The game is set in Kyoto during the early Edo period - a time meant to bring peace to Japan. The protagonist is legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. After winning another duel, he is pursued and killed by the demonic Genma, who have already infested the city. Sent to the underworld, Musashi is forcibly bound with the Oni Gauntlet, a demonic gauntlet he cannot remove, and is thrust back into the world of the living. Accepting his new fate, he sets out through a Kyoto transformed into a nightmarish wasteland to stop the Genma invasion.