At the beginning of this novel, Satomi Yoshizane becomes the lord of Awa province sa pamamagitan ng overthrowing its nakaraan ruler. He also executes the nakaraan ruler's wife, who curses his family; her spirit later possesses a foundling puppy, whom Yoshizane adopts and names Yatsufusa ("eight spots").
Some years later, when beseiged in his stronghold sa pamamagitan ng enemies, Yoshizane offers to marry his eldest daughter, Fusehime ("Princess Fuse"), to anyone who can kill the enemy leader and lift the seige, even though she was already engaged to a Satomi retainer. Yatsufusa hears this and succeeds in this mission, bringing back the enemy leader's head as proof, and conveys his intention to make Yoshizane fulfill his promise.
Fusehime agrees to marry Yatsufusa and they retreat to live in seclusion in a mountain cave. She brings with her the eight volumes of the Lotus Sutra and a Buddhist rosary of 108 beads, whose eight largest beads are each inscribed with one of the eight Confucian virtues. She also brings a dagger to defend herself from Yatsufusa if he breaks his promise not to touch her, but he keeps his word and brings pagkain to her every day, listening to her as she recites the sutras. However, as they achieve enlightenment together, their spiritual companionship causes her to conceive a mystical pregnancy. Fusehime's former fiance finds the cave, hoping to shoot Yatsufusa and rescue her, but she leaps in front of the gun and is also killed.
The spirits of her eight unborn sons scatter throughout Japan, along with the eight beads of virtues from her rosary. In time, their spirits are reborn as the sons of other families in the region, all in different villages that have the word for "dog" as part of their names. Each boy has a birthmark in the shape of a peony (the emblem of the Satomi clan), one of the rosary beads, and a personal name that contains the kanji for his bead's virtue. Over time, the eight men find one another and form a group known as the Hakkenshi (八犬士, "eight dog warriors"), whose adventures the novel follows.
