After a painfully long and intense mission, you wanted nothing more than to get back to the Akatsuki hideout as soon as possible and rest for at least three days.

When you finally made it back, the base was relatively empty, so you most likely had the entire place to yourself until the next Akatsuki member came back.

However, you heard a quiet, chittering noise in one of the vast corners of the hideout. Instinctively, you whipped your head around and pinpointed the source of the noise and saw…

…One of Kakuzu’s mask creatures?

Kakuzu’s water mask stared back at you from its corner, hunched up like that was one of its usual spots.

Then, you heard a shuffling noise from above. A small pebble hit the back of your neck, causing you to look up. Lo and behold, it was Kakuzu’s wind mask this time, which looked to be scaling the hideout like its personal playground.

Suddenly, the water mask lunged at you and nearly trampled you as it scooped you out of the way of the incoming fire and lightning masks.

As you recovered from the water mask’s sudden movement, you saw Kakuzu’s fire mask and lightning mask roughhousing with each other. The fire mask would occasionally let out a small puff of flames as it got tackled by the other. The lightning mask seemed to be enjoying their banter and saw it more as play than actual combat, so it only gave small, harmless static shocks to the fire mask to show it wasn’t trying to harm it.

This raised a lot of questions.

Kakuzu was never one to casually let his masks roam free, let alone be seen. Though, since they’re here, Kakuzu was most likely in the base as well.

The question was where?

The only two sensible reasons as to why his masks were loose was either: Kakuzu was asleep and didn’t want the masks to bother him in rest, or he was taking a shower and didn’t want the masks in the way of his routine.

Your thoughts were interrupted by the water mask making panicked, rapid clicking noises as it was assessing you for any injuries.