After the conclusion of Encounter, I received a request from duhorcommonsense for some Nano/Akira action; which I enthusiastically accepted, considering the painful deficiency of this pairing 'round these parts. Select quotations are accredited to Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace. 1869.

Also, when I was researching and reviewing Nano's route, I stumbled across this gloriously hysterical tidbit on the Nitro-Chiral Paths Tumblr page.

/post/71139442266/togainu-no-chi-english-patch-walkthrough-nano

Anyway, enjoy chapter one of three! Meadie out.

Hindrance

-Chapter One: Initial Hindrance-

Though I had been able to easily disarm and disable all seven members of the gang that had come after me, cooing and taunting me ceaselessly as if I was some cat that would come if they called, I was still worn out. Conveniently, my endurance held out until the last one hit the ground, but if any others came sauntering around the corner and into this alley, I would probably be fucked, the last of my strength failing as soon as I took a combative stance. I attempted to brush my grey fringe away from my face, but a slight sheen of sweat held my bangs against my damp forehead persistently, and I eventually decided that I didn't care, even though the sensation of the flyaway strands against my skin was subtly irritating. The most important matter was for me to locate Keisuke and find a way out of this miserable place, but now I had not the energy to continue and needed to rest. If I was too worn when I found him and he was in need of help, there would be no way for me to rescue him, and my self-imposed mission would have been unsuccessful; I would have failed Keisuke, I would have allowed him to be stolen away from me without ever knowing the truth about our fracturing relationship and what he truly meant to me. He would die in ignorance, resenting me until the life fled his body. That could not be permitted to happen, and so I needed to recover my strength.

Toshima was viciously tough on the body and the mind; and the exhaustion of one compounded the strain on the other. Since I'd been tossed into Igura to fulfill my mission and clear my wrongly-soiled name, my body had been growing weary more quickly during fights, and even when I was not fighting at all. While I was un-phased by surprise assaults due to my association with Bl ster, I was not permitted to operate in my typical indifferent way here in Toshima if I desired to survive. Here, people were permitted to kill you during an attack, and a large number of them reveled in the thrill of having permission to steal away a life so flippantly. That knowledge felt weighty as it sat brooding in the back of my mind, and its presence was sapping away my physical strength as well as the functionality of my thoughts. The pressure of this grim insight on my consciousness caused my body to grow increasingly lethargic, but then this weakness would result in more frantic acknowledgement of that singular haunting truth, and even further consideration of the idea drained my physical strength yet again. Survival in Toshima was difficult enough, and the ouroboros of one's existence here would forever remain looped upon itself; a vile cycle of fear, exhaustion, and doubt that revolved with unsettling permanence.

I was consumed entirely with the desire to find a place where I could rest in relative safety as I stumbled slightly from the alleyway and into the street, the compulsion to sleep increased dramatically when raindrops began to fall from the sky, which seemed to be irreversibly dyed with a sickly green-grey hue. Easy breezes lurched smoothly between the crumbling buildings that lined the Toshima streets, and if I allowed myself to close my eyes, I could nearly imagine myself somewhere else, maybe somewhere tinted in a healthy, natural green. And if I strained the illusion a bit more, maybe I could convince my mind that the eerie echo of the wind as it squeezed between confining structures was rather the rustle of leaves as the wind kissed each one gently, sweeping listlessly through trees. While it would be pleasant to revel in such fantasies, I had no time or energy to spare on such thoughts, regardless of how tempting they might be. Though the sky was always vaguely dusky in Toshima, I could tell that the blackness of night was beginning to stain the dreary world with an even more potent form of darkness, suffocating the day like a candle deprived of oxygen. Remaining here, exhausted and in plain view, was akin to writing my own obituary, and so I urged my reluctant muscles to obey and temporarily retreat to safety.

Several blocks to the east, I slipped into a large, stately building as the rain began to grow more aggressive and persistent, and found myself in the foyer of a library. The place was massive and extremely quiet, but the silence did not feel unnerving or oppressive as it should; rather, the silence was pleasant and dignified, as if the knowledge encased in the thousands of dusty tomes that resided here was seeping into the atmosphere, graciously offering me the wisdom of the world. I walked among the imposing stacks of precisely ordered books, trailing my fingers over spines that desperately wished to creak open and spill out the secrets that were tattooed on the yellowing pages. Each volume was distinctly different; the colors, bindings, fonts, providing an assault on the senses. Some spoke of topics that I had never known, and others professed wondrous musings in languages that I could not read; but that was of little importance, as the rhythmic arrangements of phrases on carefully lineated pages were remarkably soothing in their redundancy.

