Author's Note: A little Head Canon of mine, enjoy!
"I will never understand the pretense you have for your victims," one of the Harusame Space Pirates muttered his breath to Kamui. The 7th Division of the Harusame Space Pirates have completed another successful raid of a wealthy town in a foreign star and gained a considerable amount of loot. To the Pirates of the 7th Division, this is great news, more money to share around, but to Kamui, a desperate struggle to find a suitable battle partner has fallen short again.
But that was not the problem that his fellow comrades had with him, what they did not understand was his double standard of fighting. Kamui would demand to fight the town's best soldiers, all at once, but then ask that the women and children be spared. This was the notion that the women could give birth to strong fighters and that the children may one day become strong, both types being able to challenge him.
Several times he has been asked by his comrades about his killing preferences, and as many times asked would he choose to ignore them. He was their Captain after all; they had to obey him, that was the hierarchy, but every time that they would ask him the question, he would sulk for a while, not talking for an indefinite period of time, thinking of life, reflecting on himself.
Today, when they looted the town, he had finished off a young man, in front of his family consisting of a wife and two young children, with the courteous smile. He was going to walk past the mother, who was shielding her two children, and continue on to another challenger.
But this woman, as she crouched her children close to her chest, shielding them from their seeing their father's dead body, challenged him with her eyes as he walked past her. Those were not the eyes of sorrow or fear, he recognized, but those of rage. They spoke a message that no amount of action or words could ever convey.
"Come near my children and I will end you."
Now he knew that he could end them in a heartbeat but her defiance to him justified his choice of sparing them as he walked away. Women like her may give birth to children, which she already has, and they may become strong under her guidance. Yes, this justified everything he does. Natural selection, only the strong survive and the weak will die.
Kamui was looking outside a window inside a Pirate Space Ship, thinking to himself, he liked having moments like these where he can reflect on matters. He recalled the event that day of the defiant woman: it reminded him of something, something from his past.
His mother.
Yes, his mother, a loving person, who nurtured and cared for him. She was different from the other Yato mothers, choosing a more loving approach to her children, taking care of them and tending them to whenever she could, as opposed to other Yato mothers that would only do a basic mother's role. He rejected it early on, striving to be the strongest, training to be the best, hoping to surpass his father. His mother would often worry about him, ask of his injuries, and offer him assistance, much to the giggling and mockery of his friends. He hated that and opted to run away from home to accomplish his goal of becoming the strongest.
By doing so, he isolated himself, blocked out his emotion, and bottled up his childhood. He masked it with his desire to fight, something he longed for so much when he was young, and now, everything that he had sealed away was slowly pouring out. And now he longed for what he lost as a child. Except now, he can't have it anymore, his mother was gone.
But inside he was still a kid, longing to be loved and accepted.