A content samurai is given ten years to comprehensively chronicle his clan before he commits harakiri, or ritual disembowelment, for being caught in a tryst with one of the concubines of the lord of the fief. However, not all is as it seems. Nonetheless, fearing dishonoured if the tasked samurai has second thoughts about his sentence chief retainer to the lord assigns a younger samurai to live with and oversee the older swordsman.