Many years ago.

BWOOOM!

The world lit up for the citizens of Iwa who were awake and the escapees themselves, the continent of Earth Country shaking slightly as the bomb went off. Waves upon waves of howling winds lashed around, rushing down every silent street, kicking up anything and everything that wasn't secured down to the ground away into the night skies. Clothes of all kinds scattered away from the blast zone, some of them scorched and burnt. The fulmination sent chunks of debris sky-high, smoke going up into the dark sky as an indication of the blast site. Illuminating the night were the flames that engulfed most of the empty city block, every single one of which were desolate due to one of the two inhabitants that lived in a small house, the Jinchuuriki of the Yonbi, fearing that they would die first were the Yonbi to break free from its host.

Two shadows danced along the ground, one tall and the other short, belonging to a teen and a child respectively. The taller one shielded the smaller one from the falling debris, ignoring the shrapnel that hit the back of his skull and neck, choosing to take the pain in order to protect his little brother. Scampering down an alley, Naruto grunted as a rather sharp piece of ceramic, from a roof tile he guessed, came down and slashed the side of his forehead. He uncaringly wiped the blood away, turning to his brother.

"We're going into Plan B!" Naruto yelled as they scrambled down to the western side of Iwa. The slums of the city would provide them a perfect cover. It was unkempt and dirty like Naruto's hair, and equally long as Deidara's high ponytail. Wading through sewage would be the least of their problems if the Tsuchikage caught his wayward apprentice and the Jinchuuriki of the Gobi deserting the village.

"And what's that?!" His little brother screamed to him, ears ringing from the deafening explosion. Naruto quickly ducked, pulling Deidara down into cover as a squad of Iwa shinobi passed by to check the explosion. Leaning back against the wall, Deidara watched as Naruto un-slung his bag from his shoulder, placing it on the tiny rocks that littered the dirt grounds of Iwa.

"Un! Let's see here..." Naruto trailed off as he reached into his backpack's front pocket, pulling out and opening up his notebook to find the page he had written his plans down upon. On the second page, there were two words he didn't recall writing. Simply and hastily written, the elder brother read aloud the plan's instructions.

"Hn. 'Plan B: Don't die'." before frowning. Well, that wasn't helpful at all! Curse himself for not giving himself more specific instructions. He flipped to another page before grimacing as he reread his plans out loud. "Let's hope we don't get to 'Plan C: Ensure that your (my) testament makes it to next of kin', hm."

"Bu-But I'm your next of kin!" Deidara sputtered and turned to his taller and equally blonde brother, grabbing his big brother's purple Iwa armour, his slanted blue eyes wide as they frantically took down each and every feature of the face he might not see ever again. "Y-you can't die, Naruto-nii! You have to come with me!"

"Oi, oi! Calm down Dei-chan, you'll get us caught! Un!" Naruto whispered harshly, the little boy flinching at his tone. Seeing Deidara's obvious distress, Naruto sighed and wiped his face clear of any sign of panic, hoping that it would calm him down.

"Look Dei-chan," He smiled at the hyperventilating child who looked him in the eyes. Cupping his cheeks caringly, Naruto pressed his forehead against his little brother's, forcing both their eyes to close, eyelashes tickling each other's eyelids.

"If anything happens to you, I don't think I could forgive myself, un. I know I can't coddle you forever, but just let me do my job as your big brother, your Naruto-nii, will ya? I still want to take care of my little bro, Un! Besides, I'll come back to you in the end, whether it be today, tomorrow or in the far, far future. Hm! And that's a promise."

Placing a giant kiss on the younger boy's head, he detached himself with a loud pop, placing all of his love and care in one sweet action.

Deidara sniffled, wiping the tears that ran down his cheeks. He didn't want his Naruto-nii to go away. The older boy was everything to Deidara, a role model as well as an emotional pillar keeping him from going completely insane in a village that gave him the stink eye everywhere he went. Ever since he was old enough to understand that their parents had given them away seeing as how the village had chosen their children to be the Yonbi and Gobi's new host, Deidara had immediately began to rage inside. A pustulous wound, untreated as it festered in the dark recesses of his mind, hatred at how people that were supposed to take care of them, that gave birth -life!- to him and his Nii-chan abandoned them! Left them for dead! It was just incomprehensible to the boy. Fortunately for Naruto, the Gobi was sealed into another person, a huge and silent man by the name of Han, but unfortunately the Yonbi was still sealed into his baby brother. So little Deidara had the right to fear his older brother leaving him, thinking that he was a monster should he lose control of the Yonbi.

