Lone Wolf and Cub: Cloud Dragon, Wind Tiger vol 07

Itto Ogami was entrusted by the Shogun with the gravest of responsibilities: official executioner. But he was falsely accused of treason by the evil Yagyu Clan, stripped of his position, and his wife murdered by Yagyu assassins. He gave his infant son a terrible choice between a beautiful red ball and a sword. To choose the ball meant to join his mother in the Void; to choose the sword meant to join his father, now a samurai without a master, in a terrible journey that must end in revenge and death.