Amari Uchiha/Mission Journal

## D-Rank

### Nursing Home Mission

Having officially accepted his first ever mission as a shinobi, Amari Uchiha was assigned to volunteer at the local nursing home in his home village of Kumogakure.

This was a standard D-Ranked mission, one where he was required to simply take care of measly 'house chores'. Still, while the nature of the work wasn't necessarily the most intriguing, as it was his very first mission ever, the young boy was still very much excited nonetheless.

"It's time to give it my all!" the 5 year old exclaimed, marching inside of the nursing room, only to be met by awkward glances and puzzled expressions.

Those present had no idea what a 5 year old was doing. Most of the elderly citizens were anywhere between 60 upwards to 80 years older than him.

The day proved to be quite the struggle for the young boy, as he was clearly taken advantage of by the elders.

He was forced to do their dirty work; from making their beds, to wiping their asses, the young boy was forced to do whatever they asked.

Hours went by.

Was this what it meant to be a shinobi...?

When the mission had finally concluded, Amari returned home utterly exhausted. Mentally, at least.

He was not at all looking forward to doing anything of the sort ever again. He wanted to fight ninjas already, goddamit!

### Community Service Mission

As apart of his D-Rank mission, Amari was assigned to perform manual labor that was very closely in resemblance of community service. They had the young boy parading around Kumogakure with a large fork in one hand and a bag slung over his shoulders, picking up garbage the residents had carelessly flung around the village.

Was this what it meant to be a ninja? To clean up after all of the people who did not even know of his existence? Was it a shinobi’s job to serve from the shadows without properly being acknowledged for the work he accomplished?

The boy was still far too young to be having such thoughts. This was his second ever mission after all and he would see to it that he did as good a job as he possibly could.
And so he went on and on, from one alley to the next, sweeping the streets as if developing a specialization in the “Sweeping Release”. With his Sharingan he eyed the garbage as if fluttered with an ongoing breeze; hunting it down and shoving it away into the bag on his back.

Eventually when he had cleaned the streets to his fulfillment, Amari returned home and went immediately to bed, dozing off in seconds. Being a ninja sure was a lot of hard work!

## C-Rank

### Giant Scorpion Mission

In a village on the outskirts of the Land of Lightning, there was rumored to be a giant scorpion that had been going from village to village in the pursuit of small children. Why it was preying on them was against the comprehension of the victim’s families, but seeing as how these small villages did not have shinobi of their own or any means of combatting this giant scorpion, the neighboring Kumogakure was requested for its services.

The village had deployed one of their best young Shinobi for the job. Amari Uchiha, a top candidate for the promotion of Chunin, was now as many would argue, far beyond the level of a Genin and perhaps more closely resembling the skill set of an adolescent Jonin. Nevertheless, he was considered suitable to complete this task. He arrived in another small village by tracking the route of the villages that had been raided by the giant scorpion. And just as predicted, as he waited in the village overnight, the giant appeared beside a lake near the village, set on raiding it next. Only this time its path was cut off by Amari who was hidden behind a tree by the lake when the scorpion arrived.

First he wanted to make sure that this was the same scorpion. It could easily have been an innocent scorpion and so Amari wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. But that doubt vanished as soon as the scorpion drew its tail in a menacing manner and headed directly in the direction of the village. That was when Amari leapt from behind the tree, and with the element of surprise and a kunai knife in hand, he severed the scorpions tail from its body.

The scorpion hissed viciously, its tail soaring through the air and landing away from its body. Amari landed on his feet directly before the scorpion, with a grave expression on his face. He was a shinobi; he wanted to harbor no ill will towards this scorpion. He also wanted to rid his heart of any sympathy that he may feel for the creature. He was not killing this beast because he wanted to, nor because he personally felt as though the scorpion should be killed in compensation for its evil deeds. No, he was simply laying the beast to rest for no reason other than that, as a shinobi, he had been ordered to do so.

The scorpion began to charge towards him, at which point Amari stood his ground and snaked his arm around his back. Into his weapons pouch his hand went, gripping a shrunken between each one of his knuckles. With great precision he flung the projectiles towards his target, watching as they all hit their mark —dropping the scorpion upon its side almost instantaneously. It hissed once, its legs moving back and forth. Until its life expired and it lived no longer.

The giant scorpion had been slain, without the knowledge of the village. Amari would be receiving no credit for his work. The village would never know who had saved them. The young Uchiha clansmen pushed the carcass of the scorpion up and into the lake, watching as it drowned to the bottom.

His task complete, Amari made his way back to Kumogakure after a quick stretch. He also collected the weaponry he had spent against the scorpion and took it with him.

### Ship Transport Mission

In his first official mission since becoming a Chunin, Amari was tasked with the assignment of protecting a vessel as it crossed the ocean. Aboard the ship was a crew; consisting of a captain, a cook, a helmsman and practically any other position that would aid in having a safe trip. But what they lacked were reliable combatants who could safeguard the spoils aboard their ship from pirates and the monsters of the large sea.

