Note 1: I DO NOT OWN ULTIMO, Stan Lee does and he's a genius. Everyone who reads these words should go out buy a copy of the latest Ultimo Manga and read it.

Note 2: I am raiting this fan fic, T for teen, be forewarned there is mild language and lots of violence in this story, and the first chapter takes place in a brothel. There are, however, no descriptions of any of the events that usually happens in a brothel in that chapter or any other, I also will never drop the "F-bomb."Nonetheless, if anyone thinks I should raise the rating on this story feel free to tell me so in a review, which I hope a lot of people will bless me with. Remember though, You have been warned.

Note 3: Since the Ultimo Manga is told part in the present and part in the twelfth centaury to explain the background of the main characters, this fiction will work in relatively the same way. The origins of the main characters will be told in a three part prologue that takes place in feudal Japan, the actual story will be told through the real chapters taking place in the year Twenty Eleven about a year before Ultimo and Vice clash for the second time in the modern era. Here is the first part of the Prologue, the second part will be told after chapter three, and the final part we will burn as we cross it. This will most likely be an epic story but I can't make any promises about how often it will update since life does happen. Aside from that I hope that anyone that stumbles across this story enjoys it.

Prologue part 1

Two men were standing on the precipice of Hell, which at the moment looked a rather lot like a bridge. The precipice of Hell can look like an awful lot of different things depending on what hell is threatening to take away. At the moment hell was threatening to take away a small village, which was at the back of the two men, bordering a small river that the bridge ran across. Inside the village was an Imperial bureaucrat who was escorting a large caravan of rice and taxes. On the other side of the bridge coming out of hell was a group of about three hundred odd heavily armed men. They were coming out of hell because anyone who has been in hell for any significant length of time does not want to stay there, and because the Imperial caravan had an awful lot of cash on hand that the group of men wanted to liberate.

These men were very good at liberating things, like money from oppressive bureaucrats or towns from overbearing lords, or people's shoulders from the heavy weights of their heads. Of course to the untrained eye this seemed like acts of theft and violence and such ignorant people tended to call these men bandits. These were not evil men though, they were simply desperate men who were caught in hell and had now found a chance to leave hell and rob the truly evil men who were responsible for their destitution. Not that the two men standing on the precipice of hell really cared about any of that.

In fact the two men standing on the very edge of hell itself didn't care about much. They didn't care about protecting the Imperial bureaucrat. They didn't care that the bandits would probably burn to the town to the ground after they "Liberated" it. They didn't care that the people were only marginally better off if they lived because the bureaucrat was going to steal a solid fourth of their taxes which would cause the Emperor to raise taxes and make life more difficult for everyone. They didn't care about the fact that the bureaucrat was currently blackmailing a family into prostitution with the threat of taking their farm away. They didn't care that these bandits had cut off the town from the only trade that promised the town any prosperity at all. They didn't care that after these bandits were dead new ones would be sent by Bandit King Yamato to resume where these had left off. They didn't care about much at all.

They cared about two things. First was that the men in charge of securing their pay from the Emperor had told them that no one was to cross this bridge till all the bandits were dead, and second was that they were standing on the edge of hell and smiling. The two men standing on the mouth of hell loved where they were and they loved the view. They loved the sight of hell's maw, the thousands of teeth looking up at them daring them to come in. They loved the knowledge that they were the only things standing between the masses of hell and the gates of heaven. The only thing they loved more than the sight of hell was the heat and the rush created by leaping down the throat of hell, finding the devil and slicing his balls off.

These two men had spent their lives standing on the edge of hell, be it a bridge, a gate, an alley, the edge of a forest, an open plain or anywhere else that the enemies of the Emperor gathered in great enough numbers to merit their attention. The rest of their lives consisted of killing all of the hell spawned bandits who came at them, all the while expanding their already impressive collection of demonic cojones. They were the Imperial Kensai; they had one purpose in life, to kill anyone who crossed the Emperor and they really enjoyed their job. Their names were Oda Nobuhide and Daisuke Osamu.

