maki killing her mom bc she asked her to turn back....... because it means she knew what their father was gonna do to her and mai....... she knew that mai was already about to be killed...... she knew and she didn't intend to do anything to save her daughter, just maybe hold back her remaining one from the same fate. but maki's life means nothing to her without mai, so to betray mai is a worse injury than to betray her.........
maki's mom killing naoya before she died and saying that she was proud of having given birth to maki......... because before she was an enabler for the systematic misogynistic abuse of the zenin clan, she was a victim of it, and as she died she could recognize maki's actions as an act of rebellion and violent retaliation against that system and she knew that even though she herself never dared to break apart from it, she had at least given birth to a daughter who could, a daughter who would destroy that system so it could never opress another woman like them again.
and what greater pride is there for a parent than for their child to surpass them, to be better than them, to be more than the circumstances in which they raised them?
it's as mai said, backstabbing can be seen as a virtue
