Disclaimer: In no way do I own Gintoki.
Gintoki Sakata was born on the battlefield. He didn't know how he survived. Maybe some kind old woman had picked him up when he was a baby and cared for him for a while before abandoning him to that very battlefield once again. Or maybe her village was burned down like so many others had been, and he'd managed to survive. Maybe there was no old lady at all. Maybe he had parents at one point. Maybe he had a mother and father, and some older brothers or sisters.
Maybe. Maybe not. All he remembered was the battlefield. The corpses. Scavenging for any little bit of food he could find, and scarfing it down like it was his last meal no matter how disgusting it was, usually caked in dirt, grime, blood, whatever else, and crushed into some form barely recognizable as food. But no matter what, if he found something he thought he could eat, he ate it, because food was so hard to come by and there weren't enough kind people in the world for one to find him and feed him. He had to feed himself.
At some point, he got caught in the midst of a live first thing he noticed was the smell. It was putrid. It stunk like death, which he realized fell hand in hand with everywhere else he went. Except the death-smell seemed to be multiplied by ten when the battle was happening. The metallic scent of blood was fresh, all mixed in with the disgusting aroma of men who'd struggled for their lives for who knows how long, no access to a bath, and just spending their days getting dirtier and dirtier with the blood and iniards of their slain enemies clinging to what they wore. On top of that, vomit, shit, piss. It seemed to go mostly unacknowledged, but many men vomited on the battlefield. It was a hard sensation to take after all. And if they needed to piss or shit, there wasn't time to go running off for a bathroom break, they did it right where they stood and fought as they did so.
The aroma of battle left his head pounding and his ears ringing. He didn't quite get what was going on, but he knew he wanted to live. That was all he wanted, to be alive. And here, with blades constantly swinging and killing everything in their path, he would not be able to live if he did not pick up a blade himself.
And so, just as he looted the corpses for food, he took a sword, the first one he saw, and took it with him, along with the smashed onigiri soaked in blood and dirt, and the little note attached. He didn't know what the note said, so he just threw it away.
The weight of a blade was heavy. Not literally. Literally, it did leave a little brunt on him, but he could take it. But knowing that he had something to protect himself with weighed on him a bit. He had something to fight with. But would he be able to fight. He took this sword. Could he really use it? Could he bring himself to be apart of that gross smell. Would he be able to hold it up against another, of a man twice his size, and probably triple his strength while his ears rang and his head pounded with the intensity of the battle? What if this was all for nothing. He would probably die anyway.
But at least he had a shot.
The next time he encountered a battlefield, the men, still focused mostly on themselves, took more notice of him. A little white-haired boy with a blade. They swung at him, and desperate to live, muscles trembling as he held up the sword, he fought back, and slayed whoever dared an attempt at the life he worked so hard to keep. All he wanted was to be alive. He wasn't ready to die. He knew the scent; the gross mix of war all encompassed in an aroma. The taste; the metallic and dirty flavor of the bloody onigiri he ate to survive. The sound, and appearance of a battlefield, of men slaying each other for a reason he'd yet to comprehend, and now, as he ran his blade through the throat of a man, the feel of death. And he wasn't ready to join it.
Somehow, just somehow he survived. And he came out stronger. Feeling powerful in knowing that yes, he could wield that blade. He could use it to protect himself. He saved his own life. He had defeated death. Just as he would time and time again as he wandered; scrounging more corpses for something, anything he could eat, and got caught in more and more battles, his muscles developing and coming in tune with the feeling of his sword moving through human flesh. The sword was still heavy. But he knew, that more than just his body, but his heart now, could take it.
At some point, people started to recognize him as a demon child. An imp of some sort perhaps. Maybe a tiny devil? He didn't care. People told stories of the white-haired, red-eyed demon child who could be found on battlefields, nonchalantly sitting atop corpses, as he ate the bodies of the dead soldiers, a sword, too big for his body always held close to chest as he ate. Close enough he figured, though most of the time, he was actually eating some onigiri he looted off a corpse rather than the dead body itself. Eating a body? That was too morbid, even for him.
"I came after hearing about a corpse-eating demon." It might've been the first time someone had ever spoken to him. If you don't count the screams of rage of men on the battlefield, or the occasional aghast woman yelling for he, the demon-child not to come any closer as he passed through a village, only to leave when stones started being thrown. "Would that be you?" The man asked him. He had long hair, and a sword on his hip. He didn't smell the same as the battlefield. "A rather cute demon." The man ruffled his hair, and he flinched. No one had touched him like that before.
The man's name was Shouyou. It was the first time Gintoki experienced kindness.