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Oda Nobuhide was born in the northern mountains, his parents died when he was very young, but his older sister was a strong woman and managed to provide for him in the wilderness. She was a fine archer and a great home maker. Nobuhide loved her with all his heart and soul, so it should not surprise anyone that when he came home one day, at the age of six and found a local bandit half an inch away from stealing his sister's virginity, he took the wood axe he had been using to gather fire wood and killed a man for the first time in his life. The bandit had friends though, friends who would chase Nobuhide and his sister for years. She became a legend in the local towns as a great and beautiful warrior who defied the bandits and lived by the skill of her bow. During this time Nobuhide perfected the art of not getting disemboweled while someone swings a sword at him. He never killed many bandits but he was very good a distracting them and staying alive while his sister proved the only difference between killing a deer with an arrow and killing a man is that deer are slightly faster.

Her luck, however, ran out when Nobuhide turned twelve and she lost her head. Her murderer lost his guts a few moments later as something inside Nobuhide snapped. That snap led him to shift his focus in battle from 'not getting impaled on the long pieces of sharp steal coming towards me' to 'I am going to kill those sons of a seamstress' When he turned fourteen, Nobuhide did just that and claimed the bounty on the leader of his lifelong foes. He used that money to get his sword reforged by a man named Professor Dunstan, a local blacksmith who was, truth be told, the single greatest artisan, engineer, or scientist that the world had ever seen or would see for a long time.

After that Nobuhide sold himself as a mercenary to a local Imperial bureaucrat and was given the job of protecting a shipment of rice and taxes through the bandit infested forests that separated the towns in those days. Though he was much younger then all of his comrades, he had two advantages over them. First, he was very good at not getting wounded or injured in battle. He was so good at this that even if a hundred archers all shot three arrows at him while he ran straight at them, he would not even get a single scratch. Second, his body didn't quite understand how it was supposed to use adrenalin.

A human needs a lot of adrenalin when they get into life threatening situations because then they need to do things like picking up a car to let their child out from underneath it, and they also need a lot of endorphins so that they don't feel every part of their bodies cry out in pain as the human force itself far past its absolute limits. At the same time though, the body has to limit the amount of adrenalin and endorphins it makes of so that it doesn't kill itself, and the person doesn't go insane, and this is what Nobuhide's body simply didn't understand. Rather than releasing these vital chemicals in small controlled amounts, Nobuhide's body simply kicks the adrenaline and endorphin levels up to 'Bloody hell that's high,' turned the strategy gauges to 'awesome ass kicking glory' and then binds up his senses of humanity, self-preservation, morality, self-control and common sense and throws them into the closet till the slaughter was over. Because of this Nobuhide is a very strong, insane warrior who loves nothing more than the sight of men impaled on his sword.

The practical upshot of which was that any rice caravan that Nobuhide guarded got through, the downside was that paying the bounties on all the bandits he had killed usually cost more than the rice that he had brought in was worth. Consequently the only person left in Japan who could afford to hire the now legendary warrior was the Emperor himself. The Emperor was also the one to introduce Nobuhide to his one and only rival as well as his best friend Daisuke Osamu.

If life can be said to be a massive road that one walks from beginning to end the one could say that Nobuhide's life looks like this. He was born a small demon in hell, he then became a bigger demon in hell, then he became a devil of hell who no demon can dare challenge; now he is a respectable devil from hell who works for heaven. Osamu is headed in the opposite direction to the same point. He was a once respectable angel who is now slipping down into hell.

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Daisuke Osamu was born in heaven, the son of a legendary warrior who undoubtedly deserved to be in heaven. He died gloriously against a horde of bandits when Osamu tuned twelve. This meant that while Osamu and his family weren't kicked out of heaven, they fell from the Emperor's favor and became the closest thing one can be to a poor man in the inner capital city. Osamu was determined to get back into the Emperor's favor but he realized that there are only three ways to do this. He had to become the Emperor's concubine, a grand bureaucrat, or follow his father and become a mighty warrior. Osamu soon found he was physically and mentally incapable of doing the first two so he opted for a third and set out to find a master.

The master he found was an old man that all the other would be warriors of the courts passed over in favor of younger men who set out to die gloriously in battle. Osamu like the old man though because he would not go out to die gloriously in battle any time soon and because he had gone off to die gloriously in battle but managed to dodge the whole dying part. From this old master Osamu learned everything was to know about fighting and killing. Osamu became and master swordsman and an even greater archer. He was such a great archer that he could fire five arrows at a target twenty yards away, get them all to hit dead center of the target, and get the fifth arrow into the air before the first one hit. He could also get the forth arrow of his next set into the air before the fifth arrow of the last set hit.

