Week 9 Story: Kintaro's Childhood

This week's story, inspired by The Adventures of Kintaro (Un-Textbook), is also the second part to my storybook.

The farmer and his wife did not sell the (now shattered) golden meteorite after all, believing it to have some sort of special tie to their son who came from the heavens. Raising a new child brought them plenty of happiness and purpose. Over the years, Kintaro grew to be an impressively strong young boy. His parents were delighted to have someone help with chores in the house and in the orange field. By the time he was only seven years old, he was able to beat his old man in an arm wrestling match. This reinforced his parents' belief that Kintaro was indeed special.

Growing up in the mountains, there were no other children around for Kintaro to play with. When he wasn't busy helping his parents, he'd often play with the animals of the mountain. In fact, he played with the animals so much that he was eventually able to speak with them! His best friends were a bear, a monkey, a deer, and a hare. One day when Kintaro and the animals were playing deep in the woods, they decided to set up a sumo wrestling ring for fun. After clearing the ground of leaves and twigs, they prepared the ground by flattening dirt in a circle.

Image Source. Kintaro and some of his friends

Image Source. Kintaro wrestles

his friend the bear

In the first match, the hare quickly defeated the monkey, who cried for a rematch. The monkey got revenge in the second match and was finally satisfied. Next, the bear overpowered the deer in the ring to take the victory. Kintaro wrestled with the bear as well, and he was able to defeat the bear with his great strength. Kintaro and the animals had fun wrestling for hours until they noticed a heavy storm rolling in.

Caught in the pouring rain on their way back to Kintaro's home in the mountains, the group came across a problem when they needed to cross what, just earlier that day, had been a small stream with a wooden bridge. The intense rain flooded the stream which now looked more like a river, and the bridge had not withstood the heavy flow of water. The animals, none of them being proficient swimmers, did not know what to do. But Kintaro told them not to worry, and proceeded to pull a living tree - at least twenty feet tall and five feet in diameter - right out of the ground with very little effort. He laid this giant tree tree across the river so that the five of them could easily walk across it. The animals already knew Kintaro was very powerful for a young boy, but they were awestruck by this display of strength beyond anything that even the greatest warrior in all of Japan could have dreamed of. Kintaro's strength was out of this world.

Kintaro's parents were relieved when he finally made it back home in the miserable weather. He said goodbye to his friends, who took shelter in a nearby cave, then he went inside quickly to dry off. Just moments later, the farmer was surprised to hear a knock on the door. Visitors rarely came, but the kind farmer felt bad for whoever was out in the rain, so he answered the door and invited the stranger inside. The man, dressed in all black, said he was there to talk about their son. The faces of the farmer and his wife turned pale; given the mysterious nature of Kintaro's birth, they had always suspected they may find out more about him, where he came from, and why he has such great powers. Had that time finally come?

Image Source.  Two stars colliding results in gravitational waves, disturbances in the fabric of spacetime

The man in black explained that he was from another planet around a star system named Alpha Centauri. Alpha Centauri was on a direct collision course with another star, Proxima Centauri. If the two collided, there would be an explosion so large that it would send gravitational waves rippling through the entire galaxy, strong enough to rip the very fabric of spacetime itself. Earth, Alpha Centauri, and many other civilizations would be no more. Kintaro, originally born of the sun god of Alpha Centauri, was prophesied to save the galaxy from this event when he became a man. However, his golden egg went missing one day, prompting a galaxy-wide search for the chosen one. 

The man from Alpha Centauri had been secretly observing Kintaro for weeks; when he watched the young boy pull the tree from the ground that day, he had no doubt he found who he was looking for. The child had to come back home now in order to fulfill the prophecy because the trip would take years. Not being the most educated pair, the old couple didn't quite understand the crash course in stellar physics and gravitational waves given by the man in black. They did understand, however, that their world among many others were in grave danger, and only Kintaro could save them. They reluctantly agreed to let their child go.

They bid Kintaro farewell, and he promised to come back for them once he completed his journey.

Author's Notes: The story of Kintaro as it is told in the Un-Textbook consists of him growing up with animals as friends just as I have depicted in my story. There are several small adventures including him battling a giant carp and smashing boulders, but I have chosen to focus on the story surrounding the wrestling match with the animals and the journey home when he pulls a tree out of the ground (this is directly from the literature as well). This story is the most important because the "man in black" observes this and knows Kintaro is special. Most versions of the story say this man recruits Kintaro to become a warrior in Kyoto where he lives a noble life and is bestowed the honorable title "Chief of the Four Braves." Rather than ending with this, I plan to have Kintaro go on to save the galaxy as my title says! So, I've repurposed this character to instead explain Kintaro's cosmic origins and why he must return to the stars.