Saving a criminal's life brings Dr. Kenzou Tenma face to face with Johan Liebert, a boy he operated on nine years earlier. Confronted with the havoc Johan has caused, Tenma sets out in pursuit of his former patient, seeking to make amends for the consequences of saving him.
Years before that reunion, Tenma was a rising neurosurgeon engaged to the hospital director's daughter. At the director's order, he left an immigrant worker's operation to save a famous performer. The worker's death shook his conscience. When ordered to prioritize the town's mayor over Johan, Tenma refused and operated on the boy, sacrificing his standing at the hospital. The mysterious deaths of the director and two doctors subsequently restored his position. With no evidence to convict him, Tenma was released and eventually became hospital director—but his later encounter with Johan forces him to confront the life he chose to save.
