Was this... enough?
Was it really all right to give up just like this...
Looking at the report in his hand, ready to be sent out, Iwama glanced at the hawk outside the window, tilting its head and blinking at him, then looked back at the words on the page. He began to hesitate again.
Yes, at that moment, Iwama had finished writing and was ready to send the report—yet he hesitated.
In the end, he was still unwilling to accept it. Even though he was exhausted in body and mind, even though he had completely admitted his failure, the village's prosperity and the blood his comrades had shed on the battlefield made him hesitate at the very last moment.
As he looked at this report scroll leaning toward signing a treaty, he recalled why he had accepted this mission in the first place.
And that original intention made it impossible for him to simply send this message out.
If before, he had been making a helpless compromise out of frustration and exhaustion after a night of finding no solution, then now, after recalling his original intention, the fighting spirit he had already extinguished seemed to flare back to life from the ashes.
That was why Iwama hesitated now.
He began to waver between giving up because circumstances forced him to and his original intention, between reason and emotion.
After all, this matter was a major event that could determine the fate of the Land of Earth and Iwa for the next ten years—or even decades. Calling it giving up was one thing, but even if he had truly been utterly defeated, when the time came to actually give up, it was still difficult to make that decision.
*What exactly should I do? Is what I'm doing now really for