Primitive Desire

With Titans converging on the dormant Eren, Armin fights to reach his friend's consciousness, invoking the dream that always drove him: the world beyond the Walls. When Armin asks why Eren ever wanted to see it despite the danger, Eren answers that being born into this world is reason enough, and his Titan's wounds begin knitting shut at remarkable speed. Across the city, Rico's retreat halts at the sight of Eren shouldering the boulder, and Ian orders every remaining soldier to shield him with their lives now that the mission has a real chance.

Mitabi's group deliberately draws Titan attention on foot, buying Eren room to move at the cost of their escape route. Crushed under the stone's weight, Eren spots Mikasa and Armin exposed on the ground and pushes forward, turning Armin's question over in his mind. He concludes that whoever witnesses the burning water and frozen lands of the outer world becomes the freest person alive, and for that dream he wills himself to keep fighting. The price mounts: Mitabi is caught, and a Titan bites through Ian. Rico saves Armin and Mikasa by blinding a Titan mid-swoop, and moments later Eren rams the boulder into the breach. Rico, weeping that no one died in vain, fires the yellow flare of success.

Pixis dispatches reinforcements at once. While Rico urges everyone up the Wall, Mikasa refuses to leave until Eren is out, and Armin struggles to tear him free of the steaming Titan flesh, feverish and half-fused. Rico cuts him loose, dropping Eren and Armin nearly into the grasp of two approaching Titans. A blur of movement fells both monsters before Mikasa can close the distance, and Eren opens his eyes to the Wings of Freedom on Captain Levi's back. With the Garrison engineers and the Scouts pouring in, Wall Rose is sealed, a first triumph bought at a staggering cost.

Armin successfully rouses Eren from the dormant state that had frozen his Titan, and Eren's motivation crystallizes around the idea of freedom rather than mere revenge. Squad leaders Mitabi Jarnach and Ian Dietrich both die protecting the boulder run.

Eren plugs the hole in Wall Rose, the first strategic victory humanity has ever taken from the Titans, confirmed by Rico's yellow flare. Levi makes his entrance by killing the two Titans threatening Eren, Armin, and Mikasa, heralding the Survey Corps' return from its expedition.

The chapter's title points to Eren's monologue about inborn freedom, delivered as he strains under the boulder: everyone enters the world free, and no one who denies that truth matters, however strong. A colored printing of the chapter appeared in Japan within the Attack on Titan: Full-Color Special Edition booklet.

The story adapts to the anime episode Primal Desire: The Struggle for Trost, Part 9 and opens volume 4, positioned between Wound and One by One in the Wall Sealing arc.