Not all vengeance is exacted by the living. In 12th-century Japan, Yamabuki, a female samurai 17 years old, travels deep into the Oku wilderness. Along a lonely road, at a forgotten inn, she seeks shelter, warm food, and cold saké. But as darkness falls, she ends up fighting for her life . . . and she finds that there are terrible things under heaven that no weapon can vanquish, and that her only way to survive is to heal that which cannot be healed.