A Choice with No Regrets: Part Two

Scout Regiment leadership debates Erwin's push to enlist three underground criminals. Section Commander Flagon warns that thugs will poison morale, but their self-taught mastery of mobility gear wins out and Commander Keith Sadies approves them. The trio lands in Flagon's squad, where Levi's obsession with cleanliness nearly sparks a brawl over a dirty room. Their capture, it turns out, was staged; their client had tipped them off that the Scouts were coming, and joining the military is simply the infiltration route for the real job: steal Erwin's evidence against noble Nicholas Lovof, whose dealings with the Lang Company would siphon expedition funds to the Military Police, and kill Erwin himself.

Training exposes the trio's raw talent, with Hange delighting in Levi's unorthodox reversed blade grip even as Flagon grumbles about it. After Furlan's search of Erwin's office comes up empty, the three conclude the documents travel with the man, and they plan the theft and murder for the expedition, when Titans will occupy Erwin's attention. Levi tries to take the job alone to spare his friends their first Titan encounter, but they refuse to crawl back underground, and he agrees to trust them.

The 23rd Exterior Scouting Mission takes them under an open sky that leaves all three awestruck, then quickly into combat, where Levi, Furlan, and Isabel help down three Titans. When a downpour blinds the formation, Levi peels off to find Erwin. Instead he finds a trail of dead soldiers left by an Abnormal, and races back too late: Isabel's severed head lies in the mud and the Titan is biting Furlan in two. Levi butchers the creature in a frenzy, and when Erwin's squad arrives he lunges at the man, confessing the assassination plot. Erwin already knew. His documents are decoys, the real evidence long since delivered to Premier Dhalis Zachary. Rather than punish Levi, he tells him regret only dulls the choices still ahead, since no one can know an outcome in advance. On a later expedition Levi rides with the Scouts again, deciding Erwin sees something he cannot, and vows never to regret following him.

Levi, Furlan, and Isabel formally enter the Scout Regiment under Flagon's squad, their arrest revealed as cover for Lovof's mission to kill Erwin and recover incriminating documents. The 23rd Exterior Scouting Mission marks the trio's first venture beyond the Walls. An Abnormal Titan kills Isabel, Furlan, and Flagon during the storm. Erwin discloses that he anticipated the plot and had already routed the real evidence to Premier Zachary, ending Lovof's leverage. Levi abandons revenge and commits himself to Erwin and the Scouts.

Numbered Episode 0.5B, this fifth OVA completes the two-part adaptation of Attack on Titan: No Regrets, the spin-off drawn by Hikaru Suruga, written by Gun Snark, and rooted in Gun Snark's visual novel. Wit Studio and Production I.G produced it with Tetsurō Araki, Masayuki Miyaji, and Shintaro Itoga directing from Yasuko Kobayashi's script. Japan received it with the special edition of manga Volume 16 on April 9, 2015; the English release accompanied Volume 19, and both parts aired on NHK General TV in November 2021 within a special omnibus edition. The episode's lore segment covers expeditions beyond the Walls, noting that roughly thirty percent of fresh recruits die on their first outing.