THE FINAL CHAPTERS Special 2

	Even with all this power she couldn't defy King Fritz. What would make her stay here for 2,000 long years, obeying King Fritz all the while?
— Zeke Jaeger to Armin Arlelt in the Paths

THE FINAL CHAPTERS Special 2 (完結編（後編） Kanketsu-hen (Kōhen)^?, lit. "Concluding episode (Part 2)") is an hour-and-a-half-long TV special that constitutes the second half of the finale of the Attack on Titan anime, produced by MAPPA. It was released on Japanese streaming services in its episodic version (各話版 Kakuwa-ban^?), reworked into episodes 91, 92, 93, and 94.^[1]

Overview

The Scouts and Warriors begin their battle on the back of Eren Jaeger's Founding Titan, only for Armin Arlelt to be captured by a member of a previous generation of the Nine Titans under the Founder's control. Being absorbed by Ymir like this takes Armin into the Paths where he finds and convinces Zeke to help them. This allows incarnations of the Nine Titans belonging to their deceased friends to switch sides and allow them to decapitate Eren's Founding Titan. When a wriggling centipede creature emerges from the neck to try to connecting with the head, Armin transforms into the Colossal Titan to try destroying it.

Eren revives in a new Founding Titan form the same size as Armin's Colossal Titan and the two grapple while their friends who also have Titan powers strive to hold back the centipede. Mikasa and Levi Ackermann fly on Falco Grice's Jaw Titan to finish off Eren as Mikasa struggles with her headaches. Levi breaks a hole into the mouth of Eren's Titan with a Thunder Spear, creating an opening for Mikasa to go through. She finds Eren's head inside and severs it from its spine, killing him and thus creating the future he foresaw with Ymir, where the power of the Titans disappears, leaving all Eldians as ordinary humans.

Summary

Onyankopon warns the Scouts and Warriors to jump from the flying boat, but refuses to leave with them, promising to keep flying until they are over the Founding Titan. Armin Arlelt orders everyone to focus on the Beast Titan connected to the Founder's body.

They dive out once Onyankopon flies low enough and use their ODM gear to grapple on to the Founder's body. Reiner Braun transforms into the Armored Titan and tackles the replica Beast Titan, snapping it free of the tether that connects it to the Founding Titan. Pieck Finger also transforms and lands, with the explosives taken from the flying boat now strapped across her Cart Titan's torso.

Chapter 3: The Battle of Heaven and Earth

天と地の戦い (Ten to Chi no Tatakai)

The group soon realizes that the Beast Titan they defeated is an empty husk that withers beneath the Armored Titan. Armin surmises that Zeke Jaeger must be using the same method as the War Hammer Titan to hide his actual location. Given the size of the Founding Titan, Armin plans to transform into the Colossal Titan to blow apart its body, which might give them a clue as to where Eren and Zeke might be hiding.

As the others get out of the way and charge ahead, Armin steels himself to confront Eren. However, another Titan takes advantage of his momentary distraction to grab him, wedging its prehensile tongue in Armin's mouth to prevent him from screaming or injuring himself to transform. It then swallows Armin and flees while Ymir watches.

Mikasa Ackermann shouts his name, causing the rest of their group to turn around and realize that there are more grayish Titans emerging from the spines on the Founder's back. They recognize these are not ordinary Pure Titans, and Conny Springer realizes they will run out of Thunder Spears if they try fighting them all.

Since Armin did not transform, they know he is unharmed, but the Titan that grabbed him has run to the rear of the Founding Titan with numerous other Titans between them and Armin. Levi Ackermann warns Mikasa to stay under control rather than charging in. He intends to act as bait to draw them away, but Pieck stops him, saying that she has figured out what they are facing. These Titans appear to be replicas of past generations of the Nine Titans, though she is uncertain whether it is just their bodies or if their minds are there as well. It is possible the Founder could make as many of them as it wants.