And then he began to fear that his Nii-chan would disappear too, gone like his no good parents. What if he didn't want him anymore? What if he died if Deidara lost control of the Yonbi? He would lose the only person that ever loved him in the entire world! Such thoughts had made Deidara want to get closer to his big brother and the boy might have developed a big brother complex from doing so as well. To be fair, Naruto was quite the looker with his perfectly tanned skin, shaggy blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. Even now, golden hair covered in soot, bleeding from the corner of his head and dirty as all hell, he still looked handsome in Deidara's eyes.

When he was forced to live alone, Naruto had willingly came and stayed with him despite the Tsuchikage's feelings about the situation.

But all of this, all that they were currently doing, made Deidara know that his brother had absolutely no intention of leaving him behind.

"Believe in your big bro okay? We can make it out of this just fine. You hear me?" Deidara nodded, his ponytail bobbing along with the action. "Good." He licked his dry lips nervously. He could sense hundreds of shinobi marching in from the other parts of Iwa to check in on the now ruined district. They were running out of time soon and would need another distraction.

"Now, I've scouted the area up ahead for months now, and I've found an exit that you can access, un." He swallowed thickly, "You understand, yeah?"

"Yeah… Yeah." Deidara nodded, sniffling.

"Good, now follow my instructions okay?" The ponytailed blonde nodded again, "Go straight down this alley," Naruto pointed to his left, "And then take a right, you'll meet a brick wall with metal bars leading to the sewer. Don't worry, you can pull the bars out easily and then just go down the hole and into the sewer-!" A clank rang down the alleyway. Naruto's head snapped left and for a second, Deidara thought that they had been caught. No, a rat simply scampered away into the darkness, knocking over a can in the process. "We don't have much time. Just go straight and take your first left, then your next right and then your right again, you should find a tunnel that'll take you directly outside of Iwa."

"Okay…" Deidara closed his eyes for a second, recalling his brother's instructions. 'Right. Straight. Left. Right. Right. Exit.' The boy recited in his head, "Okay… Wh-What about you, Nii-chan?"

Naruto smiled passionately at his little look alike, "I'll catch you on the other side." Then his kindly eyes turned… mad, if Deidara would describe it. Pulling the black gloves off of his hands, Naruto tossed them over his shoulder and then grinned as he stared at his palms.

"But first, I've got a few toys to leave behind for our guests..."

Ōnoki, the Sandaime Tsuchikage, went up to the Jonin Commander of Iwa, Hajime Hyotaru, a frown on his face. The lanky man with a short beard looked rather scared of the Tsuchikage, with good reason too!

He had been forcefully awoken, a huge blast wiping out part of his village, even worse, the blast came from the direction of the Yonbi container. He could not afford losing one of his valuable weapons now; it would severely cripple his village and the threats he could give out, having only a single Jinchuuriki to back his words up.

"Tell me something I want to hear, Commander." Ōnoki frowned, staring up at the taller man's eyes. The man looked unsure for a second before reporting what they had apparently found.

"Tsuchikage-sama, we just received the report from the investigation team, which showed that the gas line to your apprentice and the Yonbi Jinchuuriki's house was ruptured, and apparently the source of the explosion came from the kitchen. We can only assume that they were trying to cook something for a supper when one of them turned on the fire… And, ah, well, exploded."

Ōnoki withheld a sigh. It was quite common for those who held the Explosion Release to go out with a bang, but usually it was caused by their own powers, through suicide or accidentally blowing themselves up, not through freak accidents! He swore to the divine lord, if one of the villagers had cut the damn line just to kill the 'demon' that lived in the house, there was going to be hell to pay.

Why, oh why did he allow that damn brat to live with his Jinchuuriki brother. Oh, yes, he remembered. It was because Naruto was exceptionally talented Shinobi, and was also his apprentice. The boy had threatened him, him! Of all people, that if he didn't allow him to stay with Deidara in isolation, he would quit being a Shinobi. Not wanting to lose such a gem, he allowed Deidara to live in the confines of Iwa in the poorer districts, where many left to find a new place to stay at after seeing the Jinchuuriki of the Yonbi being sent to their area. Naruto had gladly gone down to Deidara's residence and began living with his younger brother there and then, not caring in the least about Ōnoki's protests. He had also taken a multitude of books, a small library's equivalent, along with him, saying that he wanted to improve while staying with his baby brother.

The wizened old man rubbed his wrinkled temples. "Have you found any bodies so far? Are you sure that the gas line was the cause of the explosion?" If there was one thing Ōnoki was certain about, it was that his apprentice was very tricky. A naturally born sly, cunning and mischievous fox, if you would.

