The Jinchūriki's Tears

is episode 9 of the Naruto: Shippūden anime.

Synopsis
On the outskirts of the Sand Village, the shinobi prepared to detonate the surrounding area, whilst elsewhere the elders were already making plans for a new Kazekage. When the meeting had just finished, someone rushed in and told them that Kankurō had been found.

Elsewhere, Sasori caught up with Deidara and the two were ready to make off with their target, the One-Tailed Shukaku's host. After they were done with Deidara's target, Sasori had planned to go after his, even though he still had no idea where his target was.

Kankurō was brought into the treatment center. While his wounds weren't serious, the main problem was the poison in his body and that no-one in the Sand knew how to negate it.

En route to the Sand Village, Team Kakashi spotted Temari, who joined them upon hearing what had happened to Gaara. During their journey to the Sand Village, Naruto thought back to when Itachi and Kisame had approached him to capture him for Akatsuki's purposes: extracting the power of the Nine-Tailed Fox within Naruto and using it for their own personal gain. Naruto picked up the pace, despite the others saying that they should stick together. He realized that the reason Akatsuki was after him and Gaara was because they only saw them as monsters due to the beasts within them. Naruto realized just how similar he and Gaara really are, and why they were only looked at as beasts. With tears of anger in his eyes, Naruto pressed on.

Kankurō's condition had worsened, and his body was in such a weak condition that he could barely speak. Despite this, he was able to tell Baki about Sasori. Baki went to an information center and told the two shinobi inside to inform the pursuit squad to retreat, while he went off to speak to "them".

Sakura asked Naruto if he had ever met with Itachi Uchiha before, and it turned out that she had been doing more than simply training in the past two and a half years. With access to Tsunade's library, she was able to finally figure out something she had always wanted to know: Sasuke's ambition. Then there was Orochimaru, who Sasuke was now with in order to become stronger to kill Itachi. However, there was only a short amount of time until Orochimaru would be able to take over Sasuke's body. Because Orochimaru had originally been a member of Akatsuki, the closer they got to them, the closer they got to finding information about Orochimaru ... and the closer they would get to Sasuke.

Somewhere in the Sand, two elders sat at opposite ends of a tiny pool. The sister of the two was not moving and appeared to be dead.

"You dead?" the other asked as the fishing rod fell out of the woman's hands.

Baki approached and informed the two of Gaara's capture by Akatsuki, but they were not particularly interested as there was not much the two of them could do in their state. As far as they were concerned, what happened was not their business, even though it would do Chiyo (the female elder) good to see her grandson, Sasori, again.