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To ensure a compatible and long-term bond, be sure to consider all aspects of a dog before committing. Choosing the right energy for your family and finding a dog that will fulfill the desired position in your pack is crucial.
In short: Choose the right breed for your needs.
~~~
To be fair, it really was one of Kushina’s innocent, throwaway comments that set everything in motion.
Although if pressed, Minato cannot say that he wouldn’t have naturally reached the same conclusion eventually.
It might have taken him a bit longer, but now that he’s examining the issue in more detail, Minato is certain that all of his intellectual roads would have inevitably led to this conclusion.
Because love has always been a complex and complicated subject for Minato.
Contrary to what the majority of Konoha’s civilian population seems to believe, Minato has always been a creature of calculation instead of care at his core.
It is a trait that has served him well across his shinobi career and will, Minato knows, continue to serve him well in the future.
Despite being yet another orphan of the Second War, just another stray leaf on Konoha’s great bough whose parents were undoubtedly meat devoured by the war machine, Minato had been treated surprisingly well as a child.
With his advanced intellect showing itself early on, Minato had known kindness growing up. Had been showered in praise for his accomplishments, had been looked on with pride for his skills.
Before he’d become a genin and been granted his own apartment, he had received special privileges at the orphanage. From extra portions beyond even what the other shinobi-bound orphans were allotted, all the way to the warmest blankets and dibs on the newest clothes from the donation bin, some of which Minato had even suspected might have been bought specifically for him.
There had been any number of Academy sensei who, with every spar he had won and test he had breezed through, had grown more and more eager and willing to indulge him. Everything from granting him library access above his year restrictions, to private use of the Academy training grounds after hours. Even the sensei who had never actually had him in their classes had been willing to stay after hours and answer his questions about jutsu he should not have technically been allowed to study yet.
Minato might not have had parents of his own, but he had been indulged all the same by the village at large. From free meals in restaurants to packets of sweets and trinkets being tossed to him with winks and smiles when he passed through the market, all gifted to him freely for the simple act of being ‘such a talented future shinobi who would one day make the village proud’.
Minato had had plenty of pride and affection showered upon him as a child.
But even then, even as young as he had been, Minato had known it for what it was, had seen the privileges and acknowledgement he’d been given for what they truly were.
All that warmth and care would have been heaped upon any child in the village who earned the title of prodigy.
It had been that way before Minato and would be again after him.
None of it had been special.
None of it had really been about him.
It wasn’t love.
Not really.
It was a down payment of a sort on the intellect and skills he would one day turn upon the village's enemies.
Valuable? Yes.
Useful? Most certainly.
But not anything deep and true and abiding.
The closest Minato had come to love as a child had been with Jiraiya-sensei.
Jiraiya-sensei, all broad laughter-filled shoulders and wild hair, who always looked at Minato like he saw the answers to a lifelong question in his eyes.
Minato had easily slotted his genin teammates into the neatly labeled box in his mind titled allies/useful/friends, but it was, and had always been, Jiraiya-sensei, the only semi-parental figure Minato had ever known, who he had valued most from the lot.
Even now, as an adult and years past his tutelage, Jiraiya-sensei, much like the village itself and all of his comrades, has Minato’s affection, has his regard, and his loyalty.
But not his love.
No.
Only Kushina, only Minato’s red-hot heartbeat, has ever had that.
From the day he’d first seen her, round-faced and angry, chakra seething like the ocean, eyes like violet fire and hair like rubies spilling down to her shoulders, Minato had yearned for her.
He’d wanted to speed across the classroom and attach himself to her. Had wanted to bury his hands in her hair to see if they burned. Had wanted to hack off those ruby locs and tuck them away in his pockets so no one could see or touch them but him.
Had wanted to force everyone away from her until she saw only him, knew only him, cared for only him.
But impulse had never ruled Minato, not even as a child.
It had taken him time, but he’d gotten what he’d wanted.
A red thread of fate that tied the two of them together until she loved him just as deeply, just as fiercely, as he did her.
Now, years later, Minato has never expected nor truly desired to actually love anyone besides Kushina.
Has never really seen the need to.