Unconcerned about Armin's need to talk to Eren, Pieck dashes through the Titans, dodging their attacks as she runs not towards the tail, but the head and the nape of the Founding Titan. She has only one aim, and loops the explosives around the neck of the Founder. Pieck partially emerges from the back of her Titan so she can push the detonator and set off the explosives, but before she can, her Titan is speared and lifted into the air by the massive trident of a familiar War Hammer Titan. This causes her to drop the detonator. The Jaw Titans of the deceased Galliard brothers also appear and join the fray.

On the ground at Fort Salta, Commander Müller recognizes that even though the forces from Paradis Island have engaged the Founding Titan, they have done nothing to slow its speed. He orders his units to fire on the enemy with cannons. Though they lost most of their soldiers in the failed bombing run, he sees no reason not to try given how hard the others are fighting on the back of the Founder.

As the Scouts and Warriors fight against previous generations of the Nine Titans, Armin struggles to stay conscious, wondering if Eren really intends to suffocate him to death, but he remembers seeing Ymir and concludes that this is not Eren's, but her doing. She approves of Eren's slaughter of humanity and thus is interfering with them, and Armin can do nothing to stand against her.

Above him, an apparition of Bertholdt Hoover sheds a tear.

Outside, Bertholdt's Colossal Titan appears above the battlefield, gray like the others connected to the Founding Titan. It grabs Reiner's Armored Titan and bites the head off before hurling the body down at the Founder's ribcage. The Scouts are scattered by the resulting impact, with most of them falling off the spines and into the ribcage. Reiner survives, though his ODM gear is broken, as is Jean Kirschtein's. He tells Jean to drop him since he can transform once more, but Jean refuses, knowing that even the Armored Titan will be trampled by the Colossal Titans marching below. Jean does not believe they have much of a chance, but reminds Reiner that they are Scouts who do not know when to quit.

Mikasa struggles to keep her friends safe when Jean and Reiner cannot move, and Levi and Conny are surrounded. She draws on a reserve of strength to continue fighting when Falco Grice's now winged Jaw Titan swoops in behind her. It is carrying a net on its back. Holding on to it are Gabi Braun and Annie Leonhart, who help bring the Scouts and Reiner on to Falco's back so he can carry them to the relative safety of the air outside of the Founder's body.

The two groups are surprised to see each other. Annie tells everyone that Falco's transformation sunk the Azumabito ship, but Kiyomi was still willing to let them try it, so they plan to repay her by stopping the Rumbling. When she asks where Armin is, Mikasa tells her that Armin was captured and they need her help. Pieck is also in need of assistance, having been isolated from the others during her rush to blow up the Founder's nape.

Levi divides their group into two teams; one to rescue Armin and the other to attack the nape. Mikasa hesitates though, not wanting to give up on Eren. Conny reminds her that without Falco's ability to fly they would already be dead. Jean and Levi also admit that they are at their limit, not because they want to give up on Eren, but because they are out of options. Seeing that Mikasa is freezing up beneath the weight of the group's decision to kill Eren, Annie tells her to focus on rescuing Armin.

The sight of the Jaw Titan flying overhead and then sweeping back around for another pass at the Founding Titan reinvigorates the Marleyan soldiers at Fort Salta and they prepare what few cannons they can to assist. But before they can fire, they spot refugees heading toward them, and from the unfaded parts of their left sleeves, the soldiers realize they are Eldian. Both sides raise their rifles, and Annie's father unsuccessfully tries to defuse the situation, explaining that they are only seeking treatment for their injured.

The group heading back to the Founding Titan hear a gunshot as they depart, and their attention is quickly drawn back to their own battle as numerous War Hammer Titans fire arrows at Falco. Reiner and Jean are dropped off first near the Founder's nape, with Reiner transforming back into the Armored Titan to draw the attention of the various War Hammers. This gives Jean, who fixed his ODM gear with the working parts of Reiner's, an opportunity to get to Pieck.

