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Chapter Four

The old lady blinked at Yusuke for a moment then sat down heavily. Her blank, "You want me to what?" left Yusuke smirking.

"Obaasan, I want you to teach me everything you know about being a geisha. And I'd like to know your name please."

"It's Omanami."' she shook her head, waving one hand in negation. "Wait! Wait! You ... but ..." she took a deep calming breath and demanded, "Ok, never mind ... start at the beginning."

So Yusuke explained exactly what he wanted and why. He didn't know why he knew he could trust the old lady, but he was sure he could.

When he was done she just nodded. "Ok, you got it. My son is one of your customers. He doesn't like that other bunch." She used a disdainful word and insulted the gumi even more by refusing to use their name in combination with the insult. "He says you made everything good again and that they would just cast a cat amongst the pigeons. So. You're going to do something I don't want to know about to someone, I don't want to hear their name and you want my help." Yusuke just smirked a bit and nodded. "Ok, here's what we'll do. You'll bring me to where ever it is you live. I'll tell anyone who needs to know that I've been invited to vacation with an old customer. Then we'll train. You'll never learn to be a real geisha without a lot of work, years of it. But in ... a month, I can teach you to fake it enough to make it through a night. Ok?"

Yusuke nodded. "It'll do. Omanami-san..."

He was interrupted by the lady who just said, "No, don't call me that. That was my geisha name. I thought it might mean something to you. My name is Maiida Midori, call me that. Now, I need a few days to make my excuses and find someone to run the shop. I can manage it in four days. OK?"

Yusuke glanced at one of the gaki. He nodded and said, "I'll find someone we trust to run the shop. Won't be hard, there's lots of guys on the 'want to retire' list who'll do it for the experience. As to anything else ..." He glanced at Maiida-san and said, "You'll be wanting kimono and wigs?" she nodded. "We got kimono of all sorts, antique, modern, anything we might need from the skin out. The Oyabun's sister collected until the day she died." with that he subsided, smiling a bit. He remembered the oyabun's sister, Sakura, with fondness. She'd always known about the family business and didn't worry overly about it. She just went about her cheerful way. Everyone had loved her.

Yusuke glanced at the man and thought, not for the first time, that gaki were much more than common knee-breakers. At least, some of them were.

He issued general orders and let the men take it from there. He had learned at Musashi's knee that micro-managing was not a good thing.

.

Genji-san watched all the going and comings with interest, then went to speak to Musashi. He was realizing that Yusuke was more than just some toy child. This kid was good already and getting better every day. His control of magic was terrific, he could do spells that gave some adults trouble. He was also sharp as a new knife, and soaked up information like a dry sponge. The fact that he could apply it better than half the upper class yakuza under his, Genji's, control was nervous making. He told his oyabun that they'd better put a good crew together for Yusuke before he put his own together and wound up with a bunch of knot-heads.

Due to the vast nature of the gumi, it had several kumicho, under Miyamoto's direct control, instead of the one that was normal. Each kumicho had three Wakagashira who had two shateigashira under him along with assorted fuku-honbucho and so-honbucho. Everyone thought each kumicho was an oyabun and they kept it that way. The Yamaguchi yakuza had a finger in every pie in existence, but they hid many of their operations by their organization. There were actually people who thought Miyamoto dead. He wasn't about to enlighten them, it was much more convenient to rule from the shadows. Much less trouble too. He dealt with a few old 'friends' himself but the rest of the business was managed by his sons, who were the three head kumicho, the ones who handed down the directives from the 'Hidden Oyabun'. In other words, Miyamoto Musashi.