Caesar and Speedwagon as witnesses to his humiliation when he notices Joseph, feigning death the first few times, crawling towards a mine cart. Though Caesar assumes that Joseph is acting cowardly, he realizes that Joseph is luring the Pillar Man away to save him and Speedwagon. Wamuu reaches the same conclusion once on the cart, also guessing Joseph's intent to use a stick of dynamite to kill him and derail the wagon. After Wamuu personally knocks the cart off the tracks, he decides to finish Joseph off. But Joseph plays on Wamuu's pride and thirst for battle to give him a month to train for a good rematch. Wamuu accepts but implants a Wedding Ring of Death on Joseph's aorta to keep him from running away. Wamuu explains the ring will dissolve into a poison within 33 days while revealing the antidote to be inside his lip ring. One of the senior Pillar Men, Esidisi, also places his own ring around Joseph's windpipe, with the antidote in his nose piercing. The Pillar Men's leader Kars doesn't participate in the game. The three Pillar Men take their leave to find the Red Stone of Aja. In the aftermath, Caesar finds respect for Joseph for his heroic resistance.

Chapters

 * 019 (063). 
 * 020 (064). 
 * 021 (065). 
 * 022 (066). 
 * 023 (067). 
 * 024 (068). 
 * 025 (069). 
 * 026 (070). 

Volumes

 * 03 (07). 
 * 04 (08). 

Anime Episodes

 * 05 (14). 
 * 06 (15).