AN(important): I didn't know whether to put this at the bottom or not but I guess it's better to say upfront a couple of important things regarding this story. I don't know if you've seen that one fanart of Deidara holding a Tsuchikage hat (if you haven't, it's pretty easy to find on google) but as soon as I saw it I was like "Woah, just imagine how dope it would be if Deidara became Tsuchikage?" and BAM this fic came to be.

However...

Please note this has to be a completely different universe because I can't make canon!Deidara a Tsuchikage after all he's done (and I mean, he's dead soo...)

And because it's a completely different universe, things don't happen the same as they do in canon (duuh) so Deidara will also have to be slightly OOC.

I said slightly because I'll really try and not make him OOC but if the circumstances of his childhood/life are different and he has a goal of becoming a Tsuchikage, which I don't think he had in the canon, then he'll have to be a slightly different Deidara than we all know and love. But he'll also continue to be our favorite artist and bomber, I don't want to change that and I won't.

The story will be told through the eyes of my OC which has a complicated life as well, and they'll both have to deal with a lot of things (character growth yay), maybe even some romance along the way I don't know where this takes me (it probably will I'm a sucker for romance).

I guess the only issue I have with this story (apart from doubting anyone being interested in Deidara becoming Tsuchikage) is the fact that I fear I will make him too OOC. Because he's really smart and powerful and when he's with Sasori he's all cool and smirking and whatnot and then with Tobi he's easily annoyed...*sigh* I'll do my best and if you think he's becoming too OOC at some point please do say so, just do not say that about every single thing he does because, again, this is an AU of him becoming a Tsuchikage and that's pretty OOC to begin with.

I have some chapters prepared in advance, but a lot of things I have yet to plan out in my head (maybe even rewatch all episodes with Deidara in it), and I also have to mind my uni work and the DN fanfic I should be writing but instead I work on this (self promotion lol).

That'd be all fellow readers. As soon as prologue is up I will put first chapter so there won't be any wait.

Will this work out? Beats me, but I had to write it.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Naruto but I do own my OC.

Prologue

The Third Great Ninja War was raging across all countries of the ninja world, regardless of whether the country wanted to be a part of it or not. Fear and hatred that nestled into shinobi's hearts was now rampant - a driving force used to attack anyone who wasn't your own comrade. Hatred blossomed more and more, growing stronger from pain and sadness the loss of a loved one would inflict onto a person.

Shikaku Nara, now a head of the Nara clan, and the member of the legendary Ino-Shika-Cho team was in that war as well. He was fighting to protect both his village, his friends, and the unborn children that will one day, he hoped, find a way to bring peace upon this world. That was his duty. He didn't want his future child to grow up in a warzone, or worse yet, without loving parents and friends.

Members of his family were scattered on the battlefield like him, but he mostly worried about his younger sister. She was...green. Too green. She was a medic ninja, and he often teased her because she never used the native technique to the Nara clan: the Shadow Jutsu. But in reality, Nara clan's legacy was the use of medic ninjutsu, especially medic herbs and remedies. His sister was very good at it, even so that her pills were favoured by the Akimichi clan, regardless of her not being the only one in the clan capable of doing them.

She wasn't fit for battlefields, yet somehow she was always among the first of medic ninja to be deployed to battle. She never complained and was too good at heart which made Shikaku fear she will eventually forget she was at war and only see people she should be helping, disregarding which side they were on.

As the war was nearing its end, Shikaku and his teammates, Chouza and Inoichi, went to the border of the Land of Wind in order to use their Kazekage as an additional watch over the, often treacherous, Iwa shinobi he was supposed to meet with. Unbeknownst to him, while he was out on this mission his sister was sent to the border of the Land of Earth, where her division got in contact with both Kirigakure and Iwagakure shinobi.

Shiori Nara wasn't a fighter; she was aware of that and she knew she stood no chance in this all-out battle between the three villages. She had to flee.

That's when her empathy became her downfall. She saw a Hyuuga member down on the ground, blood coming out of his closed right eye. She went towards him, her palms going green in order to treat the empty socket, when she was almost killed by that same Kiri member who had the audacity to steal a Byakugan.

What saved her was earth splitting in half upon the order of an Iwa shinobi. He saw her, she knew he did, but he ignored her, and concentrated on the Kiri member. Kiri shinobi managed to escape shortly after and she turned to see Iwa shinobi still standing there, and then realizing she was the only one left capable of fighting him in this area of the woods.