Stopping abruptly, my gaze fell upon an exceptionally thick volume, the stiff cover bound in a deep purple canvas and emblazoned with the title War and Peace in gold lettering. Pulling the book free from its confines, I turned in my hands several times before settling into a richly colored leather chair and clicking the switch of the lamp on the small side table adjacent to my seat until its bulb flickered to life. Satisfied, I reassessed the book with mild interest, watching the gold lettering on the cover dance in a fickle tango of shadow and light as I tilted it in my hands, the texture of the binding pleasant beneath my fingertips. Those words, war and peace, were all too familiar to me, and instantly summoned thoughts of discord and fear, of crippling uncertainty and solitude; the concepts represented by these words were destined to remain contradictory for eternity. Yet as they were here, stamped elegantly onto the cover of such a stately volume, those words seemed as if they were destined to be placed so closely to each other.

"'We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.'"

A low, monotone voice broke the silence of the space, startling me and causing my hand to fly to the handle of the dagger strapped to my lower back, the tips of my fingers lightly touching the worn grip in anticipation. The darkness between two bookcases begin to shift and stir, growing ominously as the limited illumination from the lamp caused every shadow in the room to stretch into grotesque and unidentifiable shapes, like eerie beasts of the night. After a few moments, the source of the words appeared soundlessly, stepping nearer with measured strides and suspiciously absent footfalls before halting, mere meters of space buffering our proximity. He was tall and remarkably thin, with skin so hauntingly pale and free of blemishes that he could have easily been crafted from porcelain; and he seemed equally as frail. Gazing at me with unsettling pale eyes that seemed to shift indecisively from blue to violet, his stare and expression were both oddly vacant, as if he was looking through me rather than at me. Light hair framed his disconcertingly handsome face, accenting the angular and vaguely feminine features that were cast in violent contrast by the reading lamp's feeble effort to provide illumination.

"Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace," he stated flatly, slightly lowering his vacant gaze to the volume that was sitting in my lap, the pages falling haphazardly open to a random stretch of narrative which would have been entirely irrelevant if read out of context. The man's deep voice would have been exceptionally alluring if stripped free of its slightly clinical tone; but when it was accompanied by his appearance and smothering, expressionless eyes, his voice became equally as unnerving. The overwhelming sensation of his presence in the limited space was painfully suffocating, and struck me with a slight muddled dizziness, much like the high received when painting a room with the windows shut.

He began to approach me again and I felt as if I wanted to stumble away desperately, fearing being crushed by his devastating severity; if the aura that surrounded him suddenly decided to manifest and take physical form, it would easily fall upon me with the weight of a mountain.

"Who are you?" I spat, attempting to conceal my uneasiness with feigned aggression. "Where did you come from?"

Judging by the way in which his expression remained so intensely stoic as he continued to casually walk toward the place where I was seated, I could almost argue that he had not heard me; yet for some reason, I was convinced that he had, but chose instead to ignore my inquisition, causing my glare to intensify fiercely. When he was scarcely a step away, he raised his hand and moved to place his finger tips on the skin of my cheek, causing me to recoil dramatically and reach to swat his digits away from my face. But before I could repel him, the sensation of frigid fingers against my flesh made my entire body tense as if being electrocuted, and instead I lightly placed my own touch cautiously on the back of his slightly emaciated hand and pressed his palm against my own cheek. This man's touch was intoxicating while simultaneously dreadfully overwhelming, as if I could feel surges of raging emotion transferring from his being into mine through each point of contact between our skins. I was suffering painfully from the unrest in my mind, concordantly desiring to surrender to the sensation of his hand on my cheek and to whither at the mental overstimulation. We sighed softly in unison, as if we both had been waiting patiently for my response to his touch.

"What's your name?" I asked breathlessly, damning myself for the lewdness of my tone.

He studied me vacantly for a few moments, and despite the cold, clinical expression that he wore, my body seemed to squirm and heat dramatically as I remained locked beneath his scrutiny. His eyes momentarily adopted the violet tint which I had noticed before, but the eerie shift vanished as quickly as it appeared, the irises returning to a pale, steely blue that very easily mirrored my own. After seconds that felt like hours, he replied in his deep monotone. "I'm called Nano."

"Nano?"

"Yes."

"I'm Akira, Nano," I informed, furrowing my brows deeply when his hand slipped from my face, falling limply to his side. After considering his actions for a moment, I came to the conclusion that this man was exceptionally odd in all aspects, and determined that his withdrawal was in no way a rejection or insult. "Do you like books?" Nano barely hummed in acknowledgement of my question, his blank stare persistently assessing my demeanor, or so I believed; his eyes were so vacant that it was a distinct possibility that he wasn't looking at me at all. He made me uneasy and his behavior was strange; but this entire situation seemed hauntingly familiar, and that minute sense of familiarity that we shared erased whatever creeping fear and doubt had begun to knot in my stomach. Whatever mal-intent he had was easily smothered out by the sheer celestial intensity of his presence, and he appeared so angelic in his otherworldly elegance that it seemed natural that he be exalted. Yet there was a dim sensation nagging at my cognizance which was seeking to warn me of some sort of unintentional deception, suggesting that Nano's god-like appearance was merely a side effect of some misfortune. I mused that his heavenly countenance deceived others through no intentional action on his part, and served to distract them from an unsettling truth that resonated just below the surface, regardless of whether he cared to conceal it or not.

