After fleeing Yoshino and hiding in Nara and Kyoto, Yoshitsune decided to go down the Hokurikudo to seek the protection of Fujiwara no Hidehira in Oshu. The party, Yoshitsune, Benkei and the rest, numbered only a dozen or so. All disguised themselves as mountain ascetics, and Yoshitsune dressed as a porter.
To capture Yoshitsune, Yoritomo had set up barriers everywhere. In the Chronicle of Yoshitsune, at the Nyoi ferry in Etchu, the ferryman grew suspicious: "Isn't that the Hogan (Yoshitsune)?" Benkei said, "Because this porter looks like the Hogan, we are suspected again and again. It's infuriating," and beat Yoshitsune soundly with his fan. Seeing this unthinkable act of striking one's lord, the ferryman dropped his suspicions and took them across.
Once across, Benkei knelt before Yoshitsune and wept aloud: "How can I ever be forgiven the crime of striking my lord?" Yoshitsune too, it is said, took Benkei's hand and wept.
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This story later became the Noh play Ataka and then Kanjincho, one of the Eighteen Great Kabuki Plays, set at the Ataka barrier in Kaga.
The barrier keeper Togashi Saemon suspects the ascetics and presses them: "If you travel to raise funds for rebuilding Todaiji, you must carry a subscription scroll. Read it out." Benkei unrolls a blank scroll and reads it aloud in a ringing voice, as though it were the real thing.
When Togashi then questions Yoshitsune in his porter's disguise, Benkei beats him fiercely with his staff. Though Togashi sees through to who it is, he is moved by Benkei's loyalty to his lord and lets them pass.
Past the barrier, Benkei weeps and begs Yoshitsune's pardon, and Yoshitsune takes his hand. Then Benkei, drunk on sake that Togashi has served them, dances the ennen dance and finally leaves down the hanamichi in the bounding "tobi roppo." The site of the Ataka barrier is in today's Komatsu, Ishikawa Prefecture, where statues of Benkei, Yoshitsune and Togashi stand.