"We have successfully picked up the brain waves, leader."

The phase three leader swivelled round on his chair to face his subordinate and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Good job."

'Golden Road'. That is the name of the challenge that the examiner is currently monitoring, and is also considered one of the least 'physically-demanding' route of all the others, yet the one that could potentially cause the most stress. On the outside it looks like a beautiful golden road, but actually, it's a landmine.

"How about over there? How's that spiky hair boy and the suit-wearing man faring?" he asked.

"The spiky-hair boy is facing the obstacles with no problems. Should we implement the falling spikes earlier , leader?"

"Yes."

"And the suit-wearing contestant, applicant #403, isn't doing too bad either."

"Very well, proceed as planned."

The leader turned back round on his chair to face his monitor screen to assess the brain waves that were picked up from applicant #404. "A Kurta huh? How rare." He stared hard at the screen, watching the boy and the cat walk along the corridor, unaware of what they were about to face. Then, before his eyes, the cat changed shape, to a figure of a young woman. The examiner blinked, and adjusted his glasses.

"My my, we do have some interesting people this year, get brain waves of his girl over here too," he commanded his subordinates.

"But sir, she's not an applicant, she shouldn't be here…"the subordinate replied.

"I'm sure Chairman Netero is aware of her existence already, yet he hasn't stopped her. It should be okay for us to play around," the examiner gave an evil smile, which disappeared as soon as it was given .

"We're having a bit of problem picking up brain signals from her...There appears to be a blockage...Actually no! We have got something!"

"Great," the examiner laced his fingers together to create a bridge for his chin to rest on. "Let the show begin."

As soon as Kurapika and Kiri stepped into the darkness, the torches on the walls of either sides of them, lit up. After from a few meters in front of her, Kiri could see nothing. At first they stepped gingerly, wondering what kinds of traps laid in wait, but after a good hour of walking and still nothing happened, they lowered their guard. A few more hours passed.

"Maybe this is an easy path? They tricked us into thinking that Normalcy was easy, when it's really this one that's easy. Giving the cowards that took the easy path, the hardest time, kinda thing," suggested Kiri. She had changed back to her human shape despite Kurapika telling her not to. Just in case something happened, she wanted to be ready.

"No, I don't think they would do something like that," Kurapika said. "This must be to test something else."

Suddenly, Kiri felt a sharp pain in her head, causing her to stop in her track, and clutch her head.

Noticing that Kiri stopped, Kurapika turned out. "Kiri! Are you okay?" he rushed over to her side.

"...I'm fine," she said. The pain went away as quickly as it had come. "Just a little headache I think." Which is strange, because I've never had a headache before, thought Kiri.

"Do you want to stop for a while?"

"No, I'm fine," she reassured him. After a few minutes, the sharp pain came back. But this time it wouldn't go away. It felt like a thousand daggers were stabbing her in the head. Each of them all pulling back, and stabbing in, at different times and parts.

She crouched down on the floor, with her head in her hands, trying not to wince at the pain. Faintly, she could hear someone calling her name.

When she next opened her eyes, she found she was in a pitch black room.

"Kurapika?" she called. "Where are you?"

She took a step forward and saw Killua materialise in front of her. "Killua? Are you done with your part?"

Killua looked her, his face unsmiling. Wordlessly, he turned away and starting walking. Kiri wanted to call out, to chase after her brother but her feet were rooted to the ground. Looking down, she saw something sliding over her feet and tightening, stopping her from moving. Upon closer inspection, Kiri realised they were chains. "Killua!" she croaked, but he never turned back.

At that moment, Kiri felt fear.

"You haven't lost anyone important have you?" Kurapika's words came back to her.

Another voice in her head began to speak. "But you're about to now."

"No.."Kiri shook her head furiously. "Get out of my head!"

The voice started to cackle.

One after another, her family members started to appear before her. Illumi first, then Kikyo, Silva, Zeno, and even Milluki. And just like Killua, they looked at her with cold eyes - and turned away.

"Come back," Kiri called. "Where's everyone going?"

A figure appeared next to her, but his face was obscured by the blonde hair. Kiri reached out, but he began walking too. Beneath the hair, Kiri thought she saw a glimpse of red.

Her chest tightened, like it was being squeezed. It hurt. She squeezed her eyes shut. "No!"

"It's okay, Kiri, it's okay. I'm here." Before Kiri had even opened her eyes, she felt her hair being stroked. The first thing she saw were a pair of brown eyes looking down at her. The warm brown eyes that she always got lost in. Then she noticed that he was siting cross-legged on the floor, and was resting her head on his lap. She brought her hand up to her head, and found it was soaked with sweat.

"What...Happened?" Kiri sat up.

"You started hallucinating and then fainted," he replied. "You've been out for a good few hours."

Kiri bit her bottom lip and looked down. I've been out for that long?

"What happened?" Kurapika leaned over to wiped her forehead with his sleeve and Kiri gripped his arm.

"Don't go," she said in a quiet voice.

Kurapika smiled gently. "I'm staying here."

He looked around them, as though he was looking for cameras. "I'm not sure how they're doing this but they're somehow finding out our weaknesses. Possibly something to do with scanning…"

"I had a horrible dream," Kiri started. "And in my dream, everyone starting leaving, I didn't know what to do-" but before Kiri had the chance to finish her sentence, it was Kurapika's turn to start having the headaches.

"Ugh…My head…" said Kurapika, holding his head. "It's like it's being split in two." He stood up and started to walk, but after walking a few steps, he crashed against the wall and slid down.

"Kurapika!" Kiri ran over to the older boy. "Get a hold of yourself!" she said, shaking him by the shoulders. Kurapika suddenly looked up, but his eyes were blank and flashing red.

"No…" he whispered, beginning to breath heavily.

Out of instinct, Kiri knelt in front of him and grabbed his head, bringing it into her chest. "Calm down Kurapika, it's all in your head. They're playing with us!"

Kurapika wanted to stand, but Kiri was holding him down towards her. "Give me back my family, my friends!" he cried.

"Kurapika!" To control the hysterical Kurta, Kiri knife handed him in the neck and he fainted onto her.

Sweating and tired, she threw one of his arms over her neck, and half-carried, half-dragged him onwards. She sneaked a peek at Kurapika's face, and asleep, he looked peaceful and younger.

"So this is what they meant by nightmare…?" she thought out loud. "They go into our minds and finds what scares us most?"

I wonder how Killua and the others are doing, she thought.

Kiri was unsure of how many hours she had walked for and Kurapika still showed no signs of waking up. Did I hit him too hard?

Her feet hit a rock and she felt herself tumbling. Just as she was about to hit the floor, it opened up, and the unnatural light that hit her eyes had a blinding effect. She felt herself falling several more feet than she should've .

"Ow…" she muttered, sitting up, after a painful reunion with the ground.

"Kiri!" Kiri looked up to see a worried Killua. And Gon.

"This...Is Kiri?" asked Gon. "Our Kiri? Cat Kiri?"

Killua and Kiri looked at each other, and then down at Kurapika.

She was going to have a lot of explaining to do.