157 -=Time skip no jutsu=-

Rat->Dragon->Tiger->Boar->Dog->Serpent->Ox->Rat

Time skip no jutsu!

*Bamf*

-=-

In the blink of an eye, 6 months passed

Rimuru stood on top of a building in Uzushio looking at the group of individuals right outside the barrier of the village

4 people... such a low number would normally make anyone laugh at this pathetic attempt of an invasion yet... yet no one but Rimuru himself could laugh at the current 4 people standing menacingly outside the barrier

Mizukage - Terumi Mei

Kazekage - Sabaku no Temari

Raikage - A

Tsuchikage - Onoki

four names that could shake the world by themselves (except maybe Temari), all standing in front of Uzushio

yes, the solution they found after brainstorming for months was that no army would make a difference in front of the seals Uzushio could deploy, so instead of armies that would be wiped out, they decided to lead a charge with their strongest combatants, bar the jinchurikki

these combatants being themselves, obviously

On top of the building, Rimuru smiled

"About damn time..." he murmured

*snap*

With a snap of his fingers, the village changed, the many big gears outside the buildings that one could easily think of as decoration began to move

slowly bringing the buildings down inside the ground, leaving Uzushio as a flat-ish ground

every civilian has long since been evacuated by clones

as the building Rimuru stood on went underground, the kages finally got a good view of their enemy

the supposed leader of Uzushio, Rimuru...

Tsunade warned them about how strong this single guy could be, but who are they?

they are KAGES, 4 of the 5 strongest people alive!

if they didn't all fear that the other 3 villages would attack them in case they went alone, they would have gone in alone to attack Uzushio for maximum profits

"Humpf! he doesn't look like much" A snorted and commented

truly, Rimuru looked anything but intimidating

"..." Temari, the kazekage just stared at Rimuru

truthfully, she couldn't care less about the resources of Uzushio, but she needed to get one thing from this raid, and one thing only:

Fuinjutsu

Weird things have been happening in a certain area of the desert, and everyone in Suna knew it was Shukaku's doing

or more precisely, signs of him reappearing

even though this time he took way longer than the last time to reappear...

she knew that without the Ichibi, Sunagakure would be a sitting target to the other villages, yet she refused to use the same seal that brought her brother only pain in the past to create a new jinchurikki

If it wasn't for that seal, Gaara could still be alive, she often told herself

there was far more involved in her presence here than greed... far more

"Don't underestimate a seal master in their home ground" Onoki told A

as the only remaining user of the kekkei tota dust release, he feared no man... except one, that is

but the thing in front of him made him unnerved for some reason

and having lived for so long, he knew better than to ignore this, even though he misjudged the cause of the feeling

While the other 3 kages had their own considerations about this raid, the mizukage had a different question in her mind

'How could it be HIM?' She asked herself

it has been years, sure, but she never forgot the image of that single blue-haired man who singlehandedly took down the three tails to 'Test himself'

Sure, Rimuru may look a bit different, but there is no mistake that it's the same person

mostly due to Rimuru being too lazy to change his looks again (Or me being too lazy to create a new look...)

The memory of Rimuru fighting Yagura after he released the Sanbi played in her head repeatedly, and a single question formed in her mind

'Can we really beat this?'

That fear was quickly crushed as A charged his famous 'hell stab' and using 3 fingers trusted into the barrier surrounding Uzushio, making it shake violently and then disappear

'That is right! The Raikage once took down the Hachibi! I overreacted because I recognized him from earlier' Mei sighed in relief

Maybe they felt good being able to break the barrier with one attack, maybe they got cocky, but whatever the reason may be, the kages immediately charged at Rimuru

sadly for them, they couldn't tell that the barrier was forcefully taken down by Rimuru himself

As much as he loved the idea of letting the 4 attack the barrier constantly and not being able to even scratch it, this was not a moment to be funny, but a moment for his subordinates to fight in a real fight

Looking at the fast-approaching kages, Rimuru sighed

"You have made your choice" He told them, his words having little to no effect

*snap*

Once again snapping his fingers, the kages immediately stopped their charge

*clang*

Temari's eyes widened as she parried what seemed to be an ice sword with her fan

Onoki had to fly back a bit to avoid being pierced by what seemed like a lightning bolt in his eyes

"What in the-" His eyes widened as blood started to drip from his cheek

raising his hand there he immediately noticed a small cut there

Mei stopped in place as a man dressed in a red tuxedo appeared in front of her, a smile on his face

"I would not recommend taking another step" He said in a calm tone

his demeanor was calm, and he seemed harmless yet Mei's senses screamed at her that he was dangerous, so she took a combat stance making the man grin

"I gave you a way out... don't blame me" with each word his grin seemed to become larger and larger until it seemed to split his face in two

A was ahead of the other kages since he was faster

but not only that, but he was also the bolder, not fearing any traps, Onoki's warning being ignored by him

A aimed a punch right at Rimuru's face, and just when his lightning-covered fists were centimeters away from it...

Yellow chains held his arm in place, while what seemed to be paper shurikens shot at his face at high speeds

A was reckless, yes. But a fool he was not

even though the paper shurikens seemed weaker than normal shurikens, he didn't gamble and jumped back, having to use just a bit of force to free his arm, since the chains were not too tight around it

'And so it starts' Rimuru said mentally as he watched the scene in front of him

Temari looked coldly at Blizzard, who just chuckled in response

"Oh my, if you look at me so coldly I may freeze to death" Blizzard said while making ice grow on her face

Rimuru cringed a bit at the line but gave it an A for effort

Onoki took his hand off of his face and looked at where the 'lightning bolt' had hit before

instead of a burnt mark, as a normal lightning bolt should leave, a girl was standing there

a cheeky grin on her face as she held her hand up, showing her slightly bloody claws

"Nyahahahaha" She laughed at Onoki's grave expression

Mei tried to use her boil release to attack Cooper, yet his form seemed to morph and disappear before she could attack

'A genjutsu user...' She concluded, her experience showed itself

A looked at his side, seeing a man with red hair standing there, yellow chains leaving his back as a blue-haired woman stood beside him, many paper shurikens floating around her while spinning

"...Uzumaki" A said, a bit weary of his new opponents, mostly Nagato, but he would soon discover that underestimating Konan is a mistake

With this face-off, the war... no, more like the battle of Uzushio... Began

in the next chapter, of course 😉