Vagabond, Volume 26

Vagabond is a young-adult manga created by Takehiko Inoue, adapted from Eiji Yoshikawa's novel Musashi. Set between the late Sengoku period and the early Edo period, it tells the coming-of-age story of Shinmen Musashi (later renamed Miyamoto Musashi), from a defeated soldier on the battlefield of Sekigahara to the heights of swordsmanship. Serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Morning since 1998, it has won the Kodansha Manga Award, the Japan Media Arts Festival Manga Division Award, and the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Grand Prize. This is Volume 26, continuing the section in which Musashi infiltrates Yagyu Castle and meets Yagyu Sekishusai, and unfolding his death match with the Yoshioka school in Kyoto: he charges alone into a siege of more than seventy Yoshioka disciples, his surprise attack succeeding but his strength gradually failing in the relay of duels. Between battles the narrative intercuts views of early morning, fields, and ordinary people's lives, marking the book's turning point from "winning fame by the sword" to "seeking the Way through the heart." This volume collects chapters 225 to 233, a Chinese translation by Hong Kong's Tianxia Publishing, released in step with Kodansha's original Japanese Volume 26.