Drawn to the drowning of Taira no Kiyotsune as told in The Tale of the Heike, the narrator begins tracing the little-known courtier's footsteps and legends. Reflections on Kiyotsune's death overlap with memories of evacuation to Tango, student life in Kyoto, and dreams, bringing the historical figure into contact with the narrator's present-day sensibility.

A journey tracing Taira no Kiyotsune's drowning reconnects history and the present, memory and dreams, within a single sensibility.