The journey to Alpha Centauri continued, and over the next few years, Kintaro continued training with the limited resources he could use in space - comets, asteroids, moons, and more - 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 guardian 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. When asked if he was ready to save the galaxy, Kintaro replied calmly: "I was born ready."

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.

The spaceship came back when the dust subsided, and what the guardian 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 might 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 now 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 while Kintaro had greatly matured over the past decade, he barely looked a day older because their journey occurred at nearly the speed of light. They reunited as if no time had passed at all, and 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. I also was heavily inspired by my favorite Japanese anime series, One Punch Man. One Punch Man destroys every enemy with one punch, and there is even one episode where he saves earth from an incoming meteor by punching it (kind of like Kintaro saving the galaxy with one punch). 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!!!

The Adventures of Kintaro (Un-Textbook)

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