Prewar-era Japan. Deep in the snowy mountains of northwestern Japan, there exists a settlement called Hitogata, the Village of Dolls. On the night of the festival honoring the clay idol Hinna-sama, a girl is murdered. The villagers all blame Hinna-sama’s curse. One outside the faith has joined in the festival of Hinna-sama, and brought the painful death of the curse down upon themself.

October, 1957.
Two years have passed since Kuchiki Touko’s abduction from her hospital room. Tokisaka Reiji’s younger sister saves a man who had tried to commit suicide. He, too, is the most recent victim of “Hinna-sama’s curse”—— Tokisaka Reiji begins his investigation, clinging desperately to the hope that Touko can be saved——