Exam?

Teuchi and Shin shooked at it, and Shin intends to do good with the deal. However, it was now time for Shin to take the exam. Teuchi let one of his assistants take care of the store, whereas he and Shin went to a part of Konoha to find a building. It was a tall building where young shinobis would train to become the potential future Hokage. For now, Shin has no interest in being Hokage, not even close. He wants to live an ambitious life, however, he would hate being part of the suffering and politics that lies with being the Hokage. Of course, he might change his mind later, but definitely not right now. All that's important right now is money.

Once Shin and Teuchi entered the ninja academy, they headed to the Mission Assignment Desk is located within a huge, wide-open space with six windows and high ceilings with two stick-like lights. The ceiling also has the kanji for the word "shinobi" in it. Shin asked, "Hi there, is there a way to register myself as a mercenary ninja in the hidden leaf?".

One of the attendant answered and said, "Of course! We'll be needing an identity and a value of 5000 ryo in order to participate the test.."

"Of Cour-..." Shin said, stopping midway as he thought about it.. 'I don't have an identity...' He looked at Teuchi, and quickly whispered.. "Hey, Mister... I don't have an identity..." Whereas Teuchi immediately became flustered, not really knowing what to do. A few awkward second passes by before Shin finally had an idea... "Hey.. Would you mind... me acting as your son..."

"..." Teuchi responded, not knowing much about what to do... before he was brought on to do it by momentum from Shin.. "I'm his kid!" Shin answered,

Teuchi could only nod in response whereas the attendant said "Oh! Ok, then we'll be needing your Id Mister..."

Teuchi didn't know what to say, how did he get himself into this mess. He only sighed slightly before agreeing to it and gave his id to the attendant along with the money.

Shin came close to Teuchi before whispering "Thanks, I owe you big time.."

"Alright, please fill in this form with your name, and follow the man here to head on to your testing site." The attendant said, pointing at a person that was surprisingly very familiar to Shin.

"Hey there, I'm Iruka, I'll be your instructor for this mercenary test of yours." The man with a ponytail and a scar running across his nose said. Shin was surprised to see another figure he recognised so quickly, at first it was Itachi, next it was Iruka.

Speaking of which, it was weird that no one was saying anything about the Uchiha massacre. Shin was expecting there to be a huge commotion everywhere, but it looked like it was silent... 'Hmmm maybe someone higher up is covering it for now...' Shin thought to himself..

Nevertheless, Shin followed Iruka while waving at Teuchi, "Alright Dad...! I'll be going now!"

Teuchi could only wave awkwardly... "Y-Yeah..." with a confused smile on his face.

Iruka then asked him, "Why aren't you registering as a leaf shinobi instead, since your father is from the leaf, you are also eligible to be a leaf shinobi... You get a larger commission fee percentage, and more variety of missions heading your way! You could even be the next hokage and protect the leaf!"

Shin answered plainly and straightforward, "Since I don't fully know if I want to be tied up to the leaf, I want to live my life freely and thus may even leave the leaf... and being a leaf shinobi would mean I'd be hunted down if I were to do that right?.."

Iruka couldn't refute as it was true... It was a very frequent situation that often occurs to hide the secrets of the village.. whereas being a mercenary would filter out the missions that involve village secrets, and thus it allows for freedom should they want to move around... "Yeah.. that's right" Iruka answered in a slightly awkward manner.

Iruka and Shin went into a training ground indoors. It was a simple large cubicle room which has nothing inside it except for the white tiled floor and white walls and a clock on the side of the wall where they entered.

"Alright, the mercenary trait also allows you to hide some of your abilities, so whatever is here, stays here between you and me... I'll be testing out your combat abilities through a spar in order to find out how strong you are, understood?"

Shin nodded in understanding before the countdown by Iruka began, timing his countdown along with the second-hand of the clock in the room...

3..

2..

1..

Go!

Just as Iruka shouted out "Go!" Shin simply used his most trusted technique, 'Pause!' Afterwards, all he had to do was walk to behind Iruka... However, Shin thought of one thing, which was to somewhat try to hide his ability to avoid trouble. Time manipulation seemed like an ability that is too strong. So, with that being said, Shin unpaused and kicked Iruka in the guts.

"Urgh!" Iruka yelled out, managing to have a glance at Kai before he was paused once more. Kai shifted location and had a punch once more over at Iruka. This one-sided beating continued until after a few hits before he unpaused for a good while.

At this point, Iruka was beaten quite heavily, with some blue marks that could be seen over his body. Of course, it was not enough to make Iruka pass out... He stopped moving for a while before saying.. "I see, so your ability is teleportation ninjutsu? At such a young age? Impressive...!"

Shin nodded in acceptance as this was roughly what he was looking for. To Iruka, it seemed Kai was only teleporting around the room whereas in reality, he was stopping time for Iruka...

Iruka nodded in understanding and answered.. "Alright, Shin, you've passed your combat abilities test with flying colors... Now, follow me to another room to test out how well you do academically.."

"A-Academics?" Shin asked reconfirming... Shoot, Shin was not born in a well-off family, so to go to school was a luxury that he could not afford. He's only learnt materials till primary level school due to mandatory law requirements, and quit afterwards to find labour works...

"Yep" Iruka said slightly laughing at Shin's reaction. As they went out of the test room, Iruka was looking at the clock... 'Huh.. that's weird, I for sure thought the test was conducted at far less time than this...'