When Osamu was sixteen his master told him he had learned all he could from one tired old man and sent him out to battle, and there Osamu came to life. Suddenly all the frustration and hatred that he had ever felt, about his father's death or how the court treated him and his mother or how strange and harsh his teacher had been, came pouring out of his bow and his sword. He went wild with anger and happiness to the point that all the warriors around him thought he was mad. He was also very, very good, so good the merely mentioning that he had come to a region drove bandits out of it. He became a hero to the people a messenger of hope and justice, at the courts he became a grim sight that everyone dreaded to look at he was considered no better than a demon. Demons are feared though, so Osamu and his family were gradually promoted back up into Imperial favor and were once again allowed to attend all the cool parties.

When Osamu turned twenty he was sent out to crush a peasant revolt in the north and when he returned he found that the so called Bandit King Yamato had attacked the Imperial capital and had kidnapped the Emperor's betrothed wife. Suddenly Osamu found that the Emperor considered him to be his best friend, and wanted Osamu to go out into the country side, find this Bandit King, and kill him. Osamu had no problem with this save that the Emperor wanted him to work alongside of a Ronin from the north. Nobuhide and Osamu had hated each other when they first met, but now after fighting several battles together, looking for any clues about where the Bandit King might be found, they had grown to respect each other but they were still bitter rivals. Even now as a hoard of bandits charged them the only thing they were concerned about was that once again Nobuhide was complaining that Osamu was stealing all the easy kills with his bow.

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Nobuhide himself stood six foot three inches tall on the bridge. He wore armor with red limbs and a black center piece with no banner on his back or insignia of any kind about him. He wore his hair short without a samurai knot and stood loosely on the bridge waiting for an enemy to make it past Osamu's arrows. He carried three swords about him, a rusty old wakizashi, a chipped and rugged katana now stained crimson red by the blood of countless men, and a great No-Dachi which shown with the reflected silver light of the moon. Osamu stood five foot eleven and wore the gray and purple armor of his father. He carried the imperial insignia on his back and had allowed his hair to grow out long so that the ends were stained red from resting on his often bloody armor. He carried two swords along with a great Yuri long bow and two quivers of about sixty arrows each. He stood ridgedly on the bridge, his arms a blur of motion as he switched over from his first quiver to his second without the slightest bit of hesitation. His body was a machine, save for his face which was lit up in a blood crazed smile as he watched man after man drop with arrows in their hearts, necks, and eyes.

Nobuhide simply shook his head, turned to his partner and said, "I am bored, don't shoot me in the back, got it?" Osamu said nothing, he didn't even blink for he was already caught up in the slaughter. Nobuhide took off and met the now devastated front line of bandits at break neck speed. The five foot long No-Dachi came tearing off his shoulder in a silver blaze and brought three men to the ground, leaving nothing but blood and shattered armor in its wake. He took and step forward and brought the blade back around, this time one ducked as two of his comrades slipped into the void. As the survivor came back up, Nobuhide kicked him in the chest knocking him back and brought his sword down cleaving through both of the man's lungs and his heart in a flash of silver and crimson light.

Thrice more he swung his blade into the mass of foes; then some of the bandits turned around and try to take him from behind. Nobuhide turned and swung in a single motion brought the first charge to the reaper. The he then turned back around again and threw his sword at the first foe to meet his eyes, impaling him in the center of his chest. The Kensai drew his blood stained katana and threw aside his mask to reveal his crazed smile and eyes burning with insanity and dared the bandits to come for him. There was nothing elegant about the slaughter that followed no glory, no grace. Nobuhide had no style to his fighting, no complex duals of men worming their ways around each other, when his foes struck he dodged by inches, when he struck his foe either died or their arm broke under the force of his attack that was all. He would then turn and kick a man behind him, catch a sword arm or simply unleashes a blitz of attacks. He didn't let his foes move or attack, he came and nothing stood for long against him.

