Chapter 4 – Feelings
Being an ANBU agent does not automatically erase your feelings. In fact, it is literally impossible to do so.
Turning them off, though, is a skill we all must master; you cannot have sympathy when killing the wife of an enemy, cannot hesitate when given a clear shot, cannot breakdown in the middle of a mission.
We must lock away these feelings, cage them in the darkest corner of our minds, and block them out until our mission is complete.
Those who return home, be it to the barracks or an apartment, tend to hang onto the numbness for a few more hours. It is so much better than the crash that comes afterwards, and leaves you shattered, alone, only to pick up your own pieces and put yourself together again, going into work to do it all over again.
ANBU agents know best of all: feeling hurts.
When you stop feeling, stop shattering in the middle of the night,that is when you leave; because if you don't, you'll become the shell of a human, breathing, eating, killing with no love, no sympathy, no pain.
And that isnotworth being ANBU. I would know.