"I've got nothing, so I'm going there." Former small-time crook Yotaro has never forgotten the rakugo tale "Shinigami" that the great artist Yurakutei Yakumo performed to him in prison. After his release, he goes right to Yakumo's theater, and pleads to be made his apprentice. He's accepted, but quckly finds himself dealing with many strange twists in the world of rakugo, including a growing bond with Yakumo's ward, Konatsu, and reminders from his own inescapable past.

Yakumo begins the story of the promise he made with Sukeroku. When he was young, he was taken in by the 7th generation Yakumo and named Kikuhiko. He met the young boy Sukeroku, a strange child who insisted on taking over the Yakumo name, with a natural talent for rakugo. He is given the stage name Hatsutaro, and although his personality is unconventional, and his rakugo is rough, he loves rakugo more than anything. Together wth his polar opposite, the reluctant Kikuhiko, they begin their days of training.

After their first performance, Kikuhiko sharply feels the difference in skill between himself and Hatsutaro. Hatsutaro recommends he try erotic stories, but Kikuhiko is struggling so hard just to memorize the beginner stories, he can't even begin to consider anything else. The fact that he has to go to school in the mornings causes the gap between him and Hatsutaro, who can spend the day learning rakugo, to grow wider. Even so, he gradually comes to love rakugo more and more, and to develop something of a normal life. But the shadow of the war approaches, tearing rakugo, love, and friendship apart...

The Seventh Generation Yakumo manages to get Kikuhiko and Sukeroku promoted to shin'uchi. But although their unveiling ceremony is a huge success, Sukeroku gets in a fight with the president of the Rakugo Assocation, and insults him by performing his specialty work. When his master takes him to task for his conduct, Sukeroku gives an impassioned speech about his own feelings about rakugo... All the while, Kikuhiko is meeting with Miyokichi to break up with her. Both men's fates are about to take a turn...

A small rakugo performance takes place at an inn in a hot springs town. As he performs, Sukeroku feels the warmth of the audience's love for rakugo, and remembers what it means to be a storyteller. Kikuhiko brings and insists Sukeroku wear the 7th Generation Yakumo's montsuki, and he performs the story "Shibahama." Time, which had stopped for Sukeroku and Kikuhiko, begins to move again... As it does for Miyokichi, as well.

Their promise to each other was to carry rakugo into the future. To perform unchanging rakugo was Kikuhiko's job. To create a rakugo that would change with the times was Sukeroku's job. The story of the promise between two men who lived for rakugo is at last at an end, with Kikuhiko deciding to take on the Yakumo name at last. The era begins to wane, and both rakugo and people change. But what decision will Kikuhiko make about rakugo, and the destiny it bound him to?