Hatake Rezaa was a very normal kid. At least as far as Kakashi could tell. The only kids he had known were his classmates when he was a kid himself and he barely remembered his short time in the academy.

But his dogs assured him the kid was a "healthy pup" and they were summons so they would probably know more than him, right?

The first time Kakashi had taken Rezaa out of his apartment to go buy whatever Pakkun said was needed for children his age, the boy had made a fuss as soon as they entered the civilian district.

It took a lot of squirming for Kakashi to figure out that the kid was getting overwhelmed by all of the new scents around him.

And so Kakashi unburied one of his old face masks from the back of his closet and helped the kid into it.

Big red eyes looked up at him first in confusion at the unfamiliar feeling of the garment and then in excited understanding when Rezaa realized he was wearing a mask just like his father was.

"This is creepy," Genma said as he watched the two Hatakes eat without visibly removing their masks.

He and his friends were sitting in Yakiniku Q for lunch after Izumo and Kotetsu came from their morning shift at the village gates.

"They're just eating," Raidou told his husband.

"But they're doing it creepily."

"I always thought Kakashi was hiding some old injury with that mask," Izumo interrupted before the couple could start bickering, "but it must be something genetic if his son covers up too."

"How do we even know it's his son? Has he ever actually said that?" Kotetsu asked.

His friends gave him looks that clearly said "Have you seen the kid?".

"Right."

"I always thought he was just hiding nosebleeds from those books he reads," Aoba admitted.

Genma snorted.

"You guys are idiots," Raidou sighed.

They watched as the Hatakes paid and left the restaurant with matching eye-smiles.

Arriving at home-they had since moved back into the old Hatake estate because a one-bedroom apartment was not enough space for the two of them–Kakashi directed his son towards his father's old office.

Once there, Rezaa watched his father pull out a scroll from a compartment hidden behind the desk.

"This is the Hatake summoning contract," he explained. "You're now the age I was when my father let me sign it," he spread out the scroll on the desk to show where Hatake Kakashi was signed after Hatake Sakumo.

Rezaa was sure that he would see many more Hatake names if he followed down the scroll.

"You don't have to sign, of course, if you don't want to," Kakashi added as his son's prolonged silence

"No, I want to," Rezaa said definitively.

"Maa, good. Then you should know this isn't a dog summons contract."

Kakashi chuckled as Rezaa leaned his head to the side in question–a habit he had copied from the dogs he grew up with.

"It's a canid summoning contract. My summons just happened to be dogs. My father's were wolves, which is the most common Hatake summon but I think I had a great grandfather with coyotes as summons."

Rezaa nodded in understanding and pulled down his face mask. His father had already taught him about how these contracts worked.

His thumb was cut open on one of his canines and he carefully wrote down the hiragana for Hatake, followed by the katakana that made up his first name.

When he was done, he covered all five of his fingers in his blood and pressed them underneath his signature.

"Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram," Kakashi reminded him of the hand signs.

Rezaa nodded and formed the seals before pressing his hand onto the office floor.

In a cloud of smoke, two wolves appeared in front of him. They were clearly young–both reaching up to his hip–with stark white pelts. The only difference between them was their eye colour.

"I am Rezaa," he introduced himself.

The blue-eyed wolf looked his summoner over once before replying, "Tsume."

The other one, a wolf with bright purple eyes, introduced himself as "Raimei" before pressing his snout to one of Rezaa's legs.

"Well then," Kakashi said, "The three of you get to know each other today and we can start training you to fight together tomorrow."

Rezaa smiled at his father and with a nod, the three of them made their way out of the house and into the forests surrounding it.

Kakashi watched them leave and summoned his own partners before putting the scroll away.

"How'd it go, boss?" Pakkun asked from his perch on Bull's head.

"Wolves," Kakashi replied, "two of them."

"Ah well not everyone can be lucky enough to summon dogs," Bisuke said sagely.

"My grandfather was a wolf actually," Shiba told them.

"No, he wasn't," Pakkun denied, "We have the same grandfather."

"I have two of them!"

"And the other one is still alive and definitely not a wolf."

Kakashi listened to the two ninken argue and walked towards the living room window from where he could see Rezaa rolling around with his summons in a play fight.

It had been four years since Rezaa had been placed on his doorstep. The boy was five now, the same age at which Kakashi had signed the summoning contract, a year before graduating from the academy.

Nowadays children weren't even allowed to attend the academy until they were six. It was the difference between times of peace and war, he supposed.

Rezaa would be able to attend soon but Kakashi had decided to instead take him on as his apprentice and have him take the graduation exam when he saw fit. It was an old but still legal custom dating back from before the Hatakes had joined the village and so the Hokage was forced to accept Kakshi's decision.