Blade of the Immortal #18

Hiroaki Samura's Blade of the Immortal has always balanced breathtaking beauty with unflinching darkness, and this seventh and final chapter of the "Dreamsong" arc distills that tension into a single haunting image. The cover depicts a pale young woman, eyes closed and hands clasped around two crossed swords, her elaborate purple kimono pooling around her like fallen petals against a blood-red ground — with what appears to be a severed head resting at the lower right. It's a quietly devastating composition that signals a story reaching its somber conclusion.