A disgraced outcast samurai living in early seventeenth-century Manila, Kitazume is contemplating ritual suicide when a divine force (of a sort) intervenes: Luis, a rogue Jesuit priest and Kitazume''s longtime friend. At Luis''s insistence, the samurai agrees to help smuggle a Manchu princess to Mexico. But little does he know that he''s really been dragged into an epic struggle for power.