Shiki suffers a life-threatening injury when he was young. When he regains consciousness, he gains the ability to see "death lines", lines by which things, living or not, will eventually break when they die. Due to his injury, Shiki is banished by his father to a branch family of the Tohno household. Eight years later he is called back home by his sister after his father dies. After moving back Shiki has trouble adjusting to the old-fashioned lifestyle his sister lives by.