Seeing the distraction the two are causing, Pieck escapes her impaled Cart Titan, and transforms once again to attack the War Hammer Titan that had caught her. Because of the Cart Titan's supreme endurance, she tells Jean not to worry about her. She can transform over and over again to keep fighting as long as her own body remains intact, so she directs him to go after the detonator.

Falco flies the remainder of their group towards the rear of the Founding Titan and Conny spots the Titan that captured Armin. Mikasa, Annie, and Conny drop as the second team and Annie transforms into the Female Titan. Gabi and Levi remain on Falco's back.

Conny and Mikasa try chasing after the okapi-headed Titan carrying Armin with Annie fighting the Titans around them, but their quarry escapes them and doubles back toward the head, forcing them to confront Bertholdt's Colossal Titan.

Meanwhile, Armin yells at his unmoving body in distress, trying to get himself to move. Then he realizes he has sand in his hands, and that if he was truly dead he would not have the luxury of thought. Armin is in the Paths. As he tries to think about how best to take advantage of this, he turns around and sees Zeke.

Zeke is subdued as he recognizes Armin's presence and surmises that he was also consumed by Ymir.

Chapter 4: A Long Dream

長い夢 (Nagai Yume)

Zeke explains that long ago "life" came into being and survived because of its ability to multiply, changing form and adapting to different environments, eventually leading to humanity. Death and extinction run counter to the goal of multiplying, and life is deterred from meeting them through fear. Ymir is no different, and in her fear she created a bigger, stronger, immortal body and then escaped to a realm where death does not exist.

Given that information, Armin wonders what her objective could be, but Zeke has been unable to find an answer for that, noting that despite her power she did not defy King Fritz and had followed his will for two thousand years. He mentions though, that Eren understood what Ymir could not let go of, and that is why she sided with him.

Zeke does not believe it is possible to escape from here, and does not see the point, connecting the calamity affecting the world now with life's mindless struggle to keep multiplying. Regardless of what happens, everyone dies eventually. He equates the moment before death with being set free.

In the sand beside him, Armin finds a dried leaf, and remembers it from his childhood when he, Eren, and Mikasa were racing to a tree on top of a hill. It is a pleasant memory and he tells Zeke that in that moment he simply thought he had been born to race Eren and Mikasa up that hill. Whether feeding squirrels or going to the market with them, he found those insignificant moments precious, and as he says this, Zeke sees Armin is holding a baseball instead of a leaf. When Zeke asks him where he got it, Armin replies that he found it buried in the sand.

Zeke cannot understand why it would be there. Armin, still seeing the object as a leaf, does not know either, but tells Zeke that even though it is not required to multiply or anything else for life, he still finds it precious. This brings back memories for Zeke, of his time spent playing catch with Tom Xaver. There was no larger point to it, but Zeke agrees that it had meaning.

The two of them look up and see Xaver, Grisha, Eren Kruger, the Galliard brothers, and Ymir of the Scout Regiment.

Outside, near the Founding Titan's nape, Jean saves Pieck after another of her escapes, though she says she can still fight once her arm heals. They try to retreat to Reiner, only to see that he has been overwhelmed by the multiple War Hammer Titans. Further down the Founder's back, Annie, Mikasa, and Conny continue to struggle when Bertholdt's Colossal Titan reaches down and sweeps their enemies away. By the nape, Porco and Marcel Galliard's Jaw Titans work to stop the smaller Titans from getting to Pieck and Jean. Ymir's Jaw knocks one of the War Hammers away from Reiner.

Mikasa does not understand the reason some of the Titans seem to have changed sides, but uses the opportunity to chase after the okapi-headed Titan. After Gabi wounds it with a headshot from her rifle, Mikasa succeeds in catching up to it and cutting its jaw open, causing Armin to fall out. The Titan spears his leg with its tongue to try keeping a hold of him, but he wakes up and kills it with a Thunder Spear. Annie catches him with her Female Titan.

