At the edge of Vale a migration of people are moving away from their last camp, pulling carts of gear, weaponry, people and supplies with watchmen surviving the area. This is a group of traveling mercenary's that assest in protection and service for the right price. They provide extermination for invading grimm in small villages that can't support themselves or don't have huntsmen as well as being a private army.
The leader of said group is Gambino, a skilled ex-huntsman from mistral who was taking side jobs and not doing assigned missions. He had his license revoked when he did a job for a criminal warlord as an extra muscle and part timer. After that he started to gather followers from soldier to huntsman, in his time as a huntsman he saw that there were not a lot of huntsmen in the minor towns and villages and saw how desperate they were. So he decided to have his group move around remnant do a job for a hefty price. They had a job at Anima however it did not go through because the leader of the village did not like the price and was upset that they allowed a child among their ranks, in effect they abandon the job
Gambino was irritated that the job did not pan out so well and was in need of money. However, he was more irritated that it was something so small as a child to ruin everything, looking back at the five-year-old who was walking alongside the group, looking around acting as if he was part of the watch, he has short spiky black hair with some bangs, pointy ear and most distinct feature are his obsidian eyes.
Five years ago, they went to a settlement for a job only to find it destroyed by Grimm, he ordered his men to search for valuables. During the search his lover Shizu heard a faint cry she went towards it to a burnt house to find a burned corpse cradling an infant. She immediately responds by taking in the child, Gambino voiced his displeasure at the child stating that it was cursed, and no way Grimm could've missed the infant, however she did not pay any mind to this. Years later she died, now he is stuck with the little bastard and seems to look to him as a father. As soon as he started to walk, Gambino made him a weapon handler, his job is to provide ammo and dust during a fight as well as retrieving weapons his hope is that he dies in battle by grimm mauling or enemy fire.
As for raising he cares little for that and leaves it to the rest, the group does watch over him but the only one that actively watches over him is Martino an ex soldier who is the oldest out of the whole group. Best way to describe their relationship is as friends or at least the child does. They finally make it to their destination in Patch, a large opening in the forest with hill formation and an abandoned house in the middle. After settling their camp and having the house to his own, Gambino decided to train with the boy, it's the only time he showed interest in him, however it was more for him to vent out his frustration. As they train the boy tries to swing only for the blade to fall short and whenever he makes a "full" swing Gambino just blocks or parries. The training session tends to draw everyone looking at amusement with the boy swinging a broad sword.
"Haha hey Guts why don't you use a smaller sword, huh" a mercenary mocked as he watched Guts swing fall short.
"That's because we don't use any baby sized sword around here" Gambino said, while giving guts a swift knee to his abdomen, forcing Guts to fall all fours recoiling from the hit.
"Come on get up!" Guts slowly get only for Gambino to trip him from behind.
"Oi maybe it's best if he catches his breath" one merc said, wincing at the beating looking Guts struggling to get up, however with that he had enough
"NO!" he shouted, scurrying to get up and readies himself
Guts goes in for a vertical slash with a parry from Gambino. He came to another slash only to have him be sidestep, he was breathing hard he glanced at his surroundings, his eye meeting Martino who gave him a nod. This prompted Guts to grip his sword, twist his whole body and hoist his sword over his shoulder and knock Gambino's sword away from him and goes for a tap on his knee, he pauses at the moment now full of glee.
This made him furious and slashes across Guts face making him fall on his back. This got a reaction from the group who were shocked
"WHAT huh, don't like how I train. Then voice your concerns" as he raised his sword to the crowd who were looking, this made everyone go back to their own business. He looks down at the boy who now has a scar at the bridge of his nose.
"Training is over go put this away" he throws his sword at Guts feet walks away losing all interest now. Guts goes and stores the blade away and drags his to the far edge of the camp where he releases all the tears he had held back. He cries on his own until he hears footsteps behind him, wipes his face and swirls around to see Gambino holding something on his hand
"... not bad on the strike caught me off guard there" he throws the object to Guts, who clapped in the air
"..."
"It is medicine to treat the scar." He turns around and heads to the camp. Guts was surprised by this as he blurted out
"Gambino.... Um.. th-thank you" he stood there for a second and continue to the camp
" whatever"
when he was out of sight, Guts sits on a stump and started to apply the ointment on the scar, for the rest of the day he sat in private, thinking on how he should get stronger and how to be better at the sword, as he holds his sword with two hands raising it in the air
------------------------
Guts is now seven-year-old as he returns to camp with a squad of mercenaries, they've completed a job that had them kill some gimm out in vale. At age six he started to participate in the battle no longer a weapons handler, he has a muscular frame, fashioned with a simple chest armor and helmet and now he is big enough to carry his sword on his back.