He leaned down wordlessly and grasped the open book from my lap, but I tensed violently and clutched his wrist when the heavy volume grazed the pooling arousal in my groin through the rough cloth of my jeans. My grip on him was severe as I attempted to compose myself, but he made no movement or reply, merely sitting in frozen silence with the same unsettling stoicism on his face. At such a close distance, the look of emptiness in his eyes was even more prominent, and it gave me the sensation of being stranded when I realized that the only thing visible in his gaze was my own warped reflection. They were devoid of emotion, perhaps even devoid of humanity, as if he was a living doll, a mere vacant body that remarkably continued to move without the guidance of its long-departed soul. His eyes made me feel like I was drowning, and he was watching with indifference at the side of the lake while I struggled for air and fought for survival.

But still, the pleasantly crushing power of his touch drew me in further, making me crave the contact more deeply, more intimately, than the tender grazes and tremulous caresses that we'd exchanged thus far. Maintaining my hold on his hand, I carefully tugged the purple tome from between his slender fingers, his empty eyes following my movements as I shut the book and placed it gently on the side table out of his reach. Returning my attention to the enigma of a man before me, I attempted to reason with my mind, developing some compelling argument as to why I should stand up and leave the library immediately, but my desire was becoming a bit too persistent to counter with common sense. This was right. I was supposed to be doing this. Yet I hadn't come to any conclusion regarding why I should be doing it.

"Everything is predestined."

As if he could read my mind, Nano interrupted my conflicting thoughts, seemingly confirming the impulses harbored within my instincts and subconscious, the urges that I had been attempting to smother violently with reason. Finally succumbing to desire, I took his icy hand in mine, cupping them lightly over the rising tautness that was pulling painfully across the front of my jeans. When Nano stroked me of his own accord, I shuddered aggressively, making no attempt to conceal my pitiful groan as I eagerly bucked my hips against his palm, which was still firmly pinned between my arousal and my hand. My reservation was beginning to wilt noticeably, but I disregarded it entirely, deciding that it was an ugly, weak flower that would crumble and die soon enough; though its demise may have been expedited by the eagerness of the ghostly man who was now ridding us both of our clothes.

He was wild and desperate in his erotic assault, lips and teeth roughly claiming my shoulders and neck, leaving each patch of my tasted skin bloodied or bruised in some way before seeking out yet another unmarred swatch of flesh to brand. When my back ended up colliding violently with a large, solid bookshelf, I began to panic, writhing at every touch as I struggled against him in what was an entirely useless attempt at resistance. I had encouraged him to take me initially, but his aggressiveness was making me uneasy, and the strength that his frail body concealed was so immense that he could prevent me from moving a muscle if he so desired.

Nano entered me roughly and without preparation, causing me to cry out as painful sobs wracked my frame, any remaining hope for resistance washing away with my tears and failing strength. Small splinters snuck beneath my nails as my fingers curled tightly against one of the shelves above my head, a weak attempt to support myself and avoid the residual searing heat that resonated following each icy touch. Though my body was aching, I didn't think that Nano was attempting to be so aggressive as to cause me hurt or embarrassment, it seemed more likely that he was so desperate to maintain this contact with between our bodies that he wasn't sure how else to preserve the sensation. The pulsing flow of emotions that seeped into my being through his skin oddly managed to dull my physical pain, but the devastating pain of despair was equally as potent, and even more unnerving.

"Nano, please stop this… you're being too rough, why are you doing this? Please, enough…." I pled miserably, using every shred of my composure that remained to prevent my tears from flowing openly down my cheeks, staining their paths with salt.