This was where Amari came into play. The five year old recently promoted Chunin was practically on lifeguard duty. But rather than be put in charge over a small pool, he was given the entirety of the ocean --or the length of which the ship was meant to travel-- to keep watch of. He kept the tides of the steady waters in his red gaze.

The trip from where the ship was originally docked to the neighboring land on the opposite ends of the ocean was rather uneventful as far as danger was concerned. There were no pirates to be encountered nor any sea monsters to be found. Amari was nearly off of his duties the first time around. Not that he had anything to complain about. He was here on duty. He didn't expect to encounter any worthy opponents on a C-Rank mission; even if he did encounter a pirate or two there was a slim chance they would require any strenuous effort on his part. So he kept his fallible expectations to himself, hardly even bothering to converse with the others who were onboard. He did not eat with them either, nor sleep anywhere near them. He kept to himself, using the days he spent aboard the ship to find some peace of mind.

The crew stayed no longer than a week in the new lands, stopping only to rest and market their goods in the nearby towns that they could reach. They were much too exhausted to travel any further than that; they asked if Amari could perhaps expand their reach to towns that were farther off, seeing as how with his stamina and conditioning as a shinobi he would be able to, but he bluntly declined. He was a shinboi. As such he would do no more than what was asked of him by his superiors. He was not employed by these workers, but by his village. He wasn't here to earn sympathy points by committing good deeds.

The workers were awkward with Amari on the way back to their homeland. They talked little to him, reading on how he very clearly seemed to favor his distancing of them. A small convoy of bandits passed along by their vessel on the way back, but it was unsure whether they intended to plunder the ship. Nevertheless, not waiting to take any chances, Amari disposed of them from a distance using nothing more than the illusionary prowess of his eyes. The bandits fell asleep on their ship and by the time they awoke Amari and the rest of the ship was nowhere to be seen. Out of sight and out of mind.

The work of a shinobi was quite tedious. But it was for this purpose that Amari was apparently born. Or was it? Was his life confined to servicing his village in exchange of taking care of his clan? As he completed these juvenile and seemingly irrelevant tasks, the young Uchiha pondered upon the happenings of the world. And moving forward, what he should care to prioritize.

## A-Rank

### Mercenary Hideout Mission

It was not at all the kind of mission he had hoped to receive. It being his first mission since being promoted to Jounin however meant that turning it down was impossible. How would he save face after rejecting his first orders as a top ranking ninja of his village?

The nature of this mission was far more grim when compared to all the others Amari had accomplished in the past. Being so young and inexperienced, the young Uchiha had no idea what to expect of his new promotion. Would all his work going forth entail death? Was it a Jounin’s job to slaughter the ones his clients had designated?

If so then Amari wanted no part in this promotion. His heart was still heavy from the last A-Rank mission he had gone on. In a long range battle against Osamu Uzumaki, who Amari had never even come face to face with, Amari had experienced the first close in his life. His eyes, unable to withstand the terror had swallowed a new resolve and constructed a new pattern. The Mangeykō Amari had unlocked was literally a representation of Amari’s greatest failure: letting his own mother die while in battle. Failing to protect the woman he had come so readily to cherish as if he had known her his entire life.

As the hideout of the missing-nin he had been ordered to eliminate came into view, Amari paused for a moment and hid himself behind a tree. He was shaking.

His eyes grew wide. Pupils dilated. Tears streamed down his face. What was he doing? Was he truly about to claim the lives of all these mercenaries simply because the elders of his village had ordered him to do so? They all had families did they not? People who had raised them with high hopes; loved ones who sacrificed for them whether at present or in the past. They were all simply people, living because they could, just like... Satomi.

After experiencing what death was like, could he really continue to deal it to others? This was the hardest thing Amari had ever been asked to do as a shinobi. Not because these missing-nin were skilled opponents who could pose difficulty in battle. No, to ask of Amari in his young age to abandon his pride; to abandon what he had just experienced merely a week ago and to suppress it as if it had never happened and continue along as a hypocrite in his service for them.

Creating attachments was wrong. That was when Amari realized that it was possibly he who had been wrong for creating the bond he had with Satomi. He had not been ordered to love Satomi, only to protect her for the save of Kumo’s pride. Much like his own reason of being birthed into this world, love was never an expectation.

Even so, it was not the abandonment of his pride that polished Amari’s resolve for the mission but rather his love for his village. He was Uchiha Amari of the Hidden Cloud, with his head in the clouds and a will infused by lightning. It was because he had been sent on that mission to escort Satomi that he ever even got his first taste of love; surely his services for his beloved village could never do him wrong?

The village was always right. Amari began to understand this at a young age. He plunged a kunai into his thigh, not even grimacing from the set inflicted wound as he broke himself out of the genjutsu in his head. This was his new reality. The pain in his thigh could not compare to the pain felt in his heart.

He itches at his chest, rubbing where his heart was. It felt tight. He was anxious.