Despite his age he can hold his own against grimm, and is recognized as a prodigy with his swordsmanship, with his training with the sword he grew an appreciation to regular weapons even when he was offered a transformable weapon, he always declined it. During his time at the camp, he always seen training or sparring with others in his free time though he wished he could spar with Gambino, who after a few sessions of training had stopped and hasn't gone to any mission due to the growth of the camp.
For Gambino he has grown bitter at the fact that guts have gotten better and better over time, so much so that he figured he would of die faster if he was sent into missions without an aura telling Guts that he will grow strong if he activates his when he older, but only to see he's alive better. He's become cold toward his men and always in a bad mood the only time he is in a different mood is when the group pay tribute to the camp and when his "friend" Marcus Black comes around to visit, he usually comes to have his son be trained alongside with the mercenaries. He took a liking to Guts seeing how the boy is fitted well in the mercenary life, and had him and his son in fist fights for training purposes, however this was a way to diminish his son.
Guts sees him as a true scumbag and a creep but respect his skill in combat. he figured that he and the boy might have got along, seeing how they were the same age, however the boy doesn't seem interested Martino told him that he's got a lot of hate for the world so he shouldn't bother with him. Guts has gotten stronger to get Gambino's approval so much so that he has been giving him a large cut of his pay. However, he paid no attention to him.
As Guts returns to the camp, he notices a large crowd form in the middle of the camp, he tries to see what caught their attention as he tries to get closer to the crowd, he hears someone calling him. He looks around to see that Martino was calling, he waved his hand signaling to get closer gut walk toward the old man
"Hey old man, what's going on? what got everyone all jumpy about?"
Martino looks at the crowd "it someone that knows Gambino who is asking a favor, rumor has it that it is some noble or something" he stops to look at guts apparently, they want to have their apprentice to stay with us for a while, who knows why?"
"What does this guy look like?"
"See for yourself " as he points to the direction of the crowd, Guts turn to see what he's pointing. As he looks, he sees the person to be a couple of years older than Guts, they have white long hair. With fair pale skin they also have a long sleeve shirt and blue pants carrying a saber. Guts could tell the way they're carrying themself is they are someone that demand attention which rubs guts the wrong way, but one thing guts can't tell is whether this prick in a guy or a girl they seem to have androgynous look to them. He stood there with his arms crossed as he watched the "guy" walk to him.
"Hello" the white-haired boy said, barely louder than a whisper. 'Oh, I guess it a guy' guts continue to look at the boy without saying a word
"My name is Griffith; you must be Guts. I have heard many things about you when I arrived here. If you don't mind, may I ask you a favor?" guts only respond by cocking his eyebrow, curious to see what he wants, Griffith took this as a sign to continue
"I was hoping we could spar for a wager" this got guts attention as he furrowed his eye "what type of wager" Griffith beamed
"oh, so he can talk. well, we will spar and if you win you can ask for anything but if I win you will belong to me" he sticks his hand out to emphasize his claim
"WHAT!?!?" guts yelled
"like hell I'll do that, why don't you throw yourself at a nest of grimm you bastard" he got up a t Griffith face who doesn't seem bothered by this and only smiles at the reaction he's getting, a crowd gather around them with the crowd snickers at guts little outburst even Martino chuckles at how riled up guts is. After a moment of glaring (on guts part) he gave it some thought and gives in.
"alright let do it if, I win I'll make a hole the size of this sword" he exclaims as he pulls his broad sword in front of him ready for a fight "and if you win you can have my sword or my ass" Griffith grins at the proclamation
"not my idea but I get the picture" he pull out his saber with one hand and his free hand out in the air.
"no matter what it take, I will have what I want" guts growled, he finally had it "tch, I finally get it now, it's that superior attitude of yours that make me sick!"
He lunges toward Griffith swinging down at him only to have his blade slide down on Griffith's curved blade. Guts went on the offense with a series of strikes with Griffith forced to block the incoming attack. Griffith is slowly being backed up as the assault continues, but immediately striking back causing the two blades to be locked, they struggle only to have Griffith swiftly hit Guts head with the hilt of his sword making dazed. Griffith uses this to slash at Guts arm and leg, Guts recoils and promptly continues his fury of attacks.
