The last ripples of distorted space had yet to fade when Kakashi's foot landed on unfamiliar ground.
Hard, cold, and too smooth to be stone. He glanced down. Some kind of porcelain-white paneling lay beneath his feet, clean enough to reflect the mud on his soles, without a single crack.
The light overhead came from neither torches nor fluorescent lamps. A flat, glowing panel was set into the ceiling, casting an even, gentle brightness that revealed every detail in the room.
He raised his head and looked around.
The walls were pale gray. No wood grain, no paper doors, nothing he recognized.
A huge black table stood in the middle of the room. Set into its surface was a black panel larger than his entire body, dark as the far side of night.
Several silver columns stood in a corner. One hummed as a cloud of gray-white mist poured from a slit at its top and spread evenly, as though the air itself were breathing.
Wherever the mist reached, the air turned cool and the summer heat vanished.
Farther away, a round silver disc glided along the floor. It circled a table leg, turned, and glided back, leaving the floor beneath it spotless, without a speck of dust.
Kakashi's Sharingan swept the room.
No Chakra. No jutsu formulas. No Barrier. Not a trace of Chakra in any of these things.
He instinctively took a step back.
His back bumped into something soft that gave a little under the impact. He turned to find a pale gray sofa, wider than any chair he had ever seen. Its surface was smooth, its backrest without a sharp edge, like a solid block of stone rounded off.
Kakashi forced the words out of his throat. His voice sounded dry and stiff even to him.