"Not yet Tsuchikage-sama. But seeing as how Naruto-san was an Explosion release user, it is very likely that the initial explosion caused a second larger one. To put it simply, if he were to be caught in a deadly explosion, such a trigger that causes his body to detonate near instantly, causing his death… would be, to say the least, very explosive due to his Kekkei Genkai, ergo, the large explosion. But we are still searching as the discharge was very large and might have scattered their bones and other body parts very far away."

The Tsuchikage grunted unhappily, "Then keep searching, there might be a sliver of a chance, no matter how small it is, that they might still be alive. If the Jinchuuriki is still alive, we cannot afford to lose the Yonbi upon the boy's death."

"Hai, Tsuchikage-sama." Hyotaru quickly left to give word from the Tsuchikage to the shinobi to search for the Jinchuuriki through the endless piles of rock and rubble. The old man turned his back to whatever remained of the western district, sighing heavily.

"I'm getting too old for this shi-"

Rounding the corner, a large, white and unnatural cockroach with black dots for eyes skittered quickly, ducking behind the intact houses at the edge of the west wing of Iwa. Even further away, two fingers stood straight up, forming the seal of half a ram. Naruto's grin stretched to that of one belonging to the face of a psychopath. And then he yelled out, his words never reaching the ears of the Tsuchikage as the boom that soon followed his words completely overwhelmed his voice.

"Katsu!"

'!'

BOOM! Another explosion occurred, shaking the ground for a second. The old man stumbled, caught off guard from the sudden bang. A row of buildings went down, the heavy material crushing several Shinobi.

"What the hell was that?!"

"Wha-! Another explosion?!"

"Gah!"

Another strange cockroach found itself lodged beneath the piles of rubble from the original bombsite, beneath a recently promoted group of Iwa Jonins.

Then the safe word came, activating the creature's 'on' button.

"Katsu!"

Suddenly the cockroach engorged, the centre of the white bug growing to massive proportions while it's tiny legs stayed the same size, wriggling furiously as it bloated up to the size of a balloon.

Glowing brightly, it ignited.

BOOOM! And then another. Ōnoki turned back, watching as some of his men get buried beneath rubble. Some that had stood upon the original rubble piles were blown apart as the floor beneath them exploded, blocks of rocks ripping through their bodies as if they were made of wet tissue paper.

"ARGH!"

Bricks the size of a grown man's fist came raining down upon most of his men. Many had their heads and limbs crushed as the wreckage slammed down upon them.

BOOM!

"AAAIEEE! MY LEGS! I CAN'T FEEL MY LEGS!" One could infer from his obvious screams that one of them just lost both of his legs as the bomb detonated.

The old man fumed, just what in god's name was going on now?!

"Tsuchikage-sama! The gas lines to the abandoned houses!" Oh god, he already knew what he was going to say without his commander even having to finish it. "They've all been cut! An-And the fires must have spread to the-"

BOOOM! Good god! Was he the only one that wasn't remotely senile here?! Even at his age?!

The Tsuchikage pulled his commander down to eye level and unloaded a yell into the man's flinching face, shouting with his 'war-voice', "THEN PUT OUT THE FIRES, YOU DAMN NITWIT! GET MOVING!"

"Ha-Hai, Tsu-Tsuchikage-sama!" The man squeaked, rushing off to instruct his men. Or what was left of his men. Half of the forces that came were either injured or dead, with the other half fumbling around in surprise, trying to put out fires and save their friends. The wrinkled skin on Ōnoki's fist tightened to the point it looked youthful again. A civilian was going to die at tomorrow morning's council meeting, and god wouldn't be able to spare them from this old man's wrath.

Naruto coughed violently, heaving as he ran. He didn't see the trashcan around the corner and slammed into it, buckling as he lost control of his legs as the blonde fell flat onto his front, his cheek slamming into the dirt ground hard. His little creations, all of which he had detonated remotely had gone off perfectly. Smiling tiredly, the teen pushed himself onto his back with his shoulder, groaning as his body took effect of chakra exhaustion. Months of practicing with the Kinjutsu he had stolen proved to be a wise decision. When Ōnoki had questioned him about his fingerless gloves, Naruto had told him it was a fashion statement, and the old man had dropped it immediately, not suspecting in the least that he had stolen Iwa's Explosion Corp Kinjutsu.

"Fuck… So close, rrgh!" Naruto growled and then coughed heavily, lurching forwards as he nearly spat his lungs out, "I don't think I can get out of here… Dei-chan…" Tears began to fall from his eyes, his lips quivering furiously as he tried not to cry. He didn't want to leave his little brother to the wolves, to let him think that Naruto had abandoned him. Fuck! He'd rather die for Deidara than have him think that his big brother abandoned him. He struggled to even move, his arms and legs being stubbornly uncooperative.

