Ikuza was grabbing genin and hurling them left and right, bouncing from one side of the clearing to the other with eye-blurring speed. Oblivious to Seiyuri's arrival, and unaware of some of the genin's cooperation and budding teamwork, he sighted his twitching eyes upon Jun.<br/><br/>As the red-robed lunatic lurched towards her, hands raised to perform another crushing earth-jutsu, a beam of light played across his face from Kyo's blade. Still strangely unaware, the Mad Hermit made no move to block the flying kunai, the weapon<em>thunking</em>sickeningly into his forehead.<br/><br/>Ikuza stopped.<br/><br/>He looked up, and as he did, his face fell off.<br/><br/>Underneath, as Ikuza's skin peeled away and floated bizarrely to the ground, was a grinning rictus of a face, all gleaming muscle and congealed blood, hooked teeth gleaming from a lip-less mouth. Ikuza looked up, his eyes rolling horribly in his skull, inexplicable shining horns growing from the exposed crown of his head, Kyo's kunai still protruding in a grotesquely humorous way from his head.<br/><br/>Ikuza stopped. His entire outline began to fuzz and blur.<br/><br/>He spoke, but his bloody mouth didn't move. Instead, the genin heard his voice from an uncomfortable place in the back of their heads, as if it was shifting and rubbing at their cerebral cortex.<br/><br/><em>"...you have just been initiated into the first part of your chunin exams..."</em><br/><br/>The clearing shifted, and the genjutsu lifted. The genin would blink, and realise they were no longer outside the forest in the clearing. They were all deep inside the Hallowed Forest, the huge black trunks crowding in around them, the canopy above them blocking out most of the sunlight, eerie faces on some of the trunks leered at the genin as if they were sharing the Mad Hermit's little joke on the examinees. A joke, or an essential part of their training? Maybe if they survived their time in the Hallowed Forest, they would be able to tell...