Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, Naruto, or any of the characters in either series.

Warnings: Spoilers up through Chapter 605 of Naruto and "The Angels Take Manhattan" episode of Doctor Who.

Paper and Stone

Amegakure is full of statues. Pain and Konan have inspired the loyalty of an entire city, and its devotion expresses itself in various works of art. There are murals of Pain and Konan, and woodblock prints, and the statues.

Although Pain is technically Konan's superior, she has been memorialized in stone by the citizens of Ame more often than he has. Partly this is because none of the people who've seen Pain can agree on what he looks like, and partly because the diverse roles of an angel lend themselves more easily to the imagination. There are statues of Konan smiling beatifically, statues of her gazing lovingly at Pain, statues of her locked in combat with an enemy, statues of her standing with arms outspread and a stern expression on her face as if delivering one of Pain's dictates.

There's one stone image of Konan that's different from all the others. It depicts her with her face buried in her hands, her paper wings drooping. It's the only statue in which she seems vulnerable and uncertain.

Aside from its subject matter, this statue is unusual in that its location is a matter of dispute. Even high-level ninja with the observational skills to match their rank often find that they've misremembered its placement.

The Village Hidden in the Rain has been at war for as long as most of its inhabitants can remember. For decades, they were caught in the middle of the larger nations' wars, and then the tensions between Hanzou and Pain's factions erupted into civil war. Some people joked, with the black humor typical of ninja, that you knew your village had grown up when it had its very own war, rather than just being a staging ground for the conflicts of others.

With such a history, it goes without saying that violent death isn't uncommon in Amegakure. And due to both the exceptionally destructive nature of some jutsu and the peculiar construction of the village, not every body is found. Over the years, there have been a number of people who simply disappeared without a trace. In most cases, these are people whose corpses were completely disintegrated by the techniques that killed them, or whose bodies fell into the deep waters under the village, where they quickly became food for various aquatic creatures.

This is not to say that all disappearances are so easily explainable. But in such an atmosphere, who's going to notice?

In the wake of Konan's death, the citizens of the Rain Village lit candles at the feet of the various statues throughout the city. They draped the statues with flowers, and hung prayer talismans from their outstretched arms.

Only the statue of Konan weeping remained bare.

Wandering past a bridge that spanned one of Amegakure's many canals, a statue caught Kakashi's eye. Its face was hidden in its hands, but the cloud pattern on its cloak and the flower in its hair made its identity clear. Kakashi was mildly surprised that it wasn't paired with a statue of Pain. The symmetry of having one statue on each side of the bridge would have made it more aesthetically pleasing, in his opinion. Not that he was in the business of being an art critic, but such observations took his mind off of recent events.

Naruto, in his capacity as the new Hokage, had offered Kakashi as much time off from active duty as he wanted. Discovering that his best friend was the one behind all of Akatsuki's machinations, and having to fight Obito to the death, had taken a toll on the Special Jounin. But Kakashi had insisted on accompanying Naruto on his diplomatic mission to Amegakure, and after a brief protest, Naruto had allowed it.

"Those who don't protect their friends are worse than trash!" Obito might have abandoned that belief, but Kakashi hadn't. Sometime over the past few months, Naruto had ceased to be just Kakashi's student. The boy had proved that he was as accomplished a shinobi, and as able a leader, as any adult, and Kakashi was proud to consider him a friend. He wasn't about to sit at home wallowing in self-pity while his friend was working so hard to repair the ninja world.

A change in the air currents roused Kakashi from his musings, and he whirled around, his hand in his kunai pouch.

There were no visible enemies, but the statue was a few feet closer to Kakashi than it had been before.

Not taking his eyes off it, Kakashi raised his hitai-ate, scrutinizing the statue with his Sharingan. It was saturated with a strange, flickering chakra.

He recalled an old, dusty scroll stored in the back corner of ANBU's secret archive facility. It had spoken of mysterious creatures that took the form of statues and fed on the same energy that was released in the use of space-time ninjutsu. Even more enigmatically, the scroll had claimed that these beings fed by casting a particular space-time ninjutsu on their victims that sent the targets back in time, and that they could act only when they were completely unobserved. There were notes attached to the scroll speculating that one or another of the Hidden Villages had created the beings as weapons in a bygone war. The more intriguing notes, though, were those pointing out legends of such "Weeping Angels" that dated back to before the time of the Sage of Six Paths. Some of the researchers who'd examined what little data there was speculated that the Angels had existed since the earliest days of humanity, if not longer. Nearly all of the data came from the Hyuuga, whose 359-degree vision allowed them to observe the Angels with relative safety.

The blank surfaces of the statue's hands seemed to convey despair better than any facial expression could. Is that how you felt when you saw Yahiko die? Kakashi wondered.

What Kakashi was considering would be terribly dangerous. There was no guarantee that he'd be sent back an appropriate amount of time. Too far, and he'd be too old by the time of the mission to Kannabi Bridge to be any help. Not far enough, and Rin's death would already have happened. And of course, it would be imperative that he keep his presence secret from his younger self. Even Naruto, who was never a great one for caution, would tell him it was foolish.

Kakashi reached out, his fingers hovering just in front of the statue's hands. The Angel had replicated every detail of Konan's appearance, even the Akatsuki ring on her finger. What risks would you have deemed acceptable to save Yahiko? What kind of gamble would you have been willing to make?

He thought of Obito's stubborn determination, his silly excuses for being late, the pride he took in his heritage despite being (or so Kakashi had thought) one of the weaker members of his clan.

He thought of Rin's gentleness, her quiet support.

He thought of the vibrant purple markings on her cheeks, her amber eyes, the way her smile seemed to transform her whole face.

He remembered waking up with rain sprinkling down on him, and then realizing that it was blood, not rain. He remembered the crushed, mutilated bodies of the Mist-nin who'd ambushed them. Most of all, he remembered Rin's chalk-white face and the way her amber eyes had turned a dull brown.

(To save you, I could do anything.)

Kakashi pushed his hitai-ate back down, covering his Sharingan eye. Then, slowly and deliberately, he closed the other one.