Yagyu's Murasama blade

Yagyu's Murasama blade is a prized sword whose disputed past gives it significance beyond its value as a weapon. In Yabu’s hands, it connects a story of ancient betrayal and family misfortune to his private ambition to display the blade before Toranaga.

Identity and History

Yabu keeps the long sword within reach while he bathes. The blade is described as ancient and made by the master swordsmith Murasama, but its importance lies as much in its history as its workmanship. During a massage, the elderly Suwo recounts serving Yoshi Chikitada, Toranaga’s grandfather, and witnessing Chikitada’s assassination. Suwo identifies the weapon used in the killing as a Murasama blade: Obata Hiro, then seventeen and Chikitada’s friend and vassal, struck off his lord’s head in a single blow. That act began the superstition that Murasama blades bring misfortune to the Yoshii Clan.

Suwo’s account makes the sword’s history a matter of dispute rather than settled legend. He says that after Obata Hiro performed seppuku, Obata’s father collected both his son’s head and the blade. Yabu objects that the sword was broken and destroyed after the killing. Suwo answers that destruction is only the legend: he saw the father take the sword away, and considers it unlikely that such a work of art would have been destroyed.

Concealment and Ambition

The blade’s identity survives through secrecy rather than visible marks. Yabu considers whether Suwo might recognize it, but the old man is blind, and the sword resembles other Murasama blades; its handle and scabbard have also been changed many times. The weapon has passed from hand to hand with increasing secrecy as Toranaga’s power grew. Suwo’s knowledge therefore unsettles Yabu without giving him a clear reason to act: he briefly considers killing the old man, then decides that Suwo’s survival makes the secret more thrilling and that he can kill him later if he chooses.

For Yabu, possession becomes a private promise of future standing. He imagines a day when he will be powerful enough to wear the Murasama blade in Toranaga’s presence, and perhaps tell him its history. The sword thus joins inherited violence to political aspiration: it recalls the Yoshii Clan’s misfortune while serving as an emblem of the authority Yabu hopes to claim.

Political Meaning and the Blade’s Afterlife

The sword’s history unfolds against a precarious present. Yabu rules Izu, but Mura regards his lord as cruel and dishonorable, and fears that the villages will be caught between Toranaga and Ishido when war comes. In Yedo, Yabu and other independent daimyos are kept near Toranaga while their lord is away in Osaka; though no one calls them hostages, their presence helps secure Toranaga’s safe return. The blade’s concealed passage through successive hands thus belongs to a world where possession, loyalty, and political safety are all uncertain.

The old account also links the weapon to the collapse of a household, not merely to a famous killing. After Yoshi Toranaga-noh-Chikitada’s death, his only son was taken hostage, the clan’s fortunes declined, and famine drove Suwo into a masterless life. Later, Toranaga offers Yabu rule over Izu, Suruga, and Totomi if he survives the war, asking whether Yabu will accept him as liege lord. The sword is not part of that bargain, but its secret history gives material form to the status Yabu covets: an inheritance marked by violence, kept out of sight until he can imagine wearing it openly before Toranaga.

The Sword as a Test of Recognition

The blade also sharpens the scene in which Yabu hears its history. As Suwo massages him, Yabu studies the old man’s sword scars and wonders whether he was once a samurai or might be a spy; his guards have searched Suwo, and Yabu’s own prized sword remains within reach. The contrast is pointed: the old man’s body bears visible traces of violence, while the blade’s identity cannot be confirmed by appearance. Suwo’s account therefore unsettles Yabu not through a demonstration of the weapon, but through the possibility that its past is known. The sword makes an intimate encounter a test of what can be recognized, concealed, and remembered.