Vagabond Vol. 4

Vagabond is a long-running seinen manga by Takehiko Inoue, serialised in Kodansha's Weekly Morning since 1998. Adapted from Eiji Yoshikawa's novel Musashi, it is set in the age of swordsmen from the late Sengoku period into the early Tokugawa era, and follows seventeen-year-old Shinmen Musashi and his friend Hon'iden Matahachi as, defeated in battle and reduced to deserters, they are driven by fate onto the "Way of the Sword" amid pursuit and flight. This volume is the fourth of the Hong Kong colour edition of Vagabond and collects instalments 13 to 16. In the preceding story, Musashi returns to Miyamoto Village and is trapped by a scheme mounted jointly by Matahachi's mother Osugi, the villagers and the authorities; he fights day after day to break out, and the pursuing soldiers fall one after another until the situation verges on chaos. To quell the uproar as quickly as possible, Takuan of Shippoji Temple can only ask Otsu, who is not afraid of Musashi, to step in and help stop and capture the young man who has already killed without restraint. Meanwhile, Tsujikaze Kohei, seeking revenge for his brother, follows the trail there as well. The childhood bond between Otsu and Musashi, and Takuan's almost cruel expectations of Musashi, are both brought to the fore in these instalments: before he can become "peerless under heaven", he must first confront the violence within himself.