Deidara

Deidara has slanted blue eyes ringed by heavy dark lines that read like eyeliner, and long golden hair worn half-up with the rest loose, a fringe draped over his left eye. That fringe conceals a mechanical scope marking him as a long-range fighter, though it detaches rather than being fixed to his face. After turning his village's forbidden jutsu on himself he grows a mouth on each palm and a large stitched mouth on the left of his chest, all feeding clay to his explosive art. In Akatsuki he dons the group's cloak over a sleeveless midriff shirt and mesh, a teal ring reading blue-green on his right index finger, black nail polish, and a slashed Iwa forehead protector, with two clay pouches at his belt.

His arms suffer badly over his career: Gaara's sand crushes the left, and Kakashi's Kamui tears away the elbow of the right, after which Kakuzu stitches wrinkled, dark brown transplant limbs back onto him. Once Kabuto reincarnates him, his eyes take on the black sclerae and darker irises of the reanimated, his headband is gone so his hair hangs looser, and he wears the reincarnation's red, white-lined cloak in place of his old attire.

Alongside Sasori, Deidara keeps a cool, smirking composure even in fierce battle, but partnering with the childish Tobi frays his temper into frequent, comedic outbursts. He is something of a gleeful arsonist who relishes a good fight and blows up his foes with theatrical cruelty, yet his defining passion is art. He respects every form of it, even styles he disputes, and punctuates his sentences with nasal grunts. His whole philosophy rides on the belief that true art is a single fleeting explosion, a view he argues endlessly against Sasori's insistence that real art endures forever.

That artist's pride makes him unwilling to accept that anything could best his work, so he abandons strategy in favour of showing off, notably against Sasuke. He can acknowledge stronger opponents like Itachi, but he loathes the Sharingan for the genjutsu that once humiliated him and carries a murderous grudge for the rest of his life. He calls Sasori master out of genuine respect while still needling him, and though Tobi's idiot act infuriates him, he spares his partner a quiet apology in his final moments.

A powerful S-rank rogue, Deidara earns praise even from Pain, who calls his loss a heavy blow to Akatsuki. He single-handedly defeats Gaara and Isobu on their home ground and fights Sasuke on even terms despite an elemental disadvantage. Much of his edge is intellect: he leans on feints, misdirection and calculated gambles to slip his bombs into range, once mixing clay into Gaara's own sand and later baiting Sasuke between an aerial dragon and buried mines.

His signature is the Explosion Release kekkei genkai, which fuses earth and lightning chakra to give his own chakra explosive force. Feeding clay to the mouths on his palms and chest, he sculpts explosive clay that detonates on the command Katsu, moulding everything from microscopic C4 particles and clay clones to gigantic C3 blasts and C2 dragons that spit smaller bombs. He rides clay birds for travel and infiltration, plants clay landmines with Tobi, and as a last resort devours clay to become a living bomb he names his ultimate art. Because every creation is earth-based, all of it is vulnerable to lightning.

The scope over his left eye handles long-range spotting, and he trains that eye to see through and cancel genjutsu, contracting the pupil when he does, a skill built specifically to counter Itachi. He also boasts proficient stealth, huge stamina and pain tolerance, dodging Team Guy with a kunai in his mouth after losing both arms, and enough durability to withstand a pummelling from a tailed-beast-empowered Naruto. His life ends the way both Tobi and Sasori predicted, in a massive self-detonation aimed at Sasuke, though the Uchiha survives behind the summoned Manda.