A/n: Done for RamaChan's fanfiction contest. I think I might have botched Hatsune's personality, but she seems like the kind of girl that could be nice, but be an absolute terror when angered. Her mother must be pleased; her father must be absolutely terrified.

Disclaimer: Do not own Naruto or Barbie/Ken. Mattel can have those two.

A Battle of the Sexes
by moodiful819

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"You'll never catch me!"

The sound of children shouting leaped into the air. It was summer and the Academy had let out for vacation, letting the normally studious children unwind for a while and play. Nara Hatsune was one such child, and she smiled into the sun as she chased her friend around one of the grazing fields of the Nara Clan's forest.

"Go Himari-chan!" Hatsune shouted as her doll soared in the air. Uchiha Aya, her friend and fellow classmate joined Hatsune as they chased down the doll in their third friend's hand. From the benches not far away, Sakura and Temari cheered on their daughters as their fathers smirked quietly to themselves.

Their third friend turned to look over her shoulder and brandishing her doll, an evil caped figure, stuck her tongue out at her friends. In as menacing a voice as she could muster at 7-yrs-old, the brunette girl said, "Foolish Konoha ninja! You're no match for me! Surrender now or I'll do…uh…very, very bad things to you!"

Aya turned to Hatsune with worry, her grip on her Ken doll tightening anxiously. "What should we do, Himari? The evil Lord Oden said he's going to do bad things to us!"

Shikamaru smiled to himself from the benches as he watched the girls play. It wasn't too long ago that this would've seemed like a dream, but peace had fallen over the shinobi nations and such moments were now possible. It was nice watching the children act like children, and looking out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sasuke and Sakura sharing the same sentiment.

"Wonder if I should tell them they're fighting the lord of fish stew?" he pondered quietly to himself, tightening his arm's hold on his wife's waist.

Temari chuckled quietly to herself and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Don't spoil their fun. It's hard coming up with evil villain names, after all."

Shikamaru hummed his response, watching as Himari-chan did a daring leap in the air, crashing into the evil Lord Oden and foiling his evil plots. The girl playing Lord Oden let out a dramatic howl.

"No-o-o! How did my evil plans not work?!"

Hatsune smirked and instantly, Shikamaru was reminded of his wife. Hatsune would undoubtedly take after her mother in the future. "Because bad guys will never win. Especially not when Himari-chan is around!" Hatsune said triumphantly, the other two girls cheering for good's victory over evil. Shikamaru shook his head.

"Alright, come back you three! It's hot out and you need to drink some water!" Sakura shouted. The girls let out a moan, but did as they were told and raced back over to the bench. Or as Hatsune liked to say, "The Super-Village-of-Konoha!"

Passing out the water bottles, Aya took a sip and let out a satisfied sigh. "Cold water always tastes the best."

Hatsune nodded in agreement and noticing a small outstretched hand, she grabbed a bottle and handed it to their brown-haired friend. "Here, Eri-chan."

Eri took it thankfully, tipping her head back to gulp the water down before capping the bottle and sitting next to Aya. Unlike her friends, her parents couldn't take her to this play date. Luckily, uncle Sasuke and auntie Sakura volunteered to take her. Her mom even said she could sleep over tonight!

Turning her head, she gripped the grass beneath her fingertips, smiling as they prickled her skin. Opening the bottle, she watched out of the corner of her eyes as Hatsune and Aya stared at her. Being the oldest, they thought of her as being cool and mature, even if she was only older by a few months. (Her friends were still six.)

Smiling, her brown eyes twinkling, she picked up Himari-chan and turned her this way and that. "It's so cool that they made a Barbie doll of your mom!" she exclaimed. Her own mother hadn't even gotten a doll yet and she was the famed weapon's mistress of Konoha!

'I hope I get to be as cool as mom when I grow up!'

Eri already took after her mother after all, right down to her hair and eye color. And even if she didn't have her father's Byakugan, both Neji and Tenten knew their daughter would be a force to be reckoned with given her inheritance of her mother's love for weaponry.

Hatsune's cheeks flushed with pride. "I know!" she gushed. She loved her Barbie doll. Whenever her mom went on missions, she'd never let Himari-chan go because it reminded her so much of her mother.

Meanwhile, not far from where the girls were, was Hatsune's little brother Asuma and Aya's little brother, Shin. They sat in the grass, their ninja action figures splayed in the grass as they stared at where the girls were, frowns on their faces.

"Troublesome," Asuma muttered under his breath. Even at only four-years-old, his personality was a carbon-copy of his father.

Sitting across from him, Shin nodded darkly. Unlike his sister, who had their father's eyes, but their mother's hair and personality, Shin took completely after his father. He'd even been nicknamed "Mini-Sasuke" by his uncle Naruto, much to both his and his father's dismay.

"Stupid girls," Shin muttered as he marched his shinobi-action figure in the grass, Asuma doing the same as they thought the same thing: if it had been a real fight, it would be the guys who would be winning, not the girls.

Now, both knew that their mothers were famous kunoichi, but that was different. Sakura and Temari were their moms. Of course they were super!

