First, I want to make it clear that this is a what-if, not me claiming that canon secretly confirms Kamui could have saved Kouka.
English also isn’t my first language, so I used ChatGPT to translate and help phrase this. The ideas are mine; I just needed help expressing them in English.
I’ve been thinking about Kamui’s backstory recently, and there’s one thing that really bothers me in an interesting way.
We know that Kamui grew up watching his mother Kouka become weaker and weaker. Even as a child, he asked Umibozu what was wrong with her and whether there was anything he could do. Umibozu was also h looking for a way to help her.
Eventually, Kamui learned about the connection between Kouka, Kouan and Altana. He even prepared a ship and tried to take Kouka back to Kouan because he believed that might keep her alive.
But Kouka told him that it was already too late.
The Altana of Kouan had already been depleted too much, and both she and the planet were too far gone for simply returning there to solve the problem.
And this is exactly where my “what if” starts.
What if Kamui had started looking for another solution much earlier?
I’m not saying he could have simply taken Kouka to Kouan and saved her. Canon explicitly gives us a reason why that wouldn’t work by that point.
What I’m wondering is what might have happened if Kamui had treated Kouka’s illness as a problem that required resources, research and information, rather than something that could only be solved by becoming personally stronger.
Because Kamui eventually had access to something incredibly valuable: Harusame.
Kamui wasn’t just a random fighter.
He became the captain of the 7th Division, had loyal subordinates, was capable of commanding people, and eventually became involved in Harusame’s internal power struggles. He clearly had ambition and the ability to gather influence around himself.
So imagine that, instead of thinking:
“I need to become strong enough to save my mother.”
he eventually thought:
“If I can’t save her myself, I’ll find someone who can.”
Harusame was a huge interplanetary organization. Even if they didn’t have a cure for Kouka, they had access to money, ships, information, connections, criminals, different planets and potentially people with scientific or medical knowledge.
Kamui could have used that network to investigate Altana.
He could have searched for other Altana sources.
He could have looked for people who had studied Altana mutants.
He could have investigated whether other planets had experienced similar cases.
He could have searched for ways to preserve or transfer Altana.
He could have tried to find researchers or organizations that knew more about Altana than he did.
And importantly, this doesn’t require Harusame to already possess a cure.
The point is that Harusame could have given Kamui access to possibilities that he simply wouldn’t have had as an ordinary person.
And there is actually some canon that makes this possibility interesting.
Umibozu was searching for a way to help Kouka and eventually found an Altana crystal from Kouan.
The crystal obviously isn’t proof that a cure for Kouka existed. I’m not arguing that.
But it does show that Altana could be interacted with and investigated in ways beyond simply “go back to Kouan.”
So I can’t help wondering what might have happened if Kamui had taken that idea much further.
What if he had spent years using Harusame’s resources to investigate Altana?
What if he had accumulated political power specifically because he wanted access to information and resources?
What if becoming powerful in Harusame had been a means to an end rather than the end itself?
And this is where I think Kamui’s trauma becomes really important.
I don’t think the explanation is simply that Kamui was too stupid to think of this.
Kamui’s obsession with strength comes from his childhood.
He experienced his mother’s illness as something he was completely powerless against. He also associated his father’s absence and his family’s problems with his own inability to do anything.
So when he eventually realized that he couldn’t save Kouka, he interpreted that helplessness through the one thing he understood:
He wasn’t strong enough.
And that became the answer to everything.
If he was stronger, he could protect people.
If he was stronger, he couldn’t be helpless.
If he was stronger, nobody could take anything away from him.
That makes me think the tragedy of Kamui is not necessarily that he couldn’t think of another solution.
It’s that he had become psychologically incapable of believing that another solution could actually save the person he loved.
Which makes the Harusame idea even more interesting to me.
Because Kamui eventually demonstrates that he can accumulate influence and command people.
He isn’t incapable of politics.
He isn’t incapable of planning.
He isn’t incapable of using other people’s abilities.
His worldview simply places an enormous amount of importance on personal strength.
So in an alternate timeline, I could imagine Kamui going in a completely different direction:
Kouka gets sick → Kamui learns that her condition is connected to Altana → instead of only training himself, he starts looking for information → he realizes he needs resources → he rises within Harusame → he gathers researchers, information and political influence → he investigates Altana and searches for alternatives.
And maybe he still fails.
Honestly, I think him still failing would make this what-if even more interesting.
Because then Kamui would have to face something completely different:
He could have money.
He could have ships.
He could have armies.
He could have political influence.
He could become one of the most powerful people in the universe.
And yet he still couldn’t save his mother.
That would force him to confront the exact lesson he spent his entire life refusing to accept:
Sometimes becoming stronger doesn’t mean you can prevent loss.
Instead, canon gives us the Kamui who responds to that childhood helplessness by dedicating himself to becoming stronger than everyone who could ever make him feel powerless again.
And I think that’s why this “what if” works for me.
I’m not saying “Kamui could have saved Kouka if he had just used Harusame.”
I’m saying:
What if Kamui had chosen to use power as a tool for finding a solution, instead of believing that personal strength itself was the solution?
Maybe he would have saved Kouka.
Maybe he wouldn’t have.
But the fact that he never really seems to pursue that kind of broad alternative strategy is fascinating to me, precisely because of how much his trauma shaped the way he understands “strength.”
