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Leitmotif: “Memories” — Resident Evil: the Darkside Chronicles soundtrack

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Once upon a time, in the Land of Mugwort and Goosefoot, there lived a man named Shiddatta Shaka*.

Shiddatta was a humble man. Not humble in origin, for he was the chieftain of the Shaka clan of the Land of Hōrai; he was humble in the sense that despite his lofty position, he remained an earthy man, approachable to anyone, regardless of race or caste. And approach they did, for Shiddatta was a studious man renowned for the wisdom and compassion he gained from his wanderings around the Land of Mugwort and Goosefoot, both of which earned him the title of “Buddha”. The Enlightened One.

That very enlightenment was why people from miles around would turn to Shiddatta when the Jubokko blighted the land. From what the people had told him, the Jubokko was a tree that had been borne of the blood of wars past. Perhaps in karmic remembrance of its sanguinary origins, the tree possessed its own bloodthirst and lust, which it regularly quenched and sated by snagging and devouring within its branches any hapless being who approached it.

The people had tried everything at their disposal to rid themselves of the arboreal abomination, but to no avail. Swords and axes would shatter against its mighty bole; bullets and arrows would simply bounce off. Not even the elements themselves could end it.

For days and days, Shiddatta pondered what to do, and came to this conclusion: the Jubokko’s bloodlust could not be satisfied by unwilling victims and it could not be felled. Perhaps if the victim was willingly so…

But who would willingly sacrifice themselves to the Jubokko? No one had come forward thus far, and if someone forced them to do so, that would just make for another unwilling victim, render their sacrifice for naught.

Shiddatta knew what he had to do.

As he had on his previous journeys, he gathered up his bejeweled begging bowl, bade farewell to his beloved wife Yashudara and to their beloved son Ragora before setting off on his final journey.

After days upon days of wandering, he finally found it: a tree as sanguinary red as the blood for which it thirsted. Gamboling around the tree was a skulk of foxes, all donning or carrying bones that rattled as they danced, a macabre accompaniment to the hymning of their vulpine gekkers.

It wasn’t long before the ghoulish creatures scented the interloper in their midst, their gaping maws bearing glinting sharp fangs as they raged against the sacrilege. But their holy anger was calmed when Shiddatta held up his hand in a placatory gesture. “I come not to fell this tree,” he told them, “but to feed it…for the last time.”

Seemingly intrigued, the foxes stepped aside, to which Shiddatta nodded his gratitude. Once at the base of the tree, he said this simple prayer: “Jubokko, take this life I give to you, and be sated.”

And so did the Jubokko answer the Buddha’s prayer, devouring him as it had countless others and devouring no more.

Of course, nothing was as simple as happily ever after, as was so proven by Shiddatta’s son Ragora, who was filial to a fault, and the Ōtsutsuki, the dendrolatrous clan that he begat.

But it can never be disputed that the Buddha, Shiddatta Shaka…

…had truly made history.