Deidara

Background
Deidara was a missing-nin from Iwagakure. Before joining Akatsuki, Deidara acted as a terrorist bomber for hire, where he gained the attention of Pein. Pein sent other Itachi, Kisame, and Sasori to recruit him, but he refused. Itachi then challanged him with, if Itachi lost, Deidara goes free, but if Itachi won, he must join Akatsuki. Thinking he had the upper hand, Deidara accepted, only to quicky fall prey to Itachi's Sharingan's genjutsu. Such an embarassing loss to his ego, Deidara joined Akatsuki, but he carried a loathing for Itachi, and the Sharingan which he said were "eyes that couldn't see his art,".

Rescue Gaara Arc
Deidara, when partnered with Sasori, travelled to Sunagakure to capture Gaara and extract the Shukaku within him. When they got inside the village, Deidara was greeted by the Fifth Kazekage himself, and the two began to fight. Deidara's left arm was destroyed during the fight. Despite the fact that he had lost one arm, Deidara still managed to defeat the Kazekage by using the safety of Gaara's village as a distraction. Deidara then took the unconcious Gaara out of the village where his partner - Sasori was waiting. The two Akatsuki members then took their captive to their hideout where they began the three day long jutsu to extract the tailed beast out of its host while Team 7, and Team Guy attempted their rescue operation. By the time they broke into the hideout, the jutsu was completed and Gaara was dead. Naruto was enraged and began to chase after Deidara with Kakashi following him, leaving Sasori to deal with Sakura and Chiyo.

In the chase, Deidara first tried to seperate Kakashi from him and Naruto by dropping explosives clay. When the attempt failed, he simply went faster, baiting Naruto. When Kakashi revealed his Mangekyo Sharingan, destroying Deidara's right arm, Naruto finally caught up with him. Deidara dodged the attack Naruto threw towards him and Naruto managed to tear Deidara's clay creation(which held Gaara within it) apart. Naruto then proceeded in beating Deidara up but he only managed to beat up Deidara's Clay Clone. Deidara meanwhile hid himself and learned that Sasori was dead, killed by Sakura and Chiyo. Team Guy found out Deidara's hiding place with Neji's Byakyugan. Deidara managed to escape by setting off another larger explosion by eating the clay of the remains of his clay bird(which Naruto had tore up earlier when he tried to save Gaara). Kakashi sent the explosion into another dimension using his Mangekyo Sharingan. Deidara survived and went to find his missing arm and ring. He then became Tobi's new partner after Tobi retrieved Sasori's ring.

Hidan and Kakuzu Arc
Deidara accompanied Tobi to capture the three-tailed beast, but noted that he did all the fighting. It is revealed in this period that Kakuzu had sewn his arms back on using his body threads.

Sasuke vs. Deidara Arc
Deidara attacked Sasuke after hearing of his (seemingly) killing Orochimaru. Sasuke's lightning-elemental Chidori proved a good counter to Deidara's earth-elemental clay bombs, and Sasuke managed to survive each new bomb Deidara used against him. Deidara was eventually defeated, but rather than telling Sasuke where Itachi was, he decided to feed himself clay in an attempt to self-destruct and kill Sasuke. The attempt failed, though, and Deidara was killed in the blast, while Sasuke summoned Manda to protect himself at the cost of Manda's life.