The Light That Fades

-Mikoto, Minato. "You should have been Hokage, but you died." He tells her this everyday but she doesn't hear.- Maybe borderline romantic and a sadomaso blend.

A/N: I have no idea where the thoughts of Mikoto being more than she is in manga came from. But in series of these oneshots, the character model for her is similar in all of them. I have some weird theories about the Uchiha that are such messed up.

His hands are shaking and his face is contorted into something that resembles a pained cry but also shock. She once told him she was immortal, that he was beneath her. He remembers and he feels the punches the kicks cuts and bruises she gave him. Her eyes on his body as she held him in a hell only she could conjure up, he had to admit she would have made a fine Hokage.

Minato doesn't like the celebration they have on the anniversary of his inauguration. This is the third time and his eyes wonder over to Kushina's blank eyes as she soothes her growing belly with her small hands. The fireworks are loud and abundant, they are prideful and it reminds him of her smiles. They were rugged and sometimes blood crusted.

The black night is there and he feels those black eyes peering down at him from a star. Yes, he thinks, she watches me, because she knows I am a screw up. He concludes the thought with a firm tap on the railing and walks toward Kushina as she stares up at him, her concern is generic her hatred of him is silent, her hatred of everything is silent, and the love she once radiated is no longer alive. It too is artificial, like her happiness.

He relives these moments in shared agony; he knows Kushina's memories are worse. He remembers them being just children and Mikoto's hesitant stature with a foul chakra that Kushina pointed out and the girl broke down and cried on Minato and he vowed she could always do that.

He breathes in deeply as his mind is plaque with the other memories, the ones where she pins him down and delivers onto his mind her pain and he begs to see no more, he begs to be blind and he cries for her and she asks so quietly he almost doesn't hear. "Do you think it will go away, the pain I mean?" His hands are numb, she's shocked him so many times he can't move, he feels so heavy and yet empty.

Kushina stares back at him with those eyes that are to make him forget , her touch is so needy to him he falls into it and grabs onto her.

She feels his hot breath on her neck. His trembling hands touched her stomach. 'Guilt is a damnable thing.' She says to herself.

Minato thinks and dreams of what it would have been like, and in his mind it comes to him as such; he would have her gaze on him. Her searing chakra would blind him as it always did.

But now, as Kushina warns him of getting close to the Uchiha Mistress he bumps into her and sees that unfamiliar downcast of her coal eyes and the blush.

He wonders if this woman is attracted to him, but he knows she is. Many women are.

He smiles at her slightly and apologizes for disturbing her and leaves in a hurry.

He feels Mikoto's soft words in his ears, she is saying. "You are beautiful, use it to your advantage." She says this many times and he never understood. He thought she was beautiful, the woman whom is her now is as well, but not the same.

He sees wild hair in his night terrors, glowing red eyes and those sharp nails and teeth. Her lithe form that held so much power and love. A strange love, but it was love. It was a love for the darker things and a hatred of it all.

Its times like these when Minato thinks of how worthless the Leaf is. They planned the death of one of their most prominent shinobi. But that death turned into humiliation.

He wants to touch her face and see her eyes and hear that sultry voice that drives him mad with something that is not lust or love but the common need of companionship. He wishes she was here, but he wonders if she isn't here then where is she?

Mikoto chuckles lightly as she sees his eyes widen as he turns to face her shadowy figure. The black robes she wears are tight to her skin and the pale face and wild mane, and those eyes blaze with burning pride. It is a new moon and bitterly cold, Minato is thirty-three years old. But the woman in front of him is just seventeen.

"My how low the mighty have fallen." She says and he feels her nails digging into his skin.

He wonders aloud. "Have you always been a sadist?" He does began to think himself crazy.

She pauses and smiles brightly, innocently. "Yes, and have you always been a doll to be molded? Konoha will show you many things as it did me and my Great-Grandfather before me. This place is ugly and corrupt. You all just don't know it yet. I'll see you in hell, Minato-sama."

He closes his eyes and he feels her go away into her hiding place but he feels her eyes on him.

"Damn Uchiha."

Kushina feels a tear fall down her face. She feels like she's drowning. Why is it when she looks at her hands she sees blood, but she never knows if it was hers or someone else's, as far as she has seen Mikoto doesn't bleed and she will never die. Kushina knows this.