In the summer of 1995, a newborn baby was abducted from Yokosuka General Hospital. The culprits demanded a ransom of 100 million yen from the director of the hospital instead of the baby’s parents. The kidnappers die in a car accident while being pursued by the police. The baby was never found. 20 years on, the Tozai Newspaper has offered a job to a female university student, Hiroko Asakura. However, shock ripples within the newspaper because of a weekly magazine’s scoop proclaiming she is actually the daughter of one of the kidnappers. Muto Seiichi tries to make her accept the offer. Meanwhile, Hidekazu Kaji, a former hotshot journalist who has been relegated to a marginal employee in the wake of an incident, is ordered by the newspaper's chief, Junichi Sugino, to look into that kidnapping case again. That already gloomy summer becomes more-so with each new truth that's unearthed.