As Grisha and Eren Kruger's Titans join in on the fight, Zeke emerges from one of the Founding Titan's spines and calls out to Falco and those on his back, in particular Levi. Armin explains to those around him that the Titans helping them are thanks to Zeke, who awakened them in the Paths. This was possible due to the Paths connecting all Eldians, and he suspects that Ymir is seeking connection as well.

Still connected to the Founding Titan, Zeke marvels at how nice the day looks and wishes that he had felt this way sooner, but understands that would be too much to ask given the amount of people he had killed. In the next instant, Levi beheads him.

With Zeke's death, Eren's connection to the Wall Titans is severed and the Rumbling stops. Eren's Founding Titan, however, keeps moving. Reiner throws Jean towards Eren's nape and Pieck clears a path. Jean grabs the detonator and with a final look at Eren, calls him a suicidal blockhead before depressing the plunger and setting off the explosives.

The Founding Titan's head falls, but a glowing centipedal creature emerges from its neck and attempts to reconnect the head. Reiner tackles it to stop it, and Conny yells for everyone save Reiner to get on Falco's back because Armin is going to transform and the Armored Titan should be able to withstand the resulting explosion. As most of their group flies clear, Armin thanks the deceased Titans who aided them and says good-bye to Eren before transforming in a massive explosion.

Falco takes his passengers to Fort Salta, where the refugees are confused about what happened. As they wonder if Eren is dead, Mikasa gets one of her headaches, which reminds her of the last time she spoke with Eren. He had claimed the reason for her headaches was her imprinting on him as her master because of her Ackermann heritage. Eren had told her he hated her.

As Mikasa recalls her memories, Gabi spots her parents among the refugees. Falco and Pieck are reunited with their families as well. Conny says he has regrets, but seeing the tearful reunions he thinks the Scouts did the right thing in stopping the Rumbling.

They go to the edge of the cliff and to their delight they see Reiner and Armin's Titans emerge through the dust, but the giant centipedal source of all living matter is writhing at the foot of the mesa. As Reiner and Armin move to engage it, another transformation explodes behind them and Eren emerges in a new bipedal version of his Founding Titan. They realize that Eren and the source cannot reconnect or the Rumbling might start again, and Levi suggests they go after Eren, both because the wriggling entity has already survived an explosion from the Colossal Titan and because Eren is the driving force behind the Rumbling.

As the centipede begins releasing a mist into the air, Müller helps Annie's father to his feet. The gunshots he had previously made had been into the air to stop the fighting between his soldiers and the refugees. The soldiers are now helping the wounded. The two men agree to cooperate as Annie runs up to reunite with her father.

The Scouts speculate on the purpose of the mist and Conny realizes to his horror that it could be like the mist used to transform the villagers of Ragako. Levi immediately orders Mikasa and Pieck to get on Falco so they can leave, because Ackermanns and inheritors of the Titans are immune to its effects. The four of them escape, but Pieck has to be held back by Mikasa as she does not want to leave her father.

Jean, Conny, and all the Eldian refugees transform into Pure Titans and join the squealing source of all living matter in a charge towards Reiner and Armin. Seeing this, Armin turns and his Colossal Titan grapples with Eren's equally sized Founding Titan.

Annie and Pieck join Reiner in trying to stop the giant centipede as Mikasa suffers from another of her headaches. Levi tries to get her to pull herself together since they are now the only ones who can kill Eren, but all she wants is to go back to a home where she and Eren are together.

She wakes up on a porch outside a mountain cabin. Eren begins cutting wood and tells her that she must be exhausted, but she says it feels more like she had a long dream. He begins to tell her to take it easy when he notices that she is crying. She initially does not know why, but feels like she should not be here. Eren says they cannot do anything about that now. They had given up everything when they fled Marley. He says he could not bring himself to condemn Historia Reiss to becoming a Titan or commit genocide on all humanity outside of Paradis. Eren asks to live out his remaining four years with just the two of them, without anyone else, just like Mikasa wanted.

