Sage

On their way back Saito told Gaara about the current situation, apparently all the villages where keeping an eye on the Akatsuki, after telling him about Yugure Gaara agree to help him with information gathering, he hoped to enter an alliance with Konoha in order to stop the needless bloodshed and create a peaceful environment for the people of both villages, both sides are far from forgetting the events of Konoha's destruction plan. Saito believes that the team sent by Konoha should be in the village by now so he put back his mask.

Gaara: "You still haven't gone back to the village?"

Saito: "It's complicated and I need to move freely between villages, and my status as dead helps hide."

They soon reached the village, Gaara was received by a huge crowd of both ninja's and villagers, amongst them Saito saw Kakashi, Naruto and Sakura others were also present. Naruto grew taller and Saito knew that he became even stronger, Sakura also grew up and Saito knew that she had benefited from Tsunade's training as her, she was no longer physically weak but he is afraid that her mentality was far from maturing. Kakashi was the same without looking at the commotion he was reading his favorite novel.

Naruto ran towards them checking up on Gaara, after Gaara told them about what happened Naruto thanked Saito and his team, Saito saw that Kakashi was no longer reading but instead removed the headband covering his eye and started checking up Saito and his team. After exchanging a few words with Gaara and Naruto, Saito and his team started moving towards his old training place. Karin gave both Kakashi and Gaara a paper with a seal on it, using it they can send information to Saito no matter how far he is, he asked only for intel about the Akatsuki's movements nothing more. Kakashi was still suspicious but after checking it with his sharingan he decided to give it to the Hokage and have Jiraya examine it.

Soon they reached the clearing, it was as serene and beautiful as Saito remembered. Using earth jutsu he easily created an underground base, with a place for sparring and personal rooms for each member, Karin still didn't finish reading the Uzumaki clans records, Jugo was walking around the forest sue to his bloodline he was in tune with nature and the creatures didn't attack him, Fu was having a blast in training ground trying to control he Biju's power better, Suigetsu was training his Kenjutsu while Saito had another plan in mind. He wanted to master senjutsu. He has a theory that all elements of natural chakra are present in everyplace in the world and the only difference is the amount a desert will have a great amount of earth chakra and a small amount of water chakra, the sea was the same but water was dominant same for volcanos and other places where the elements where stronger. He found a hill close to the hideout and started meditating, soon he could feel the natural chakra around him earth and water were both present and after sometime he managed to feel lightning but even after hours he couldn't feel the wind and fire. He knew that it is mostly ted with his ability to use chakra nature change. He could feel water first because of high affinity and luck, earth was easier due to him experiencing natural chakra already and also his constant use of earth jutsu to train, lightning was still harder but in the end he managed to feel it, but for the other two elements he couldn't do it. Coming to this conclusion he finally created a new training program, he created 5 clones each one will train in an element as for him he will continue training his body and chakra control, by the end of each training session he will release his clones to swallow all of their experience. He informed Karin of his training plan just to avoid her nagging.

For the fire and wind release training it didn't take long before his clones managed to master them but in order to feel the elemental natural chakra one needs to become more accustomed to the chakra nature. What Saito ignored is that normally he would have taken years before he could have felt Natural chakra of elements other than water, but his adaptive body slowly changed his body making it easier for him to master new elements but he still can't use kekkei genkai. A month passed by in the blink of an eye and his mastery over fire and wind where enhanced, he can finally enter Water Sage mode but when using it he can't use his third phase chakra mode, but with his increased control and calm state of mind he can use 100% of his power without any loss and he also becomes completely immune to Genjutsu, and his water jutsus become more powerful, when testing it he almost flooded the area, When in this form two blue water drops appears under his eyes. Karin couldn't stop laughing at how he looked as if he was crying, for now he can maintain it for 5 minutes he knew that if used correctly he could kill his opponent easily. He was close to mastering his earth chakra mode but for some reason he was still struggling as for lightning the road ahead was even longer, Lightning natural chakra enhanced his movement speed and reaction speed to crazy levels and also gave his attacks a great piercing power but for now he couldn't create an equilibrium. One day Saito had the brilliant idea to try absorbing two elements, he almost died if not for his Creation Rebirth and ability that enhanced it. He swore to never try fusing elements before fully master his sage modes. His training was far from finished.

=Hokage's Office=

Tsunade was deep in taught, in front of her was the paper Kakashi brought from the mission, after checking it Jiraya was shocked by the complexity of the seal and after deciphering it he concluded that it was a communication seal.

What Tsunade was concerned about was the motivations behind Yugure's members and also the fact that Gaara seemed to trust the leader as if he knew who he was. According to Kakashi the leader didn't show any signs of greed and the members of his team didn't speak, so they couldn't get any Intel other than the number of the members and their gender.

While she was deep in thought an Anbu appeared in front of her office kneeling.

Anbu: "Reporting. Hokage Sama, the Anbu team sent to the Tenchi Bridge was annihilated according to our investigations one member survived but his location is unknown."

Tsunade felt a headache, she was still pondering about Yugure when the team sent to investigate strange occurrences in the Tenchi Bridge was destroyed. The worst thing is that Sasuke Uchiha was a member of that team.

Tsunade: "Who is the missing member?"

She had a feeling about his identity and it was confirmed immediately.

Anbu: "After recovering the bodies we identified the missing member to be Sasuke Uchiha."