He was there! Right there! In the alley he had sent Deidara off before he ran around, sending his little cockroaches to do his dirty work. He was so close to Deidara, yet so far.

No. He couldn't die now! Not when he had Deidara to worry about! His head did its best to be lifted by his neck. Alas, his muscles refused to work with him, each movement causing nothing but pain as he strained to move. Incapable of holding it up any further, Naruto dropped his head back to the ground, eyes hazed as the darkness began to approach.

What a way to end his life, trapped in a desolate corner of Iwa, lying in garbage and being unable to move at all. He guessed that either Iwa Shinobi would get him first with the Kinjutsu he stole literally in his hands, or else the rats would first. He didn't know which one would suck more. Being tortured to give up information about where his brother was, information he would never give up, or being eaten alive by rats.

"I'm so fucking sorry, Dei-chan… Hope you can forgive your… Nii-chan, un." He gasped, suddenly finding it difficult to breath. "Thank god I gave him my books… that little trap… needs to read more…" Then his blue eyes closed.

As he fell into a state of unconsciousness, he didn't hear the sound of little feet rushing towards him, or feel the tiny arms scooping his arms up from underneath his armpits, dragging him down the alleyway.

Deidara's eyes were full of tears as he pulled his big brother away from Iwa, one small step at a time. He wouldn't let his big bro die here and now, and certainly not protecting him! He wanted to show Naruto that he could protect himself too! To be strong like him! Naruto couldn't leave now! The boy had foolishly decided to stay and wait for his big brother to return before he would run, not wanting to take the chance that Naruto wouldn't make it back. When he had heard the thump and heavy wheezing and gasping, he had frozen up before taking small quiet steps to the mouth of the alley. Then when he saw a familiar mop of blonde hair, the boy came charging, wanting to check on his big brother.

"Nii-chan never gave up on me, so I'll never give up on Nii-chan!" The boy muttered to himself through grit teeth. Boy, for how lean Naruto-nii was, he sure was heavy!

And so, with each small tug to the larger body, Deidara eventually brought Naruto to the exit out of Iwa. The blonde boy smiled as the sun began to take its place in the sky, watching as his older brother's chest went up and down. They had escaped Iwa and were fine for now.

But the future had other plans in store, involving the unfortunate breakup of the two siblings, sending one to live in the Village Hidden in the Leaves while the other was sent to protect him amongst a group of dangerous and very powerful criminals with ill intent, almost all of whom were gorgeous, exotic and beautiful women.

Some might say that he was lucky, he on the other hand?

Not so much. Well, that was until he managed to 'blow' them out of the water and steal their hearts.

Chapter end.

Hey all, a new update on this story.

Pretty strange that this only got 300 views (as of this posting), I'm wondering if something went wrong or if people just don't like the idea of a Explosion Release Deidara-esque Naruto.

But those who reviewed (thank you very much!) were lovely enough to direct me to go to B, which was the better choice now that I thought about it.

If you're going to get mad at how short this chapter was or if it was entirely in italics, I'll stop you right there.

I spent the whole morning and afternoon trying to come up with the next chapter, but could only manage 600+ words at most. But when I began to write the past for Naruto and Deidara's escape, it just flowed naturally. So sorry, I wrote 3372 words in less than 3 hours rather than 600+ at a higher 5.

Whole chapter is in italics because Verdana (the font I read fanfiction and write in in Microsoft Word) Italics looks fucking nice to my eyes as well as the fact that this entire thing is in the past. Mostly because Verdana italics is nice though.

Reviews are appreciated and well, everyone pretty much wanted to see !femAkatsuki, so I'll be trying my best to fit most of the gals into the harem without fucking up the storyline completely. Not sure how I'm going to do it with Pein, since he's (she's) the boss for Akatsuki, or Zetsu, but I'll try my best.

I already have a fluffy little tsundere scene for Kakuzu and Naruto in my head.

Note that fem Hidan won't be as shy as she will be in my other fic, TToK, and will definitely be more flirty.

ALSO BRO-CON DEIDARA, BUT THERE ISN'T YAOI. JUST A LOT OF BROTHERLY LOVE. I'M A LIL-BRO-CON, SUE ME. THAT SHIT'S KAWAII AS FUCK.

THANKS, DON'T FORGET TO FAVOURITE AND FOLLOW ON THE WAY OUT. LEAVE A REVIEW WHILE YOU'RE AT IT TOO!

- LOTS OF LOVE, URETHANE.