Just a short essay I wrote while in Climatology on the nature of a ninja's sanity. Very self explanatory, eh?
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Fleeting Sanity
No ninja is sane. Not completely.
The insanity starts the day the pregenin are enrolled in the Academy. Effective that very day, they are no longer fully sane. The chuunin and jounin instructors perpetuate the insanity, teaching six- and seven-year olds how to grip and throw kunai, eight- and nine-year olds the best way to employ garrote wire, and ten- and eleven-year olds the list of pressure points, where if hit in the proper manner, that will cause instant death.
And, being children, the pregenin suck the knowledge up like the ready little sponges they are. Eagerly they bring their homework home, working for hours perfecting their taijutsu strikes, practicing their genjutsu on the family cat, setting dinner on fire with their first fire jutsu.
But the insanity for pregenin is reversible. They can be fixed, for pregenin are not true shinobi. Not yet.
Genin, too, are mostly fixable. Yes, they have their killing skills, their taijutsu, their ninjutsu. But even at this point, it is all theory. Certainly, they have practiced their skills ad-nauseum, but they are not cold-blooded killers just yet. So yes, while they may be on teams with other shinobi, while they may identify themselves as such, they can go back to being members of normal civilian society. They can be normal, if for some reason they need to leave the trade they have learned.
The boundary between sane and insane, fixable and forever broken, isn't necessarily the promotion to chuunin. No, instead, it is when a ninja takes his or her first life. As soon as the young shinobi sees his hands stained in blood that he himself has spilt for the first time… this is the moment when insanity erupts. Luckily, it is usually as chuunin that this event occurs, and it is a good thing.
No one likes to see an insane child.
Chuunin are the true ninja. Yes, they are broken beyond repair, but they still have touch with their humanity. They can at least pretend to be whole. They can associate with non-shinobi. That's why most messengers are chuunin, after all. Civilians don't know, but most ANBU, too, are chuunin. The sole reason for this? They still retain those few shreds of humaneness, the remembrance of what it was like to be sane. An ANBU without these memories are terrible thoughts to even ponder.
And no, the chuunin who teach at the Academy aren't sane, either. In fact, though they hide it well as a group, they are by far the least sane of all the chuunin. Honestly... teaching a six-year-old to throw a kunai... Does that ring of sanity to you?
Jounin are the broken ones, the ones no longer fit for normal society. They cannot be repaired, for they have seen the most horrible things, and they have done what no one should. You meet one on the street, and while he may smile and bid you good day, he is really cataloguing the threat you present, what weapons you have on your person, and how best to put you down if your threat level is deemed unacceptable.
Worst is this: pregenin and genin do not even know of their impending mental doom. Chuunin are aware of their infection with it, but are mere dabblers in the death and activities that cause it, and embrace it. Jounin... they revel in death. They are its creators, its artists. And worst still... they are all fully aware that they are broken, never to be fixed. For after all, while they may be insane collectively... there is no such thing as a "dumb" shinobi.
Like?