Week 11 Story: Kintaro's Final Journey

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

Image Source. The spaceship used by the

Alpha Centaurian to travel.

Kintaro and his new guardian took off in a spaceship from the peak of Mount Ashigara. The young boy was ecstatic to go on a journey to save the galaxy. Knowing he possessed great strength and abilities, becoming a hero had always been a dream of his. The man in black told Kintaro not to be so naive as the journey ahead would be long, and Kintaro, while impressively strong, was not ready to take on the biggest threat to the galaxy quite yet.

His first chance for training came when the ship entered the asteroid belt, just days after leaving the earth's orbit. The elder man told Kintaro to get ready to exit the cabin. A dangerous asteroid was hurtling toward them. Kintaro had previously smashed rocks, even large boulders, to show his friends how strong he was. He felt more than prepared to defend the ship from incoming asteroids, so he put on a space suit and left the safety of the ship.

Image Source. Kintaro smashed solid rocks

thousands of times his size with ease.

With nothing but a rope to tether him to the rocket, Kintaro laughed with joy as he experienced weightlessness in outer space for the first time. His expression quickly turned serious when he noticed the distant asteroid headed straight for him. Kintaro propelled himself away from the ship and towards the rock, which quickly grew in size until Kintaro realized this single rock was bigger than the mountain he grew up on. Not one to let his fears overcome him, he clenched his fist as tight as he could, drew his arm back, and unleashed an explosive punch onto the surface of the asteroid. Trillions of tons of rock, moving at thousands of miles per hour, instantly came to a stop. It burst into over a million pieces which scattered in every direction, and only a few small chunks bounced right off the ship. Kintaro's hand became red and slightly sore, but otherwise he was completely unharmed.

Over the next few years, Kintaro continued training with the limited (but massive) resources he could use in outer space, maximizing his strength. Soon enough, Kintaro was catching and throwing giant asteroids like a football, and his punch was quite literally earth-shattering. Even Kintaro's guardian, who travelled light years in search of this special child, could not believe the power he was witnessing.

As the two arrived near their destination, Kintaro was very excited to visit his home planet and see what the world was like. However, the man told him there was no time to stop; Kintaro had to prevent Proxima Centauri from colliding into Alpha Centauri immediately. The two stars were dancing around in a circle, ready to fall into one another at any moment. Kintaro suddenly became nervous. His training involved building strength and power playing with space rocks, but he worried that getting too close to the star would burn him up, The guardian told Kintaro not to worry, for he would be protected by his father who was the god of the sun.

So Kintaro made his way out of the ship once again, and the gravity of Proxima Centauri quickly began pulling him in. Kintaro felt nothing as he floated toward the center of the star despite being engulfed by immense heat and pressure. Soon he found himself standing on the star's iron core, and Kintaro did the one thing he knew how to do best: he thrust his fist into the core with all his might, immediately causing it to collapse in on itself before bouncing back and exploding outwards in a colorful burst.

Image Source. An exploding star.

The space ship came back when the dust subsided, and what the man in black said next left Kintaro devastated. While the young hero had successfully prevented the two stars from merging into a galactic scale catastrophe, the single explosion was still powerful enough to vaporize his home civilization around Alpha Centauri. This sacrifice was a part of the prophecy that the man knew of all along, but he didn't tell Kintaro because it may have impacted his decisions. Kintaro was overcome with emotions - mainly grief, frustration, and guilt. Despite heroically saving billions of other planets from destruction, he could only focus on the home he never knew and would never get to know. The journey back to earth was long and depressing for Kintaro. His spirits were only uplifted once he returned and saw his parents again. They had grown older and needed more help than ever, and Kintaro had greatly matured over the past decade, but as they reunited it was like no time had passed at all. Kintaro lived happily in the mountains playing with his old friends and taking care of his parents.

Author's Note: I drew inspiration from a few different sources for Kintaro's final journey. I recall reading in one version of the Adventures of Kintaro that as a boy, he was so strong that he was able to crush large rocks. I incorporated this into his "training" for his final challenge (and exaggerated it quite a bit) by having him destroy ridiculously large asteroids in outer space. Later in the story, when I mentioned him being protected by his father, the sun god, I am sure this is very common throughout mythology of gods and goddesses, but I particularly had in mind Poseidon protecting Percy Jackson when he is in the water. And of course, similar to the previous story, I drew some inspiration from real life physics as well. When Kintaro reached the center of the star, he was able to stand on the solid "iron core." Most stars are 100% gas and so there would be nothing for him to stand on/punch at the center, but the star having an iron core means it is close to going supernova (i.e. dying/exploding like in the last image). So, Kintaro accelerates this process with his superhuman strength, thus saving the galaxy!!!