Path of the Assassin, Volume 10: Battle for Power, Part Two — Kazuo Koike

This volume of Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima's rich series finds Ieyasu both fighting for his life and looking the the future. First, a couple of eerie and mysterious ninja try to take his life, but find themselves foiled by the increasingly able ninja Hattori Hanzo. And then a nationn's tribes face off and spin through intrigue and tactical webworks, all while fascinatingly dark ninja politics weave subtext and sexy action throughout the masterly-drafted pages.