Featuring short stories "Shadow Wife," the tale of the vengeful swordsman prodigy Hisama Sakakibara, and "The Crawler," the story of stubborn treasury official Genbei Chitsugi, this masterpiece collection of historical ghost stories depicts the pathos of lower-class samurai who live for and are held captive by the sword.

In a fleeting last breath, a beautiful woman on her deathbed hands a strange gemstone to D and asks that he deliver it to her sister in a remote North Sea fishing village. As D cuts across never-ending expanses of Frontier in search of his seaside destination, he is relentlessly attacked by wave after wave of mercenary and monster...all employed by the man who murdered the young girl. In order to grant a dying wish, D must find a way to keep this priceless jewel out of everyone's covetous reach, and all without sacrificing his own life!

"In a world where even the smallest and most remote village is being terrorized by the monsters that stalk the night, there is a hamlet, prosperous and peaceful, where mortals and vampires have lived in peace for years. It is there that sleeping beauty, Sheavil Schmidt, has slept, neither waking nor aging, for thirty years since first receiving the vampire's immortal kiss. The mysterious Vampire Hunter D is lured to the tranquil oasis by recurrent dreams of the beautiful, undying girl bathed in an eerie blue light and dancing in a ghostly chateau."--Amazon.com.