#also kaz being an unbothered king that loves his mom and avenges her even after being told something horrific. personally i love to see it.

[kazamajun]

Did Kazumi want Kazuya killed?

I like Kazumi a lot as a character. Her design and music themes are bangers. One thing just always bothered me though, how she seemingly loved Kazuya but then requested that Akuma kill him back when he was only five years old. So I did a little investigating to try and make sense of it, rewatching both the story mode and intros and old trailers, and what I turned up was quite interesting.

Evidence for:

Akuma's pov flashback where Kazumi says "Kill him for me... And also... Kazuya..."

Akuma seems to believe it's what she wanted, and is how he interpreted the promise to Kazumi.

Evidence against:

The wording and phrasing is questionable. "Kill him" ... "and also" - why not just say "kill them" if she meant both? Additionally, ellipses are most often used to indicate omissions of words. What is being cut out?

This is perhaps answered where we get a more fleshed out version of the scene, like the 2014 SDCC trailer. The same footage is also in Japanese here, if you'd rather spare yourself the English dub. Transcription of dialogue: "If I die, if I can't stop Heihachi, then you must do it for me." "Kazuya? That boy is still too young. And Heihachi will soon realize that he was born with my powers. Heihachi is more powerful than you realize. Who knows what Heihachi will do to Kazuya or to countless others? It is up to me. I must stop Heihachi." "Even if this power consumes me and kills me in the process." No mention of killing Kazuya, in fact she seems concerned for his welfare. Why worry about him like this if she's asking for him to be killed? Evo 2014 reveal trailer transcription: "You're here. That must mean the time has come. Kazuya? I must stop him. I must stop Heihachi. By now I'm sure that Heihachi has realized he was born with my powers." Similar to the SDCC one, just shorter, as this one came out first. And again the same implication that she's worried about Kazuya's fate. From the PS4 opening cinematic: "My beloved Heihachi will inevitably engulf the world in war and destruction resulting in the loss of many innocent lives." No Kazuya mention at all.

Kazuya himself does not seem to believe it. He calls it absurd and laughs, and in the final confrontation with Heihachi, Kazumi's theme plays towards the end of this whole sequence. Also while not in the story mode; in the opening cinematic (and also in the trailers linked above) Kazuya says "You killed my mother!" before their fight, indicating that he is avenging her.

Kazumi has a reason for wanting Heihachi dead. The Hachijos sent her there as a 'sleeper agent' of sorts to take Heihachi out if he became a threat to the world, which he does after killing Jinpachi and taking control of the Zaibatsu. Kazuya, being a five year old, is no such threat obviously. It does not make any logical sense. If the Hachijos were in the habit of killing their own offspring, their lineage wouldn't go far. And if him being Heihachi's son was the concern, why even have him? Additionally, she genuinely loved Kazuya, something even Heihachi admits. Either way, a young child does not fit the profile of the 'scum' that the Hachijo apparently try to wipe out.

Miscellaneous:

Heihachi seems not to believe it initially; although his reason for questioning it is purely the passage of time as Akuma waited over 40 years to fulfill this promise.

A potential thought as to why Kazuya was perhaps not mentioned as one of Akuma's targets in the other cinematics occurred to me as perhaps it being a plot point that they wanted to keep under wraps, but this was easily debunked by the story trailer a few months before the console release, showing the fight between Kazuya and Akuma. There is also a showdown between them in a 2016 trailer that matches neither of the story mode battles.

If Kazumi thought that Kazuya needed to be killed, she could theoretically have done it herself, easily. After her illness that activated her devil gene, Heihachi believed she was not in control of herself and she supposedly never remembered her attacks on him after she went back to 'normal'. And yet, during those times, her target was only ever Heihachi. If Kazuya was supposedly a threat to be ended too - why did that never happen when she lost control?

Late addition/edit: In Akuma's reveal trailer, the wording is altered again to "And also unfortunately, my dear son Kazuya" but this line is said AFTER Akuma has made the promise to Kazumi to repay his debt. And again, it is vague. Unfortunately Kazuya what? Unlike all the lines re Heihachi, she never actually says he must die. A potential reading of this could be that Kazumi felt Kazuya would be better off dead than suffering whatever Heihachi would do to him -- but then, if the goal was a mercy killing, waiting 40 years after the damage has already been done makes NO sense.

Conclusion:

It is my personal evaluation that Akuma most likely misinterpreted Kazumi's words (or perhaps misremembers them as it's been decades - hence why the dialogue in the flashback is an abrupt and chopped-up handful of words vs the more extensive scene seen elsewhere) and that her wish was for Heihachi to be taken down for the sake of the world, and her son. Akuma, being who he is, would lean towards interpreting any kind of ambiguity as referring to violence and death.

In an out of character sense, the vibe I get is that originally Akuma's hit list was only supposed to be Heihachi but at some point late in development they decided they wanted to have a Kazuya vs Akuma fight added in too hence that no-context bit in the 2016 trailer that doesn't match any scenes in the actual final story; and then the mangled flashback of Akuma's happens in the story mode to facilitate the fights that happen in the final version of the game.

But in an ic sense, Akuma misinterpreting Kazumi seems the most likely to me. I don't think he was deliberately lying, his vibe is sincere enough and he calls her Kazumi-dono which shows great respect. IMO, it's good to remember that characters can be wrong about things sometimes and that just because they believe something that doesn't necessarily mean that it is true.