The crowd were amazed at the focus and power behind these strikes, making a few of them sweatdrop at the thought of guts holding back at them. Back in the fight guts swung his sword upwards dragging it into the ground kick up some dirt at Griffith face blinding him, he sees his opening and goes for strike from above and brings it down to Griffith only for him to use his aura to jump up high and landing on guts sword resulting him to lose his grip on his sword. Now at his mercy guts is defenseless with Griffith having his blade near his throat.
"I have to say I was surprised that you don't have an aura, that only makes you more desirable" he said while having his blade train on guts throat "but I suggest for you to surrender now."
"Tch, like hell I will. also talk too much" Guts then grab the blade and pull it to the side resulting in him getting a cut on his hand but closing the gap between the two, giving him a haymaker. With that punch guts then tackles Griffith the ground and started wailing on him
"huh first time tasting your own blood pretty boy will then get used to it" he continues his assault on him, however as the next punch was about land Griffith move his head to the side then grabs on his arm and intertwined his leg around guts head bring him face down to the ground "surrender or have you shoulder dislocated "
"Sc-screw y-you" Guts struggles to sound off and with a swift motion Griffith pops Guts shoulder, the whole crowd winced at the sound it made and cheered for its victor. He released his grip as guts got on his knee and clutched his arm in pain. His head was brought up to Griffith both of them lock their eyes, he come close and tell Guts
"You belong to me now" he smiles while Guts eyes widen in horror realizing what that mean" when that arm is fix meet me at the hill over there" he motions to which hill he was talking about. As he walked away the crowd dispersed only leaving Guts to process everything that happened. He got up and made his way to a tree to snap his shoulder back in place.
"Hold on boy" guts turn to see Martino
"sit down at that log there and I'll help that shoulder" he points to a log. Guts made his way to the log sitting waiting for Martino. He comes up to him "you realized what happened right" he asks guts as he grabs his arm and places his foot on gut abdomen.
He shook his head, and Martino adopted a devilish smile "you just straight up offer a man your ass" as soon as he said that he jerked Guts arm, snapping it in place getting a painful grunt out of him. He rocks back and forth to soothe the pain of his arm, one it past he thanked Martino went to pick up his sword and made his way to Griffith.
He's standing there looking at the forest "you know this is a nice place to live, start a family and what not" he paused to admire the landscape, Guts came behind him raising a eyebrow wondering where is this going "but who would've thought that it would be the home of the largest known mercenary band on Remnant" he looks back at Guts who was shifting his shoulder around and had a bitter expression
" so what now huh I'm belong to you now is that it" he sighed as he sat on the ground and starts to pluck the grass. He looks at guts and back at the forest
"Guts I'm in need of your assistance for I have a dream" this got Guts to perk up but did not look up as he was still plucking the grass. "And that dream is to have my own kingdom" this caught gut off guard as he doubled back at Griffith who held a stoic but confident front.
"And I will choose where you will die" he stated as he adopted soft smile
"Why tell me you even want me" gut demanded as stands up to Griffith level
He smiled "ever since I've heard of you and your exploit, I knew I wanted you" Gut narrowed his eye not getting the message
"You just heard of me and just fell in love with me"
"No I've heard of you prior to my arrival" guts look at him confusion in what's hes saying "I say you don't realize that you built a reputation in the underworld"
"When people hear of your feats they are in awe, but when I them I see you pushing your limits, deliberately putting yourself in harm's way and seeking meaning in your existence therefore trying to find what your own limits are. And at duel that is what I felt." Thinking back on how Guts grabbed his blade with his bare hand with no aura
"I find you fascinating" he couldn't help but smile
"Tch, what do you think you know me. Don't talk like you know so much" guts barked as he did not like to be broken down
"Then tell me what your dream is"
"..."
"... I thought so .. tell me where you see yourself in the future, surely you don't want to be a mercenary for the rest of your life now do you?"
"I wish for us to be friends, but we can't have that. I don't see people who don't have their own dreams as equals." This left Guts much to think about. Griffith looks at the camp to see his master he puts his hand on Guts shoulder give it some thought ok.'' He said walking away leaving Guts to think about what he said.
A/N: JUST TO AVOID CONFUSION GRIFFITH IS NINE YEARS OLD, ALSO I WILL NOT BRING CHACTERS FROM THE BERSERK UNIVERSE TO RWBY. THE BERSERK CHACTERS ARE RWBY VERSIONS IN THIS STORY BESIDE GUTS WHO IS FROM HIS OWN UNIVERSE WHO CROSSED OVER TO RWBY HOPEFULLY THAT CLEAR UP THE CONFUSION .