But their sisters…

"Troublesome," Asuma grumbled. Shin nodded sagely by his friend. Those girls were indeed troublesome.

Suddenly, Temari called over to the two. "Asuma-kun! Shin-kun!"

"Yes?" they asked.

"Hatsune-chan wants to know if you'll play with them!" By his mother's side, the girls waved at them eagerly.

The boys narrowed their gazes. Both knew that the girls only wanted them to play because Lord Oden needed some henchmen and honestly, who wanted to work for someone named after 'fish stew?'

"No," they replied flatly before going back to their toys.

Temari blinked in surprise, knowing the girls were equally shocked. So were the other parents. Quickly recovering, Temari asked, "why?"

Asuma sighed tiredly. "Because," he said in his high, boyish voice, "the girls only want to use us men to help create a more realistic scenario. But we'd only be henchmen and then they'd boss us around and we'd have to play dead after a while. Not only that, everyone knows in real life that the guys would win. Not the girls," he explained in a bored tone. Shin nodded. He couldn't have said it better himself.

The two nodded to each other with satisfaction. Their plight had been made known and they basked in the relief of that, unaware of the shocked faces of the females and the blanched faces of their fathers.

Aya was the first to break the silence. "What?!" she shouted.

Shin turned his nose up haughtily. "You heard us. We're not playing with you if Aoi-kun doesn't win," he said staring pointedly at the Ken doll clutched in his sister's hand. "Everyone knows that guys are better fighters than girls, right dad?"

Suddenly, all eyes turned to Sasuke. He shifted his shoulders uncomfortably. Unlike Naruto, he wasn't stupid enough to answer a question that would sign his own death warrant. However, his wife's angry glare seemed to be trying to burn holes through his head. She tapped her finger on her arm.

"Yes 'dad.' Enlighten us," she said with a smile, but he could already see the veins throbbing dangerously at her temples. If he didn't tread carefully, it was the couch for him, and he hated the couch. It wasn't conducive for certain…activities…activities he enjoyed very, very much.

Coughing into his hand, he replied, "ask Shikamaru."

Shikamaru gaped. "Wha—" he began, only for the eyes to suddenly train on him. Glancing up, he could see Temari staring him down. No doubt he'd be blamed for putting these ideas in the boys' heads. Troublesome.

Sending a warning glance at Sasuke, Shikamaru sighed. "I think—"

"See! Dad is saying that girls are better fighters. That proves it!" Hatsune shouted.

Asuma, now having moved closer to hear the verdict better, stared at her blandly, far too used to her outbursts to be phased anymore. It took too much effort anyway. "Troublesome. Dad didn't even say anything."

"He doesn't have to! He's going to say girls are better fighters, right dad?"

"Hold on, I haven't said—"

"No, he's going to say boys are the better fighters."

"Nuh-uh!" This time, it was Aya.

Shin scoffed. "You girls are such sore losers."

"Shin!" his mother chided. His sister nodded emphatically. He deserved to get in trouble.

Meanwhile, Shikamaru was still floundering with his answer. "Hey guys, I still haven't said—"

"Dad is going to side with me! And that's final!" Hatsune shouted.

Asuma stared at her flatly and folded his arms over his chest, doing a very accurate impersonation of his father. If it wasn't for the fact he had his mother's hair, he could've called a mini-Shikamaru. "Did it ever occur to you that you need Dad to win this argument and he's a boy?"

Suddenly, the forest fell eerily still. Even the deer were hushed into silence as the young girls stared at each other in shock before turning to Sakura and Temari. Surely, the boys couldn't be right!

Sakura and Temari looked away guiltily. Asuma, despite being four-years-old, did have a point.

'He'll make a great tactician,' his mother pondered thoughtfully.

Sensing their victory, the boys smirked. The girls spluttered helplessly and turning around, the boys headed back towards their stuffed shuriken and shinobi action-figures. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Asuma muttered under his breath, "Girls are so stupid sometimes."

That statement, in combination with the stinging loss of their argument, broke the last tiny thread holding Hatsune together. With tears in her eye, she grabbed Himari-chan from Eri's hands and let fly, watching with a small degree of satisfaction as it landed squarely on Asuma's head, making him cry.

"No. Boys are stupid!" she bellowed after him, arms and legs scrambling and kicking against her father's arms as the scene erupted into chaos. Temari was running to comfort their injured son while Sasuke was trying desperately to keep Aya and Eri away from Shin, who was pelting the girls with stuffed shuriken, fully set on avenging his friend, even from the binding hold of his mother's arms.

Shikamaru watched the melee around him in awed silence. Barbie dolls and miniature shuriken flew through the air. Lord Oden had been sent flying into a deer—Aya had managed to throw Himari-chan's shoe into Shin's mouth!

Hatsune's scream brought him back to reality and Shikamaru winced at the volume as he struggled to control his daughter's squalling, squirming limbs and she continued her tirade against male-kind. She seemed quite adamant about hating boys and their stupid ways.

Shikamaru sighed. Hopefully she'd feel the same when she hit puberty.