She only had to outrun him. Retreat and get to safety. But her eye noticed a red patch coming from the man's chest and instead of running away, she run towards him, her green hands showing him that she only wanted to heal him. Someone else would have had thought it's a carefully devised trick; no way a Konoha shinobi would go and heal an Iwa shinobi in the middle of war.

But the man saw in her eyes that she wasn't lying and he let himself fall on the ground, finally acknowledging the tremendous pain that was lying inside his chest.

When Shikaku Nara returned from his mission he got the dreadful news. His sister Shiori was killed on the battlefield after a battle broke out between Iwa, Kiri, and Konoha shinobi. He gripped the report with anger, calling himself a fool for not doing more in his power to get her away from the battlefield. He knew this would be the case, yet he ignored his hunch and instead left it all to fate.

Before the Hyuuga she stopped to save passed away, he managed to have a word with Shikaku, as Shikaku was curious to know who exactly killed her. Was it Kiri or Iwa? He had to know. And this man knew the answer.

"It had to be that Ishii guy. He was there as well, and his Earth Splitting Technique must be what got her. If her body was swallowed by earth, there would be no way to recover it."

Yes, her body was never recovered. Even the more reason for Shikaku to curse Iwa, and wish that he would one day fight the one who called himself Ishii of the Iwa.

Yet that day never came. War was over, peace treaties were signed, and he had no right to engage in any sort of revenge missions. After all, he was smarter than that. Regardless of that, hatred didn't vanish from his heart, but that hatred wasn't as concentrated on Iwa and Ishii as it was on his own decision to leave her out there on the battlefield. He was smarter than that, he was better than that, yet, it had to be the death of his dear sister to teach him a lesson. Faulty strategies in which every pawn is used to advance farther will only bring more death. Carefully weighing strengths and weaknesses of every shinobi is the only way a war should be fought if there's a wish for victory. He hoped he will pass that knowledge to his future child, after losing his sister to learn it himself.

Except, what Shikaku Nara didn't know, was that his sister's body was never recovered because she wasn't actually dead.

Shiori gave her all in order to save that Iwa shinobi. After all, he did save her from being killed. So while she ran around the forest, picking up herbs, Ishii of Iwa kept watching her, and the more he watched her the more he admired her, and the more he found himself abandoning hatred he held for Konoha.

They were both very young, and so naive, yet it is precisely that madness of the youth that joined these two shinobi and against all odds, all reason, all emotions this war was spreading, love grew in that forest. And as Shiori realized she will have to go back to her village and leave the one she loved, she instead chose to walk with him back to Iwa, her Konoha headband getting lost in the forest.

They were lucky that the war ended, and Hayato Ishii introduced everyone this girl he met in the village outside of Iwa, someone not a shinobi, as his wife. Wife, that would eventually bring his only daughter into this world, a joy to the both of them; Sayomi.

Three years passed since her birth, and the world was enjoying its peace. Shiori grew accustomed to her life in Iwa, but as Sayomi celebrated three years, she conveyed her wish to her husband - a wish to train her in Nara's legacy.

Hayato Ishii didn't refuse, but he said that before she would be able to do that, the Tsuchikage would grow suspicious of her teachings since she wasn't a shinobi. They would first need to explain to Tsuchikage why is a member of the Nara clan secretly in the village. That brought fear into Shiori, because she knew Tsuchikage as a weary and unforgiving man, so her husband suggested they should first talk with Konoha. And to Shiori's surprise, he suggested they visit Konoha and tell them, her brother especially, that she was alive and well.

She missed Shikaku the most, so she agreed. However, they were to travel alone and leave Sayomi in care for a little while.

The two lovebirds did successfully reach Konohagakure. Shiori was beyond excited and she kept imagining what kind of scolding will Shikaku give her after he finds out what she's done. It was all too amusing to her.

Except, their luck drained out. And before she would take her last breath, Shiori's only thought was immense joy that she had decided to leave her daughter back in Iwa.

Because you see, the night they arrived in Konoha was the night the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki rampaged through, summoned upon the village by a masked man calling himself Uchiha Madara.

Shikaku Nara never got his sister's message; that she was alive and well, that she gave birth to a girl named Sayomi, that he is an uncle now. And Sayomi never saw her parents coming back and never learned the full extent of her heritage and the madness that brought her parents together.

Yet what shaped Sayomi's life wasn't her parents dying by the hands of Kyuubi that night, or even the complicated ties of her existence, but rather her being moved to a flat next to another war orphan; a blond kid named Deidara.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to review. :)