After a moment, Mikasa agrees, and he asks her to make another promise, to throw away her scarf once he is dead. She will have a long life ahead of her and he wants her to be able to forget about him. As he asks her to forget, lines appear on his face as though he has been using his Titan.

Meanwhile, Eren and Armin's Titans fight, with neither getting the upper hand. On Falco's back, Mikasa apologizes and ties her scarf securely around her neck, telling Eren that she cannot forget him. She tells Falco and Levi that Eren is in his Titan's mouth and to help get her there. Falco drops them off close enough that Levi is able to shoot a Thunder Spear at the mouth of Eren's Titan, creating a hole through which Mikasa enters.

There she finds Eren's head, suspended from a long spine. She smiles to him as she cuts his head free and cradles it. Mikasa gives him a kiss as behind her, Ymir watches with a smile of her own.

Final Chapter: Towards the Tree on That Hill

あの丘の木に向かって (Ano Oka no Ki ni Mukatte)

Looking like children, Eren and Armin talk. Armin understands that Eren saw the future with the Attack Titan's ability, but is less sympathetic about Eren giving him a knee to the stomach. Eren sullenly admits he was doing whatever he could to push Armin and Mikasa away, even though he thought it was crazy too.

Eren's plan is to make his friends into heroes who killed him and saved humanity from annihilation. That way every human who survived would owe the "island devils" who went against Paradis. Armin stubbornly tells him that he and the others will not play the hero roles that Eren intends.

Instead of answering, Eren gets up and says he will take them to the places they wanted to go as children. As they watch lava that flows like a river, Eren tells him about Ymir and how much she had suffered under King Fritz but always remained subservient. When Eren touched her in the Paths, he realized that Ymir loved Fritz, and that is what kept her bound all this time. Still, she kept searching for someone to release her and finally she found them. It was Mikasa, though Eren does not know why. However the outcome Mikasa would bring about is what he has been striving for ever since he received his vision at their medal ceremony following the Battle of Shiganshina District four years ago.

He admits his head is now a mess, as one of the side effects of having the Founding Titan's power is that there is no past or future and everything happens simultaneously. Eren thinks back on things that he had to make happen, such as Dina Fritz's Titan ignoring Bertholdt the day the Warriors broke through Wall Maria so he could send it towards his own mother.

Armin stops Eren before he can go further and now they are adults looking out over the sea. He asks Eren if he thinks Mikasa will be able to forget about him and live happily with someone else. Eren feigns apathy, and Armin punches him, angered on Mikasa's behalf. Armin verbally tears into him and finishes with the suggestion that she should find someone better given how Eren has treated her, which finally gets Eren to tearfully admit he does not want her to find anyone else and for her to think only about him after he dies. Armin is shocked by the admission and Eren asks him not to tell her any of it, because he really does want her to be happy. Eren does not actually want to die and leave Mikasa or any of his friends.

Hearing this, Armin tries to convince Eren to find another way, but Eren says he is pretty sure "they" did not want to die either. The sea around them is now blood, and Eren will trample eighty percent of humanity. This will cause the world outside the Walls to drop to the same level of technology as Paradis, making a war of reprisal impossible, but even then, Eren does not see an end to the conflict.

Armin asks if this means all they have done is pointless. He tries to get Eren to understand that he has not actually killed these people yet, so he can still make a choice, but Eren explains that no matter how hard he tried, everything always occurred exactly as he saw in his memories of the future. Armin refuses to accept this. Unmoved, Eren says he always wanted to level everything like this. He thought he was doing this to protect those he cared about, but people like Sasha Braus and Hange Zoë died because of him, and he kept setting his friends up for lethal confrontations with Floch Forster. As he looks at bits of hair and gore he picked out of the blood water, Eren thinks he finally knows why everything turned out this way, and it is because he is an idiot who obtained an immense power.

Armin picks something out of the blood water and says he understands wanting to erase some people out of the world. Eren calls him a liar, but undeterred, Armin says he was the one who put the idea of a free world in Eren's head. The object Armin picked up was the seashell from when they first saw the sea. He hands it to Eren and thanks him for showing him what was beyond the Walls. He emphasizes that the two of them are responsible, so they will always be together in hell.