But despite that, despite the distance that Minato has always held all others beside Kushina from his true heart, it is still fair to say that Minato does care for Kakashi.
The boy possesses all of the traits that Minato finds appealing in people, all of the characteristics of those he allows close enough to be truly considered his.
Plus, there’s the added fact that Minato had always appreciated Sakumo.
There had always been something in Sakumo’s eyes whenever they had met that had made Minato feel noticed. Seen in a way that no one outside of Kushina had ever managed to do.
Two predators of similar but different breeds, acknowledging one another and their shared territory.
Minato had mourned Sakumo in his own way when the White Fang had died. He had mourned the loss of the shinobi and the man in equal measures, for all that the official story of Sakumo’s suicide had never truly sat right with him.
So of course Minato has always found Kakashi, with all of his ticks and neuroses, to be delightful.
Interacting with Kakashi is what Minato has always assumed having a wolf cub gnawing on his fingertips would feel like.
Something to play with, a toothsome little puppy to train, to care for, and then eventually release back into the wild, a predator full-grown.
Minato had grown even fonder of him when Kakashi was placed alongside Obito and Rin, his little pack of genin who had, somewhere along the way, become his.
But now?
After all that had befallen his team? After the losses had piled up so very high?
After the fields of corpses Minato had planted and the one-now-three-body mountain that threatens to crush Kakashi’s heart and soul?
Of course Minato had pulled the boy closer. Had tucked Kakashi further into the protection of his shadow in an effort to keep the boy from dying as quickly as Minato is sure he would have if left unattended.
Because now more than ever before, Kakashi is so very brilliant and so very broken.
And, most interesting of all, Kakashi has managed to achieve a raw sort of balance where he is too much of one to reach the full potential provided by the other.
Minato had intended to stitch him back together, to take the time to personally recraft Kakashi into something not destined to shatter at the next hard blow.
A personal project of sorts, one part experiment and one part care and maintenance, but wholly designed to benefit Kakashi in the end, and thus, in Minato’s opinion, qualifying as a kindness.
It’s just …
Well.
Minato’s priorities have recently shifted.
Because Kushina, Minato’s wild fire-lily, is pregnant.
Minato is going to be a father.
And that changes everything.
Soon, in a little under a year, there is going to be someone in this world who is the perfect mix of him and his precious wife.
Minato already loves them deeply, desperately.
Obsessively.
With a sort of devout ferocity that Minato had not truly known it was possible for him to feel.
He’d spent the entire night before lying wide awake and entranced on the bed beside Kushina, one hand placed gently on the still flat plane of her stomach as he watched her sleep.
Nothing else had existed for Minato in those moments.
Not training or battles to come, not the village or the entire world outside their bed.
Just him, his heartbeat given form, and the whisper of their child nestled so sweetly in her womb.
It was only Kushina’s amused and indulgent willingness to allow Minato to place yet another monitoring seal on her that had convinced him to finally leave her side.
Their child, their windborn, ocean-touched miracle, already owns Minato in a way he had not thought it was possible to be owned.
Minato knows now that there is nothing he would not do, no one he would not destroy, in order to protect them.
Iwa would tremble, would hide their children and beg on their knees for mercy that Minato does not actually possess, if they knew the terrible and beautiful things he is already willing to do for his child.
Kushina, Minato knows without asking, feels much the same.
Kushina, an orphan both familially and culturally in so many ways, would rend any and everything that threatened their child to pieces with her teeth if necessary.
And Minato would only love every blood-drenched inch of her all the harder for her viciousness.
They do, after all, match each other so very well on so many different levels.
So, when Kushina, a hand resting protectively over the still flat plane of her stomach, had made a passing comment about acquiring a ninken or some other companion for extra protection for their little bud or blossom?
It was hardly Minato’s fault that his mind instantly made the connection to Kakashi and his pack of summons.
But it was Minato’s own mind that had taken that association a step further.
Had moved the thought from “a ninken like Kakashi’s” to something more along the lines of “a ninken like Kakashi”.
Now it is all Minato can think about.
That infamous Hatake loyalty turned away from the village, away from even Minato himself, and instead pared down to a single brilliant focus point.
