Taking shelter from a snowstorm in a rural village, Jack Fletcher, a young samurai, discovers the village is in need of protection from mountain bandits. Though he knows his larger duty is to move on, he decides to stay and follow the equally pressing duty of protecting the innocent, the first samurai to do so for the poor villagers. Now he is in need of soldiers to help him fight, but the villagers are peaceful, and Jack feels very much like the foreigner he is.