The Fearless Are Ignorant! The Careless Are Unconcerned!

Then let me ask you..." Kawaki looked at the child who had asked the question earlier and counter-asked: "What is that... right below your nose?"

The child was startled and unconsciously looked down but saw nothing.

"Doesn't every human have a strange groove between their nose and upper lip?" Kawaki explained, "What exactly is it used for?"

"I... don't know."

"Right..." Kawaki lowered his head, his forehead unwittingly darkened, but even so, he seriously bluffed, "Simply put, the Patriot is... just like that."

[So you don't know either?!] Shinpachi internally ranted furiously.

"Whether it's the groove under the nose or the microphone on the FC2P controller," Kawaki closed his eyes, his face grave as he slowly explained: "There are many things in this world whose purpose is unknown, but beyond eating, drinking, pooping, and sleeping, everything else humanity does is superfluous. We are just the creators of that extravagance."

(Note: The original NES 2P had a microphone that supported only six games and could only recognize volume levels.)

[Talking so grandly, but you're just working with junk in the end!] Shinpachi ranted internally, indignant.

"Question..." Daigorou, sitting in Kawaki's chair from the start, still looking somewhat dazed, raised his hand and asked, "So, does Yorozuya just do superfluous work on superfluous things?"

"It seems you didn't understand anything I said." Kawaki spread his hands and replied, "What I mean is, what seems superfluous is indispensable..."

"But..." Daigorou interrupted Kawaki, posing a question that, though he lacked enthusiasm, struck a painful chord in Kawaki and others, "Isn't Yorozuya, which makes these useless things, also useless?"

[What's with this kid!] Shinpachi mentally complained.

"You're being too harsh, Daigorou-kun." May quickly intervened.

"May-chan, can we end the social study here?" Daigorou asked May, "Basically, Yorozuya's work is just to do things that contribute nothing to society."

With that, Daigorou pushed himself up from the table.

"Wait, hold on a moment!" Shinpachi hastily interjected.

"Although the Patriot seems useless," Kagura picked it up from the table and stood up, "it can play many meaningless games, you know~."

"Eh? Really?" Daigorou stared blankly at Kagura, "How do you play with it?"

"For example..." Kagura tightened her grip on the Patriot's wooden stick and swung it down on Daigorou's head, explaining emotionlessly as she did, "It's used like this to beat up those who are asking for it, a Patriot missile."

[You don't need a Patriot for that!] Shinpachi thought critically.

Thump!

Daigorou suddenly raised his hand to block the Patriot... or rather, the tissue box, wiping the blood that had just trickled from his mouth. He looked up with an utterly severe expression, apparently entering his serious (Naruto) mode.

Daigorou chuckled softly, "As expected, there are such useless jobs in the world that produce garbage."

[Daigorou-kun?!] Shinpachi internally cried out, [He's turned into a completely different person after being hit on the head! Speaking with Naruto's voice, but saying things Naruto would never say!]

"May, I'm going ahead," Daigorou jumped off the chair and walked towards the entrance without hesitation, "I've learned enough."

"Daigorou-kun..." May called out quickly.

"Wait, young man!" Kawaki quickly spoke up as Daigorou reached the front door of the living room, "You haven't taken your Calcutta..."

"Sorry, President," Daigorou stopped at the door and replied indifferently, "I'm neither from the Calcutta nor the Mesopotamian faction. I am... from the Bourbon faction."

(Bourbon: a type of American whiskey.)

[He's hardcore! What's with this kid?!] Shinpachi's face twitched uncontrollably.

"I will strive not to become an adult like you," Daigorou turned back, his face showing a hint of disdain, "Thanks for letting me see the bottom layer of this society, everyone at Yorozuya..."

In a street café in Kabukicho, Kawaki sat at an outdoor table, continuously pulling tissues from the Patriot, wholly engulfed in gloom.

"Cheer up, Gin-san." Shinpachi offered some consolation, "Such kids can't understand the greatness of Yorozuya yet."

"The other kids said they had a lot of fun, though." Kagura also tried to comfort him, "Although they threw away the Patriots, we gave them as souvenirs on the street and also refused to visit the useless NEET's life, aru."

"Even so..." Kawaki finally spoke, murmuring, "It was still starting from scratch, doing a job I liked. Perhaps in the eyes of children..."