He continued to thrust into my heat wildly, though it seemed as if he was attempting to oblige with my requests, as each of his movements became slightly more focused and deliberate. Soon the fingers of a delicate hand curled around my own failing arousal, touching the sensitive skin with surprising gentleness and causing my entire frame to tremble as I was wracked with wary pleasure. My breaths were becoming exceptionally difficult to manage as my pain started to fade more rapidly, and I allowed my arms to cautiously wind around his neck as I buried my face into his mess of golden hair, inhaling his scent with a moan. Nano smelled like pure earth, as if he himself was so thoroughly composed of raw elements that he could've been born from the womb of nature herself; but he simultaneously felt quite inhuman, as if manufactured according to specific parameters that left him feeling rigid. It seemed as if his origins were as mysterious as the rest of his being, the enigmatic sensation borne from his existence frightening and enthralling me concordantly, tearing me in half like frayed cloth all the way down to the dense canvas of my core and consciousness. This man was exceptionally dangerous, and I could sense that quality deep in my marrow, but he did not seem violent, and that miniscule sliver of redemptive light allowed me to cling to him without fear.

One especially enthusiastic thrust impacted the knot of fibers within me, and I cried out shamelessly, clutching his shoulders desperately as I attempted to regain control of myself, though the task seemed as difficult as retaining smoke with your bare hand. Crashing our lips together, I moved mine against his frantically, and soon they began to meld together flawlessly as our tongues coiled around each other, the fleeting tastes causing our greediness to intensify. Every tinge of residual pain from his ministrations served not to hinder my ecstasy, but rather to charge it more intensely, dissolving my composure more rapidly with each efficient jerk of his hips. We were both growing nearer our climaxes; I could feel Nano quake slightly as his breaths became more ragged and irregular, his lean frame seeming fragile as I closed my legs more securely around his waist and coaxed free unified moans from our lips. Our pants sounded desperate as they echoed through the space, our minds too preoccupied with the impending high of orgasm to do anything aside from thrust and grind against each other with animalistic urgency. Even our kisses grew still in our distraction, unintentionally pressing together as we heaved and moaned, the vibrations caused by our sounds of pleasure teasing lightly on my lips and tingling pleasantly. I pulled away slightly as I was bathed in my release, and bit roughly into Nano's icy shoulder with a groan, remarkably surprised when the temperature of the skin between my teeth rose affectedly to warm my lips.

"Akira…."

My name being spoken in Nano's lust-drenched voice caused my eyes to fly open, the remaining fringes of my fulfillment intensifying violently under the erotic sound. In truth, he could have said anything in that sinful tone, even threatened my life, and it still would have held the power to make my mind melt with eager arousal.

The celestial man who had me pinned against a bookshelf was nearing his climax as well, each of his thrusts forcing me further into the constricting hold of his arms while each of his movements inside of me elicited a small moaning gasp, my sensitivity becoming unbearable. Soon his breath hitched dramatically as he was assaulted with his own orgasm, his movements halting as he buried himself as deeply into me as he could manage, strong yet slender arms clinging to me and holding me in place. My body felt conflicted, but the pleasurable warmth that Nano settled within me was able to mildly overwhelm the pain that was threatening to throb back into my consciousness with a vengeance. I could feel my eyelids sinking shut heavily as my mind attempting to coax me into a restorative sleep, my ailing body even further exhausted than before our union, and with the pain that clouded my senses, rest sounded like an appealing escape. Supporting my weight carefully, my partner pulled himself free from me, the miniscule movement causing me to cry out loudly in tortured, painful sobs, my fatigue far too potent for my logical mind to suppress the tears that were beginning to roll down my face.

Nano laid my aching body on the plush couch opposite of my seat from before, the chill of the sofa's leather causing me to recoil lightly when it pressed against my naked flesh. Once I was permitted to stay motionless in avoidance of any further pain, I was able to take a survey of the condition of the rest of my body as I struggled to stave off sleep for a few moments longer. Bruises and slight lacerations covered my neck and chest densely, the culmination of all of their individual aches compounding into a broad aura of discomfort that hovered persistently over the area in an unpleasant fog. Though it was expected for my muscles and tendons to wail in pain at the strain and overexertion that they had endured, the worst sensation to plague my mind was the unsettling feeling of my own blood trickling down my thighs, the warmth of the liquid perishing as it was berated by the library's cold air.

"Why did you…. Why did you do this? You… were so rough. Nano?"

His vacant eyes were latched on me intently as I fumbled through my pain and increasingly muddled mind to beg for some explanation, and though I could scarcely hear the tone of my own voice through my failing consciousness, I was certain that I had sounded pitiful and weak beyond measure. The emptiness of the gaze that met mine in response caused me to shudder with uneasiness. Nano seemed so hollow that it was immensely difficult to meet his stare, knowing that he seemed to be merely an example of biological life, a functioning organism without any soul.

"'If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.' Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace."

I stared at him blankly for several moments, attempting to process his words despite my slight delirium. "I don't understand…. What are you trying to tell me? I don't understand…. Nano?" For a brief instant, I thought I could see some flicker of emotion as his pale blue gaze quickly flared into the brilliant violet from before, and I mentally clung to the thought as I began to lose the battle against my exhaustion, slipping into sleep.