Eren is touched that their friendship remains unbroken, but tells Armin that he will erase the memory of this conversation until after everything is over.

Armin wakes up, no longer inside his Titan, following the battle with Eren. The conversation he had with his friend had actually happened back on the boat ride to Odiha. Armin now remembers everything. Mikasa approaches him, carrying Eren's head, and causing Armin to finally realize his friend is gone. He tells her that the outcome of her choice would erase the Power of the Titans from the world.

Around them, Eldians are coming to their senses, human again. Eren's friends remember their own conversations with Eren and what he hoped for them. Families and friends reunite, with the living catching glimpses of those who have passed on.

Mikasa takes this time to let Armin know that she is leaving, because Eren would not be allowed a proper burial here. She suggests she will take Eren to the place he liked napping, and Armin agrees that would be a good spot.

Armin rejoins everyone to find the Marleyans and Eldians are at odds once again, despite the Eldians saying that they are ordinary people now. Müller demands immediate proof, and Armin tells him that proof is that if they still had Titan powers they would use them to resist. He introduces himself to Müller as the one who killed Eren Jaeger.

As Mikasa leaves she sees Ymir, now looking like a young woman rather than the child in the Paths. She knows now that Ymir was the one who kept peeking into her head. Mikasa views Ymir's love as a long nightmare, but accepts that she exists because of the lives Ymir created. Ymir shares a glimpse of a reality where she did not save Fritz's life and remained alive with her children and then fades away.

Three years after the Battle of Heaven and Earth, the world is still reeling from the effects of the massacre. Paradis Island fears reprisals from overseas and has built up a military led by the Jaegerists. Conflict has not gone away. Eren told Historia what he knew of the future, however she is certain that this future was not the result of Eren's choices alone, but rather the cumulative choices of everyone. If they must continue to fight, it will be so that one day they will no longer need to.

Armin, Jean, Reiner, Annie, Conny, and Pieck are on a journey as ambassadors for the Allied Forces to Paradis, though they are uncertain of the welcome they will receive given that they have betrayed the island and killed Eren. Pieck and Reiner express mild surprise their ship has not already been blown out of the water, and Jean blames Eren for forcing them into the roles of "international heroes" while also asking them to live long lives. Armin is more philosophical, saying that this is their answer to Eren and as Scouts they are dreamers who do not know when to quit, though Annie points out that they were not all Scouts.

Armin believes they will not be killed immediately because the people of Paradis will want to know their story and why people who tried to kill each other would now show up and call for peace.

In Shinganshina District, Mikasa sits beside Eren's grave beneath the tree. She tells him that the others will be visiting soon. Mikasa remembers how she would find Eren there napping and begins to cry, wishing to see him again, when suddenly a bird flies down and wraps her scarf around her the way Eren once did. Spirit lightened, she thanks Eren.

Over the years, Mikasa visits the grave with her friends and family until she, too, is laid to rest. Time passes on Paradis, with technology improving, wars still being fought, but the tree remains standing.

The structures of humanity are now ruins, when a boy and his dog discover a hole at the base of the tree where Eren's grave once rested.

Characters in order of appearance

Cast

In both the Japanese and English versions, although uncredited, the infant son of Yuki Kaji (Eren Jaeger) is the voice of a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes that a crowd fleeing from the Rumbling attempts to save.^[2]

Japanese

English

Trivia

• The last part of Armin and Eren's conversation in the Paths features changes from the manga that were given to the anime staff by Hajime Isayama.^[3]
• Rico Brzenska is erroneously depicted with dark blonde hair and brown eyes.
  • This was fixed in the Blu-ray release.
• Before the release of the episodic version, this special was already split into four episodes on Japanese streaming services. However, said episodes were untitled, did not feature any opening or ending song, and lacked segments like Current Publicly Available Information and previews for the following episode.^[4]

References

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