In 1614, after a demonstration duel between Kazamachi Shougen of the Kouga and Yashamaru of the Iga clans at Sunpu, the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, orders the truce between the two long-time feuding ninja clans to be canceled and commands each clan to send 10 of their best ninja to enter a competition to eliminate each other. The surviving team would garner favor from the shogun for a thousand years, and their grandson will be the undisputed heir to the Shogunate. A scroll is used to indicate the competitors from the table. In a flashback, the two current leaders, Iga Ogen and Kouga Danjou, are shown as former lovers in 1581 when the Kouga attacked the Iga in a surprise night-time attack, and Danjou helped Ogen and some Iga escape. Back in the present, they end up killing each other and mark their names off on the scroll, the first ninja to be eliminated.