Mai: Sorry that it takes me so long to update. I have a very busy life. Wow I've been working on this story for a really long time. I can't believe I still think that someday I'll finish it. I think I'm coming up on the ending soon. I think there's about 5 chapters left max and probably an epilogue. God only knows how long it'll take me to finish all that but there will be an ending….eventually.

Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King. Anyone who thinks I do is either really stupid or recently suffered a very serious head injury.

Chapter 13: Doubt

"So what did you want to talk to me about?" Umi asked as the waitress cleared away the remains of her and Ren's breakfast.

"Ok, how do I say this?" he muttered to himself. "Umi, you know don't you?"

"Know what?" she asked a little too innocently.

"About you and me," he responded. "That I'm your fiancé."

She met his gaze and nodded slowly. "I didn't want to tell you until I figured out more about us."

"You could've just asked me. I'll tell you anything you want to know. You already know how we first met. What else do you me to tell you about? Our first date? When I proposed?"

"I want to keep reading that book. I feel it'll give me the answers I need. And I want to be around you. Just talking to you I feel like I'm learning a little bit about myself," she responded.

"I love you," Ren said. "I'll do whatever it takes to help you remember."

"I love you, too. I'm not saying that because I feel like I should. I really do love you. I couldn't help but fall right back in love with you. I'm extremely confused about everything in my life right now so I don't think I can marry you yet," she said.

"I understand," he said sadly.

"But I do want to marry you. I need to get a clearer picture of my life so will you wait until I do that?" she asked.

He responded by leaning across the table and pressing his lips to hers. She closed her eyes and kissed him back.

"I'll wait forever if I have to," he told her sincerely.

The two of them ended up spending yet another afternoon alone together.

"I have an idea that I'd like to run by you," Ren said as the two of them walked through the park together.

"Shoot," she said smiling.

"I want to try to recreate our first date. I'll take you to the same place and we can see if that sparks some new memories."

Umi blushed. Sure she had been spending a lot of alone time with Ren lately but somehow the word date had never entered into the equation. She suddenly felt all excited and nervous sitting across from him.

That's silly, she told herself, We're engaged. We've probably been on hundreds of dates. Still for me it's kind of like our first.

"O-ok," she said trying not to let this new flustered nervousness show.

"Good," Ren said smiling. He knew just what she was thinking but had the courtesy to pretend he didn't. "I'll pick you up at 7."

"Sounds good," she replied smiling as the butterflies danced around her stomach.

An hour later as she sat alone in her room Umi took a deep breath trying to calm down. Since she had woken up Ren had always given her this warm fuzzy feeling when he was in the room. That familiarity had helped her open up and fall back in love with her fiancé.

But now that he was actually taking her out and recreating their first date no less it excited her. At the same time though she felt incredibly nervous. What if she wasn't what he expected? She knew he loved her but she couldn't get rid of the irrational fear that he wouldn't want her anymore.

Since worrying about it was pointless Umi decided to turn to the one thing that seemed to help her in this confusing world: the book.

"Here," Horo-Horo said as he shoved the thick folder into her hands. "This is everything we have on who you really are."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Umi asked menacingly.

"Did Horo-Horo ever tell you his last name? It's Usui just like yours. Isn't that interesting especially considering how you two look so much alike," Ren said casually.

"Are you saying that he's my- No that can't be true. My parents abandoned me. I don't have a brother."

"You have two choices. You can read it and then see if you want to believe or not. Or you can walk away and demonstrate that you do have some faith in your fiancé."

She really wanted to pick the second one to run away and show them that she loved and trusted Hao. But the part of her that doubted him was too strong for her to resist.

The first thing inside the file was a picture of a young couple in their twenties. The woman sat in a wooden rocking chair while the man stood behind her with his hand on her shoulder. The rings on their fingers told Umi that they were married. The woman was extremely pregnant and her happiness seemed to radiate off the picture in waves. She noticed that they both had blue hair and eyes and looked a good deal like her and Horo-Horo.

She picked up another picture that was behind the first. This one showed the woman lying in a hospital bed smiling down at her newborn baby. Her husband sat beside her with arms around her shoulders also staring in wonder at their child.

The next thing Umi pulled out was a birth certificate. She gasped and dropped it in shock. It read:

Usui Umi born May 17th, 1984 at 8:32 p.m.

It couldn't be real she tried to tell herself. Finding out her name and birthday couldn't be too difficult and once you had that information forging a birth certificate was a piece of cake.

After that there were several pictures of the couple holding or play with or feeding the baby girl. There was even one where the girl was hugging her pregnant mother.

Then came the news articles and the police reports. Pictures of the woman crying and her husband looking angry. The little girl smiled up at her from three different pages all of the captions begged anyone with information to contact her parents and the police.

She read a heartbreaking interview with the mother. The journalist described the look of pure heartbreak on the woman's face as she talked about her missing daughter. Umi stared at the picture of the woman in tears being comforted by her husband who was holding their newborn son. The caption said the baby's name was Usui Horokeu.

Umi looked at the final thing in the file and her heart skipped a beat. Here was the final piece of evidence that proved Hao's lies. Even after seeing the other things she still held on to the hope that Hao had merely found her somewhere and knew nothing of the kidnapping.

