A Dull Glow in the Midst of Despair

Trost's defense is fraying. Cannon volleys from atop the Wall barely slow the incoming Titans, and the ground vanguard has been wiped out. Connie discovers Armin sitting alone in a stupor; the question of where his squad went snaps Armin back to the memory of watching them die, and he collapses into screaming panic. Ymir sneers at the effort wasted on rescuing him, nearly provoking Connie into a brawl that Krista defuses. Armin apologizes for the trouble and heads for the rear guard, passing Hannah as she performs hopeless resuscitation on the severed body of Franz. His grapple then fails against the Wall and he slides down it, bruised and telling himself that Eren died because of him. He concludes the world has not become hell; it was hell all along, and he simply misunderstood.

At the evacuation gate, a merchant insists his loaded cart pass ahead of the fleeing crowd, jamming the only exit while an Abnormal closes in at a run. The elite squad in pursuit cannot match its pace. Mikasa overtakes the creature alone and drops it in a single pass, then rounds on the merchant. When he protests that protecting citizens is a soldier's job, she observes that her comrades are dying for these people, so perhaps his death would serve just as well. He blinks first and orders the cart hauled aside. A mother and her daughter pause to thank Mikasa, and the child's face pulls her back to the year 844: a cabin in the hills, her mother stitching the family's emblem into her arm wrap and speaking of passing it down, an awkward question about where babies come from, and then a knock. Grisha Yeager, arriving with his son to introduce the children, opens the door onto the bodies of her murdered parents.

The Trost vanguard is annihilated and Garrison artillery fails to blunt the Titan advance.

Armin breaks down over his squad's deaths, blames himself for losing Eren, and is injured when his gear fails at the Wall.

Hannah is found trying to revive Franz, who is already dead.

Mikasa kills a charging Abnormal, then intimidates the merchant Dimo Reeves into unblocking the evacuation gate.

A grateful mother and daughter trigger Mikasa's memory of 844, ending on the discovery of her parents' corpses.

Opening volume 2 as the fifth chapter overall, this installment by Hajime Isayama first appeared in Japan on January 9, 2010, with the English edition following on September 11, 2012. It belongs to the Wall Sealing arc and was adapted as the episode The World the Girl Saw: The Struggle for Trost, Part 2.

The chapter's supplemental page offers a broad map of the human domain, noting the elevated interior with rivers flowing outward and resources like water, minerals, and natural gas, while conceding that whatever lies past Wall Maria cannot yet be drawn. The title alludes to Mikasa's cold resolve cutting through the surrounding despair.