Kakashi, skilled, brilliant, broken Kakashi, properly trained and then leashed to Minato and Kushina’s precious child.
The appeal, the temptation, is indescribable.
Minato could take Kakashi even further in hand than he already has him, could mold him, carve him, and train him properly for a single glorious purpose.
With the right guidance, the right programming, Kakashi is still young enough that he could become everything Minato’s child might ever need or want.
Minato could craft the perfect companion for his child, could ensure their safety and happiness in all ways with Kakashi as their protector, their weapon, and all things in between.
Kakashi would even benefit from the arrangement as well.
He would no longer be drifting aimlessly, left to flounder and half-drown in his grief and guilt. Not with Minato’s steady guiding hand settled on the back of his neck far more firmly than before.
Not with a new goal, a new drive, placed directly in front of him.
Kakashi has, after all, always done best when given something to truly strive for.
And one day, if he progresses correctly, if he remains as true and focused as Minato is sure that he will, Kakashi could even be rewarded by making him a part of Minato’s family in truth.
Because who else would be worthy of marrying Minato’s precious child than the boy, the man and the shinobi, he had hand-picked and hand-trained for them?
The ultimate gift and proof of Minato’s love and devotion as a father.
Honestly, should things work out as Minato is already sure they will, then he’ll be sure to create matches for any other children he and Kushina might one day be blessed with.
It really is a pity that Kakashi has no siblings, that there are no other Hatake. The Clan has always been interesting to Minato, from the sheer talent the line has birthed to the nature of their connection to dogs being what it is.
For all that the Inuzuka center themselves around their ninken, live and train and die beside them, the Hatake still stand apart in Minato’s mind.
Because traditional ninken like those the Inuzuka bond with are earthly creatures, born and raised in the mud alongside their human partners.
But Kakashi’s dogs? The contract he holds, the types of packs that the Hatake have always run alongside?
Those are summoning creatures.
Born and raised and tied to a plan of existence different from their own.
Minato has seen and felt the way a summoning contract can change and twist the holder, encouraging and enhancing some traits and minimizing others. Minato has seen and felt it from Jiraiya-sensei down to his own experience with the Toads.
So Kakashi being contracted so closely to the Dogs of the Summoning Realm from such a young age just makes him all the more appealing to Minato.
All the more perfect for what he has in mind.
Honestly, now that he’s thinking about it, it might even be worth looking into breeding a few offshoots from Kakashi himself before bonding him to Minato’s child. Or to see if, by some happy chance, a few samples of Sakumo’s genetic material might still be lurking around the research division, just waiting to be put to good use.
Either way, having a few fresh, young Hatake ripe for the pairing, all a few years older than Minato’s own future children, close enough in age to grow together but old enough to serve their true purposes, would be perfect.
Minato is certain that willing surrogates could be found, contracts could be drawn up, and care arranged for until they reach a proper, more malleable age.
If the timing is just right and Minato frames it as a joining of their families, the Hatake tethering themselves forever more to Minato’s blood, Kakashi would likely embrace it.
And Kushina, who has always desired the chaos and warmth of a house full to bursting and would eat the stars themselves to protect what she loves, surely will as well.
Although if Minato expands upon the thought, perhaps it would be wiser to look elsewhere for his next child’s companion.
Depending on how many children Kushina decides to bless him with, Minato could tie a different Clan to each of them. A web of devotion carefully planned and spun into place to ensure the safety and happiness of his family.
The Uchiha, for example, do have a number of promising young talents already available. From young Shisui to little Itachi, all the way down to the babe that Kushina’s Mikoto is currently carrying.
Shikaku’s wife is also pregnant, as are several other high-profile shinobi, all eager to begin making up for the losses they’d all faced in the Third War.
So while Kakashi is the obvious best pick for Minato’s first child, he is already spoiled for choice for any who might come later.
But first, he has a half-grown pup to train up in record time.
Minato twirls his kunai around his finger, half of his mind touching against the reassuring hum of Kushina’s monitoring seal while the other half click click clicks away.
Yes.
This is it.
This is the path that he’s choosing to walk, these are the wheels that he’s deciding right here and now to set into motion.
He’s a father now, after all.
This is the logical thing to do.