Even still he shimmered with all his speed from behind the tree and into enemy territory. He found his first target outside, carrying a large crate of supplies into the hideout. Amari waited until the man had opened the door to the hideout and begun to go inside to move in behind him; from a distance he murdered the man by aiming a shuriken at the back of his neck. He then sent an kunai rigged with an explosive tag at the crate which, according to Amari’s Sharingan, was armed with chakra of some kind. In a chain of explosions the hideout was blown up into a fiery mess.

Amari’s job from here was simple. He picked off the remaining shinobi who were fleeing from the chaos one by one. Even all together they would have had a small chance at posing any trouble to him. But now they were merely delaying the inevitable. Before the eyes of the Uchiha... they would perish.

He found one shinobi limping beneath a pile of rubble that had fallen down on him. He would be rendered dead in another moment or two, certainly with how the flames of the explosion were set out to consume him. Whether through mercy or simply to carry out his mission that much sooner Amari landed beside the man and looked him dead in his eyes. He begged for Amari’s aid, assuming that it had been a natural disaster that had befallen the mercenary group. But with a flash of Amari’s Sharingan he was coldly told of Kumo’s involvement in their destruction. He swiped at Amari with his tanto, but to no avail; as Amari intercepted the dying man by his wrist and poked the blade back at him, piercing him between the eyes and through the head. The man’s eyes rolled back as blood fished out from his brain.

Another man rushed towards Amari from behind him, witnessing the killing of the young Uchiha. But he was disposed of just as easily. He took no more than a simple glance to eliminate; his eyes locked into Amari’s Sharingan and he died not knowing anything. His mind was looped in an illusion and he would forever remain in it, even as his head rolled around the ground at the feet of the young Uchiha clansmen.

Wearing the blood of his prey on his face, Amari continued through the dancing flames. Using a katana he had found laying on the ground to confirm the deaths of the dozens of bodies that were lain on the site of the disaster but probing it through their vitals. Many were already dead, but Amari could not risk even a single one of them getting away.

This was the reality of the work that composed a shinobi’s career. This was just the beginning of Amari Uchiha, the Jounin of Kumogakure. These were but the freshest set of lives he would take in his path as a ninja. With every kill, with every thrust of the katana, Amari desensitized himself more and more to the art of murder. He was working to eliminate any hesitation on his part so that his actions would never be confused in their intentions.

He sat down to have a moment with the fire, sitting down on a pile of debris and watching as the flames danced around the site of destruction. What was once a rising hideout for a band of missing-nin who had recently abandoned the village hidden within the clouds no more than a few months ago was nothing more than a pile of ash and dust. They were foolish to have plotted they way that they did; foolish for their belief that they could ever have hoped to abandon the cloud without facing incredibly serious repercussions. This was their fate the moment they had come to the decision of defecting from Kumo. The moment they had chosen to act on it they were as good as dead. The days they invested in forging this hideout all fell in vain as the many resources they had gathered were erased in the explosion.

Perhaps Amari had been a little too reckless. Perhaps he should have waited a moment or two longer, to secure the supplies for himself or for the other shinobi is Kumo. But his job was not to stock up on supplies or to save Kumo a fortune or two. It was simply to eradicate the enemy before they could grow to become a hidden village of their own. Kumo had no intentions of sharing the land of lightning with any other village.

It was while he was waiting in silence by himself that Amari noticed another shinobi fleeing from the distance. How had he managed to remain undetected until now? He had a head start into the nearby forest. With haste Amari rose up from his seat and like a mad man gave chase to his fleeing prey. His heart began to throb, beating a mile a minute. Was this an adrenaline rush? Was he craving slaughter?

The shinobi was struck by a kunai in his shoulder. He fell after losing his damage and hit his head against a tree. But this was somehow not enough for Amari. He appeared beside his prey and using his hand smashed in the man’s head into the tree further. Once, then twice. And again and again even after the man had long expired. As he let go of his head Amari watched the corpse fall to the ground. He stood there in silence, blood dripping from his hands. What had he done?

His radar began to ring. With trembling hands he took the device into his hands and clicked it open.

“Amari, a job well done. Our sensors have confirmed the completion of your assignment. There is not another enemy anywhere around your area. Your job is finished. Please return to the village. There is another mission waiting.”

The radar flipped off.

So that was it. All those lives taken, and for what? No... he had to correct his thinking.

“The village is always right,” Amari repeated to himself over and over as he made his way back towards the village. But he did not run with haste this time. This time he slouched. And with his head held low, dangling against his chest, he slowly treaded, one foot at a time. “The village is always right... the village is always right...”

A trail of blood was left in his wake. Dripping from his hands and his face, but never from the wound on his thigh. For that pain was nothing compared to the pain Amari felt deep inside, for his part in the destruction of the mercenary hideout.

Were they had people? Amari had never met them. Never spoken to them. How could he determine that simply by hearing of their designation or classification as missing-nin. But those that posed as any threat to Kumo were to be considered as enemies. And in the shinobi world... enemies were persecuted.

“The village is always right. The village is always right.”

The boy would go on to be celebrated as a hero. A legend. The 6 year old Jounin who had successfully completed an A-Rank mission all by himself! No other shinobi would dare to abandon Kumo now!