Captain Levi (Chapter)

The chapter opens by retracing the series' backdrop: Titans appeared a century ago and nearly ended mankind, humanity endured behind three concentric Walls, and five years before the present the Colossus Titan breached Wall Maria, costing a fifth of the population and setting young Eren Yeager on his vow of extermination after a Titan devoured his mother.

Five years on, the Survey Corps rides out through the streets while Eren, Mikasa, and Armin watch in awe. Among the departing soldiers is Captain Levi, reputed to fight with the strength of an entire brigade; squad leader Hange jokes that his admirers would be crushed to learn what an obsessive clean freak he actually is.

Beyond the Walls, where expeditions routinely lose a third of their number, a soldier half swallowed by a Titan defiantly invokes Levi's name just before the captain arrives and cuts the creature down. Levi assigns Petra to the wounded, splits the remaining Titans between himself and the reinforcements, and dispatches his two targets with ease, blinding one by hurling both blades into its eyes. Titan blood on his hand sends him reaching immediately for a cloth. Kneeling beside the rescued soldier, whose bleeding Petra cannot stop, Levi grips the dying man's hand, assures him his efforts mattered, and vows to wipe the Titans out, letting him pass in peace. Erwin then arrives with orders to withdraw: Titans are converging on Trost District, and the Wall there may already be broken.

An opening recap covers the Titans' emergence, the three Walls, and the fall of Shiganshina five years earlier.

Levi debuts as humanity's strongest soldier during the Survey Corps' public departure, with Hange teasing him over his obsession with cleanliness.

On expedition, Levi slays three Titans and eases a dying comrade's final moments with a promise of victory.

Erwin recalls the Corps toward Trost District, suspecting a fresh Titan assault on the city.

Captain Levi is the series' first special chapter, printed at the front of volume 3 ahead of chapter 10, with a Japanese release on February 17, 2010. Its material feeds into two anime episodes surrounding the battle for Trost. The chapter also carries a Current Publicly Available Information page describing how the Survey Corps shifted toward building supply lines through abandoned towns for a second operation to retake Wall Maria.