The story begins in 1629 Shizuoka during Tokugawa Tadanaga s rule. The daimyo staged a tournament where the participants fought with real steel Japanese swords rather than bokken, against his vassals strong objection. The story revolves around the first match between the one-armed swordsman Fujiki Gennosuke and the blind samurai Irako Seigen and deals with the circumstances that led the two to participate in Tokugawa s tournament. Source: Wikipedia