After a few moments the arrows stopped falling, and Osamu took to the field, a sword in one hand and its sheath in the other. He was a dancer, grace personified. Every blow found its mark, every defense was a trap, and not a move was wasted was he flew through his foes. The fighting lasted for about half an hour then the five last bandits found that they were surrounded by two men and all their comrades had fallen to the ground. Before them stood the terror of the north, a man of unstoppable strength born without mercy, behind them was the champion of the courts, a blood thirsty master of man slaughter. They were all that was left to glut these men's thirst for chaos and death.

"You bastards!" One of bandits cried out in final defiance. "How dare you come from your high towers to protect men like him! Don't you see that these bureaucrats are killing this country? They have to die, what they have stolen must be returned…"

"You are a hundred years to early to lecture me on theft bandit." Osamu interrupted him. "Don't you dare presume that you stand on equal ground with me your life is in my hand, and I don't feel generous today!"

"Shut up Osamu!" Nobuhide declared, "Don't ruin my high with your damn moralizing just shut up and let me kill them!"

"For once I agree with you Nobuhide, let's make this a silent slaughter."

It was, save for the screams of four of the men as they dropped to the ground clutching their guts and trying to put their intestines back in place. One man was left caught in between the blood crazed warriors surviving for an impossibly long time. Not because of his own skill but because the two Kensai were blocking each other's swords as to tried to claim the last kill. Finally Nobuhide knocked him down and moved in for the kill.

As the last bandit backed away from his killer he cried out in desperation, "You know this changes nothing, so long as men like the Emperor rape the land there will never be an end to bandits. We will come out of every broken town and rally to the Bandit King and rise against the capital."

"Then we will kill the Bandit King and all those who follow him and we will kill every bandit from every broken town till there no one left in the land to kill." Nobuhide answered.

"You can't, you can't," then Bandit declared as if this was his last hope in life to cling to. "Bandit King Yamato is the master of even God himself; no one can beat him, not even you two."

Nobuhide stopped for a moment, this was a new one. Everyone had heard the rumors that the gods fought for Yamato because he was doing righteous work, Nobuhide didn't believe it though. Osamu believed even less, every rebel peasant claimed gods were on their side, it made no sense. The Emperor was god why would god fight against himself? But what this bandit said intrigued Osamu as much as it caught Nobuhide's attention. That Yamato was master of God? That was a new one.

"What do you mean, Yamato is master of God? How can a man become God's master?"

"You don't believe me, but I have seen it. I was part of the King's army he sent me here to kill this bureaucrat. I have seen God; he calls Yamato master and does whatever Yamato tells him to. He kills for Yamato and Yamato kills though him. Together, fighting as God and God's teacher they're unstoppable. Yamato spared the Emperor to teach God about mercy, but since the Emperor hasn't changed, soon Yamato will teach God true justice and kill the Emperor. Then God will reign and men like you will be executed as the murders you are!"

"Ah hahahahah!" Nobuhide laughed, "So God studies under a roach like Yamato! How can I fear such a weak little god as that? Tell you what bandit, I will return your life to you! You just have to do one little favor for me."

Nobuhide then grabbed the bandit by the back of the neck and pulled him so close that the bandit could smell the madness dripping from the Kensai's body. "Run! Run away and tell your god and your king to wash their necks. I am tired of cutting up trash like you so when I come to claim their heads I want them to have clean necks!"

Nobuhide dropped the bandit who took off at a mad dash into the forest. Osamu turned to Nobuhide and said "You bastard! You let him go, I don't know how you do things in the untamed wilderness but here in the capital we like a bit of finality in our business. Bandits don't get away, so now we will have to track him down."

"Exactly," Nobuhide answered. "And when we do, he will have led us straight to the Bandit King. We have been chasing that idiot up and down this land for six long months, and I am tired of it all. We're going to end this all and we're going to do it this week. I am tired of killing these small fries, I want to kill the big guy already and be done with it."

"Huh," Osamu said to himself, "You know that almost sounds like a plan, I didn't think a barbarian like you was capable of such rational thought. But first let's go take a bath; there will be plenty of time to track him down later.

"Amen to that my brother."

