Natsuho Nekogasaki arrives in the Twelve City, a Japanese town where youkai and humans live side by side under twelve families named for the Chinese zodiac. She is the Hateful Cat, a youkai out for the life of Kyoichi Nekuni, head of the rat family that legend says cheated her kind out of a place in the zodiac. Standing in front of him, though, she is also a girl who goes to pieces around other people. The grudge she brought turns out to be harder to hold on to than she planned, and what starts to replace it unsettles her more.