"There's no such thing!" Shinpachi quickly interjected.

"Then I ask you this..." Kawaki looked at the Patriot on the table, "what is it used for?"

Shinpachi and Kagura both fell silent.

"Don't know, right? Of course!" Kawaki suddenly stood up, his face filled with a crazed smile, shouting in self-derision, "Because I don't know either! I'm just like these pieces of junk; Yorozuya is garbage! A job that's completely unimportant to society, how irrelevant it is doesn't matter at all! Ahahaha..."

Saying this, Kawaki turned and slowly walked away, a bitter smile on his face.

"He's completely broken," Shinpachi commented quietly as he watched Kawaki's staggering figure, "He took a big hit."

However, just as he finished speaking, Shinpachi noticed Hijikata talking to a group of kids by the roadside through the gaps in the landscape trees.

"Eh? Isn't that Hijikata-san?" Shinpachi wondered aloud.

"Always patrolling indoors, checking for any miscreants," Hijikata, holding a cigarette in his mouth, earnestly explained to the kids before him, "That's the most basic duty of us police officers."

"Do you have a question?" Hijikata asked as a boy with glasses, holding a notebook and pen, raised his hand.

"What exactly are bad people like?"

"People who break the law," Hijikata explained.

"So, is the law right?"

"Generally speaking, yes," Hijikata nodded, answering honestly.

"Then I have a question!" the boy pushed up his glasses, "At train stations, it's forbidden to jump onto the tracks, but if a drunkard falls, the person who breaks the rules to save him is the bad guy, and those who don't help are the good guys?!"

Hijikata's forehead vein bulged, and he gritted his teeth as he responded, "In such cases, you have to judge based on the situation."

"I think a law that changes based on the situation can't fulfill the responsibilities of the law!"

"I misspoke," Hijikata's veins throbbed, "those who cause trouble for others are the bad people. How the law works doesn't matter anymore..."

[He's abandoned the law!] Shinpachi thought furiously, [Just because it's troublesome, he's thrown the law away!]

"So!" the boy pushed his glasses up again, stepping closer, relentlessly asking, "Smoking and spreading secondhand smoke around you, does that make you a criminal?!"

"Sorry! Did I make you choke?" Hijikata's veins multiplied, his eyes bloodshot as he pressed the cigarette with the back of his hand, whispering through gritted teeth, "Forgive me, forgive me!"

[Disaster, he's breaking down, about to become a criminal!] Shinpachi internally ranted again.

"How exactly does trouble become a crime? Please give a specific example," the boy asked, then pointed to a shop by the road, "For example, if someone is relentlessly pursued and harassed by a girl and ends up getting beaten up, who is the criminal in both cases?"

Looking at Kondou, who was hiding in a crate full of persimmons at the shop, only his head visible, being continuously hit in the face with a shopping bag by Otae, Hijikata paused for a moment before speaking again: "Err... actually, I was just joking before. Police actually..."

Saying this, Hijikata picked up a Patriot he found somewhere, "make and sell these Patriots."

[He's switched careers to selling Patriots now!] Shinpachi ranted, frustrated, [What is that? Is it popular?!]

"Pathetic, changing careers immediately when things go awry?" a boy leaned back in his chair and sighed.

"I heard Japanese police have degenerated recently; it looks like it's true~" another boy nodded in agreement.

Following this, several kids turned and left.

Three minutes later...

Looking at Hijikata sitting at another table, his head bowed as he kept pulling tissues from the Patriot, Shinpachi quietly commented.

"Even Hijikata-san has broken down."

"So there's also that use, aru." Kagura sounded surprised.

Kagura had barely finished speaking when suddenly, the voices of Tsukuyo and Kawaki could be heard nearby.

Tsukuyo: "That's enough from you guys."

Kawaki: "Well, kids are naturally curious about these things, right? They'll use this knowledge someday."

"Tsukuyo-san and Kawaki-san..." Shinpachi looked through the gaps in the landscape trees, spotting Kawaki holding an unopened game and Tsukuyo standing before a group of boys.

"Yeah, yeah! They'll use it someday!" a boy rubbed his hands together, looking eagerly at Tsukuyo, "And really, we do want to see what work in Yoshiwara is like..."

The other kids nodded in agreement, one with a nosebleed already staining the ground.