Friends

Mortally wounded after the collapse beneath the Reiss chapel, Kenny Ackerman drifts through the moments that shaped him. His mind returns to a botched assassination years earlier, when a partially transformed Uri Reiss caught him in a Titan hand. Rather than execute the killer, Uri recognized him as an Ackerman, knelt before him, and asked forgiveness for everything the crown had done to his bloodline. Stunned that a man holding god-like power would bow to someone like him, Kenny pledged himself as Uri's bodyguard, and the persecution of the Ackermans quietly ended.

Other memories follow. Kenny finds his sister Kuchel dead in an Underground brothel and takes in her boy, Levi, never admitting they are family. He teaches the child to survive, including the reverse-grip knife style Levi still uses, then walks away one day while the boy fights a street duel, judging him ready. Uri later confides that the Reiss inheritance passes memories and power to a successor, and after watching Frieda consume Uri, Kenny concludes that such power is what lets its holders preach love and peace. Wanting to feel that for himself, he takes command of the newly formed Anti-Personnel Control Squad.

In the present, Levi finds his dying uncle propped against a tree. Kenny muses that every person is a slave to something, whether drink, family, God, or dreams, and admits he was never fit to raise a child. He confirms he is Kuchel's older brother, hands Levi the Titan serum he lifted from Rod Reiss, and dies. Soon after, Historia is crowned queen, and honoring Dimo Reeves' old dare, she punches Levi in the shoulder. Instead of anger, he answers with a smile and gratitude toward his companions.

Uri Reiss spares Kenny after his failed assassination attempt, apologizes for the monarchy's persecution of the Ackerman clan, and gains him as a bodyguard. Kenny discovers Kuchel has died, raises Levi in the Underground without revealing their kinship, and eventually abandons him.

Uri explains that the Founding Titan's power and memories transfer to an heir, and Frieda Reiss inherits it by consuming him. Kenny, craving that power, becomes captain of the Anti-Personnel Control Squad; the squad is later annihilated when Rod Reiss's transformation brings the chapel cavern down.

Kenny dies after telling Levi the truth about his mother and passing him the stolen Titan injection. Historia Reiss is crowned queen of the Walls, fulfilling Erwin's plan, and lands her promised punch on Levi.

Hajime Isayama has named this chapter his second favorite piece of work in the entire series. A colored edition appeared in Japan in the first volume of Attack on Titan: Full Color Edition and in the United States in the first volume of The Best of Attack on Titan: In Color.

Although no character reads it aloud, the vial Kenny gives Levi is labeled in the Walls' katakana script as "Normal Titan" (Futsū no Kyojin). The chapter's material is adapted across the anime episodes "Ruler of the Walls" and "Friends". It shares its title with that anime episode, and follows "Ruler of the Walls" while leading into "A Dream I Once Had".