Dear Asakura-san,

I need your help. I need all information you have about the whereabouts of Asakura Hao. He took our child. His detestable fire spirit tore her right out of my arms when my husband and I refused to help him in his insane quest. I have told the police about the kidnapping but I fear they cannot help me. I couldn't tell them that an infant stole my daughter. I cannot lose my precious baby girl. Please I beg of you if you know anything tell me. If you do my family shall be eternally in your debt.

Yours sincerely,

Usui Machiko

"This can't be," she said dropping the letter. "He may be a lot of things but he's not a liar. Not to me."

"I know it's hard to believe bu-" Horo-Horo started to say before being interrupted by Umi.

"Shut up! Did you really think this was going to work? I love Hao and that is stronger than any amount of stupid lies you can throw at me!" Umi shouted defiantly.

You can't deny that you believe them though, a voice inside her head said softly.

Shut up! I don't believe it and I never will, she forcefully pushed the voice to the back of her head.

"Like it or not this is the truth. Hao has lied to you for your entire life. Can you really ignore this?" Ren asked his eyes staring into hers determinedly.

"Why do you care so much?" she muttered. "I'm the enemy but I can't help you kill him. He has never told me his weaknesses nor do I wish to know. You can't use me against him. So stop trying to turn me against my fiancé it won't work!"

She pushed her way past Ren and out the door leaving the contents of the file strewn across the floor. Horo-Horo started to go after her but Ren held him back.

"She needs time to think about this. She'll come around if we just give her some space," the Chinese shaman told his friend.

Umi ran. She didn't care how she must look tearing through Patch Village at breakneck speed. Finally her legs gave out and she collapsed in a tear strewn heap in a small deserted side street.

She didn't want to believe what she had just seen. But that small part of her that always doubted the man she loved was gaining strength and she hated herself for letting it.

"He loves me," she murmured to herself. "He wouldn't do this. They're liars. I can't let them manipulate me anymore."

'But what if they're not? What if this is the truth?' the part of her she despised asked.

'Shut up!' she screamed in her head. 'I'm not listening anymore.'

"I won't doubt him anymore," she said lifting herself off the ground confident in her decision.

'You can't ignore me,' the voice insisted.

'Watch me,' she replied.

"No peeking!" Umi told Hao sternly as she led him over to the promised surprise a blind fold over his eyes.

"Alright," he said pouting. "But I hope you know you're driving me crazy. You know how impatient I get with surprises."

"That's not very royal of you. A king has to know when to be patient with his subjects," she said poking him in the side.

"I suppose you're right. And I guess a husband also has to know when to be patient with his wife," he said grinning. "Although his wife has to know when it's time to stop driving her husband insane with secrets."

"You can take it off now!" she announced cheerfully.

"Finally," he muttered slipping the dark cloth off his eyes.

He stood there stunned as he looked at the private little table his fiancée had set up in his tent. It was covered with a beautiful deep red cloth (his favorite color) and topped with romantic white candles and covered silver food trays. He turned around to see that she was wearing a beautiful shimmering silvery blue dress that stopped at her knees with matching silver shoes. His favorite aspect of the outfit however was the low neckline treating him to a view that she normally wouldn't have felt comfortable displaying. Her hair was tied up in a complicated looking braided bun and she was wearing the blue dangly earrings he had gotten her for her birthday two years ago.

"Well," she said tentatively after he had stood there quietly for two minutes, "do you like it?"

He responded by leaning over and treating her to another one of his amazing breathtaking kisses. "It's wonderful, my love," he told her when they finally broke apart.

She blushed. "Thank you. I just really wanted to do something for you. You've spent so much time making me happy. It was the least I could do."

"I love you," he whispered in her ear as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders. "You make me so happy."

"I love you, too," she replied trying not to let her guilt over her visit to Ren show.

"Now let's eat!" he exclaimed leading her to the table. "This smells amazing!"

"I wish I could say I cooked it myself but it's hard to make a good romantic dinner without a real kitchen especially if you want to keep it a secret from your fiancé. So I had to resort to getting this from a restaurant," she told him.

"It's the thought that counts. Besides there'll be plenty of time for us to cook for each other in the future," he said smiling.

The rest of the evening was wonderful for the young couple. Umi had made sure that the rest of the camp knew what was going on and wouldn't bother them. By the time she left her fiancé's tent her doubts and guilt were almost completely forgotten. Her mind was full of Hao. She laughed remembering how stubbornly fought (and eventually won) to be allowed to clean up the table. He was so sweet. He'd told her that since she had gone to all the trouble of arranging the dinner he should be the one to clean up.

When she entered her tent and glanced at her bed she was brought back to reality by an object that she had not placed there. It was a folder. The folder that Ren and HoroHoro had shown her earlier that day.

On top of the folder sat a note that read:

Thought you might need this. If you change your mind feel free to come to us for help.

Her first instinct was to destroy it but for some reason she instead picked it up and shoved it into a bag of her clothes.

'So much for being doubt free,' the voice gloated. A tear rolled down Umi's cheek as she realized that she needed to find a way to confront Hao about this if she ever wanted her mind to be at peace with her decision to marry him. While she knew it would break his heart to know that she had doubted him for even a second she still believed with all her heart that he would prove her doubts pointless.