Hinako, a trading-company office worker who spends her weekends in Roppongi, takes a job to finance a working holiday. The choice draws her into the underworld and sends her fleeing overseas in this turbulent coming-of-age novel.

With love and loyalty in her heart, an office worker sets off on a working holiday abroad.

Set in Genroku-era Edo, this historical novel follows the masterless Arai Denzō, later known as Arai Hakuseki, after an aide to shogun Tsunayoshi asks him to serve as a guard and draws him into a political conspiracy. It portrays the young Hakuseki, accomplished in both scholarship and swordsmanship, as he decides whom to serve and how to use his abilities.

In an Edo rife with conspiracy, the young Arai Hakuseki takes up the sword he had set aside and seeks the master he should serve.