As they left hell and returned to the village the town elder came to meet them. "Is it over?" he asked feebly

"Yes old man it's over now," Osamu answered, "the field is yours once again, their bodies may have crushed all the crops though, so tomorrow when you go to clear them out; gather the heads of all the dead and claim their bounties in our name. That should pay for your lost crops."

"Oh thank you Kensai-dono is there anything we can do for you?"

"A hot bath and five days worth of rice would be appreciated."

"Of course, anything we can do to thank you."

After stripping their armor and washing their bodies the warriors set about the task of ritualistically cleaning their weapons. The only one which wasn't cleaned properly was Nobuhide's Katana, he never truly cleaned his sword, he simply set it in a cooking fire so that most of the blood burned off but another layer of crimson stains were baked in place. Osamu shook his head in disgust, to treat one's own sword that way was unthinkable, but Nobuhide insisted in sealing the souls of his enemies in his sword. While they were working the Imperial tax collector came into their room.

"Ah" He said in a high pitched poetic sigh signaling that he was about to be philosophical and impressive, "There is truly no sight more beautiful than the sight of true warriors cleansing themselves after battle."

"Do not lie to us Tax-man-dono," Osamu answered, "Even harsh men like us know there is one sight more beautiful than a warrior setting down their weapons."

"And what is that Kensai-sama?"

"Why it's the sight of a bureaucrat laying down their pens and doing an honest day's work for once in their lives."

"Oh Kensai-sama your words cut me to the core, why are men of the battle field so harsh to the servants of the Emperor? But I digress, when shall we leave for Kyoto Kensai-sama? Personally I would like to stay a few more days but if you're eager to return I think I could be dragged away from my work here."

"We're not going back to Kyoto, so you are free to leave whenever you want."

"Me? Leave alone?" Asked the Tax-man obviously panicking over what had been said, "But don't you understand that the court only gave me a few men as escorts because you all would be here? If you leave without me then I'll die in the forest beset by bandits."

"Don't be act like fool, Tax-man-dono, it does not fit your character acting like a murderer or a cur would be better," Nobuhide answered, "We have killed all the bandits here so even if you stay here for days the only thing that will trouble you is a few wounded stragglers. However, any experience that you men can pick up would be good for them, so please stay here for at least a week and enjoy yourself."

"Why do you have to go anyway? Surely you're eager to get back to Kyoto?"

"We have a lead on Bandit King Yamato's location we can't wait to go back to Kyoto and lose his trail; we will leave tomorrow to take him down."

"THE BANDIT KING! Well if there's going to be that kind of trouble I should probably leave tonight."

"Tax-man-dono," Interrupted Osamu in a quiet voice that was accompanied by a faint smile which the whole Imperial court knew meant that Osamu was threatening to kill you and was currently having trouble controlling his excitement. "If I come back to Kyoto with the head of the Bandit King in my hand and I find out that you left here because of fear of our battle I would become so angry with myself there's no telling what I might I do."

"Why y-yes" said the Tax-man in a disturbed voice after a long silence, "Well then, i-if your certain that I will be alright th-then I will leave in a few days or so." He then left obviously shaken up.

Outside he passed a pair of peasants who he paid no attention to. When he closed the door to the inn one of the peasants tuned to the other and said, "What did they say that broke him like that?"

"They said that they're leaving without him tomorrow!" the other replied.

"Perfect! I heard the Kensai have given the village right to the heads of all the bandits. So here's what we do, as soon as those demon's leave we'll kill that bastard of a tax-man and then give the heads to the government saying that these are the heads of the bandits who killed the Tax-man and that we avenged him but couldn't stop the deed itself."

"Good plan, those men are gods of hell but the other soldiers are weak as twigs they can be dealt with easily, go tell the village elder, I will spread the word."

So the moon set on the small village. Outside its borders the mouth of hell closed leaving behind the bodies of its demon's having reclaimed their souls. In the town the Kensai plotted to seek out the most powerful man in Japan and take his head. The Villagers plotted murder and the Bureaucrat went to bed estimating how long he had left to live, he was overestimating his time. Down in the midst of hell, as the Devil nursed the bloody wound that was once his sack, a sole demon who's power could shatter heaven, hell and everything in between, a true god of hell, looked up at the closing gate and wondered when his body would complete and how much he could learn from those men.

End of part 1