Last Updated: Jul 2, 2024

Yagyu Village’s Itto-seki

Sekishusai & Kimetsu-no-Yaiba

This story was originally published on donnykimball.com and has been syndicated here on Medium.

Standing alone in the middle of a secluded forest, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by a sense of something supernatural. Just before me was a behemoth-sized boulder known as the Itto-seki that had been split down the middle in two. According to local legend, the massive stone seen above had been cleaved in half by none other than Yagyu Munetoshi (whom I will henceforth refer to by his monastic moniker of Sekishusai). Once the lord of the modest Yagyu Village, this storied swordsman was the founder of Yagyu Shinkage-ryu, a style of swordplay that is still rigorously practiced today.

Now, if we are to take the local folktales at face value, Sekishusai ended up slicing this slab of stone during his duel with a tengu, a long-nosed “winged goblin” that is part human and part bird and skilled in combat. Allegedly, just as he was about to divorce the creature’s right side from its left with a thundering blow, the tengu suddenly vanished without a trace. In its place was a gargantuan boulder that had been cleft in half by the stroke of Sekishusai’s blade. As much as I’d like to believe that this is nothing but a tall tale of the famous swordsman’s strength, the Itto-seki was cut so cleanly in half that it makes one wonder.