Deidara

Deidara (デイダラ, Deidara^?) is a missing-nin from Iwagakure and the partner of Tobi. Deidara refers to his ninjutsu as art, believing each bomb he makes to be such works. He refers to style as superflat (the word itself used to refer to certain types of manga), and claims pop is dead. One of Deidara's catchphrases, "Art is a blast" (or variations therein), was originally coined by famous Japanese abstract artist Tarō Okamoto. Deidara is very proud of his art, to the point that he is simply unwilling to accept that anything could defeat it, leading to frequent overconfidence in battle. Deidara also has a habit of ending his sentences with a mumble/grunt, usually transcribed as un or mmm, in the same way Naruto ends most of his sentences with -ttebayo. Deidara has become the most popular member of Akatsuki among fans in Japan. In the most recent character popularity poll, Deidara ranked in third place, even higher than Naruto Uzumaki. In battle, Deidara uses special mouths in the palm of each hand to create Exploding Clay (起爆粘土, Kibaku Nendo^?). As the name suggests he can make the clay explode using the command "detonate" (喝, Katsu^?). To give the clay its explosive properties, Deidara must infuse his chakra with it; the more chakra he adds the stronger the blast. Deidara can shape this clay into a number of forms for a variety of purposes, be it creatures that can be used for flight or sneak attacks, copies of himself to be used as a distraction, or weapon variants such as mines. Some clay forms even receive a ranking system from Deidara much like that of C-4. Many of the clay creations he makes he refers to as "C1", and their explosive power is roughly equivalent to that of a hand grenade. "C2" is his title for a large clay dragon that uses the clay from its tail to shoot smaller explosives at opponent. His "C3", while never actually seen formed, is an immobile clay statue that is used like a bomb, and upon making contact with the ground has the potential to decimate an entire village. His final and strongest, "C4", is created by eating clay with his mouth and then spitting out a large copy of itself. Once the clone detonates it release a number of microscopic bombs over a large area that enter an opponent's body through their nasal passages and, upon detonating, cause the target to dissolve into dust. As a last resort Deidara has an additional, unranked, mouth on his chest that, once being unsealed and provided with clay, turns himself into a living bomb that destroys everything in a 10 kilometer radius at the cost of his life. In addition to his explosive clay, Deidara wears a scope on his left eye for long-range observation, and he has trained the eye itself to dispel genjutsu.

Before joining Akatsuki, Deidara was a terrorist bomber for hire, seeing it as an opportunity to use his "art" on a regular basis. He was involuntarily recruited by Itachi under the orders of the leader. While he becomes accustomed to Akatsuki, he continually holds a grudge Itachi and longs to defeat him to prove himself. After joining, Deidara is partnered with Sasori, who he refers to as Master Sasori (サソリの旦那, Sasori no Danna^?). This is probably because Deidara greatly respects him as a fellow artist. He also admits that Sasori was a lot stronger. Despite that, Deidara still argued with Sasori about what art is and directly disobeyed his command in spite of a threat to be killed. Deidara held that art is transient, departing quickly. Sasori believed that fine art is something wonderful that's left long into the future. This reflects their individual natures (Deidara makes clay sculptures that explode, Sasori makes long-lasting puppets out of humans). Deidara outwardly seems to respect Sasori's beliefs, but couldn't resist getting a final jab in after Sasori's death: "Like anything that is left for the future as a thing of eternal beauty... He got killed straight off!"^[11]

Deidara is assigned to capture the one-tailed beast, which requires capturing Gaara. While he succeeds in this task, Gaara is able to crush one of his arms before being defeated. After the beast is extracted from Gaara's body and a rescue team attempts to retrieve him, Deidara has his second arm severed in a battle with Kakashi Hatake and Naruto Uzumaki, though he makes sure to find it after he manages to escape. Both of his arms are repaired by Kakuzu, allowing him to return to battle-readiness. After Sasori's death, Tobi is assigned as Deidara's new partner. Deidara gets impatient with Tobi fairly easily, since Tobi rarely pays attention to what he is saying. Tobi also tends to take credit for their work, despite whatever Deidara did. After they capture the three-tailed beast, Deidara lectures Tobi about being too overconfident. He becomes greatly annoyed when he discovers that Tobi has fallen asleep and proceeds to "wake him" by blasting Tobi with his exploding clay. Despite this hostile relationship he has with Tobi, Deidara has formed a student-teacher connection with him; Tobi even refers to him as "senpai". Once in battle the two prove able to work well together, with Tobi doing Deidara's bidding and Deidara using caution when his exploding clay gets too close to Tobi. Prior to blowing himself up, he apologizes to Tobi for what he is about to do.

After hearing of Orochimaru's death at the hands of Sasuke Uchiha, Deidara, angry that someone other than himself killed Orochimaru, sets out with Tobi to seek revenge against Sasuke. Upon finding Sasuke Deidara quickly starts to fight him, though Sasuke's abilities and Sharingan allow him to avoid the worst of Deidara's clay explosions. Enraged that Sasuke, like Itachi many years earlier, is using his Sharingan to defeat him, Deidara attempts to use his C4 explosives to kill him and prove that his art is better than that of the Sharingan's. Sasuke once again avoids the blasts, and Deidara is left out of chakra and thus unable to create more explosives. In a last ditch effort to kill Sasuke, Deidara uses the mouth in his chest to turn himself into a bomb in the hopes that he can take Sasuke with him. His effort proves unsuccessful, and Akatsuki mourns his loss.