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Gallows rise in Mitras as rumor spreads that Erwin Smith will hang and the Survey Corps disband. Kneeling bound before the Assembly, Erwin argues that humanity's survival depends on a spear as well as a shield: should Wall Rose ever fail, refugees packed into Wall Sheena's thin resources would guarantee civil war. The nobles deflect, citing Levi's killings of Interior Squad men as proof of the branch's treason, and needle Pixis about Garrison loyalties. Pixis brushes off any thought of rebellion, observing that humans warring on humans would simply hand victory to the Titans. A flashback shows him earlier declining Erwin's revolutionary pitch, reasoning that a successful coup would still lose the crown's hidden knowledge, from the Titans inside the Walls to the power over memory.

As Erwin is led toward execution, a Garrison messenger bursts in: the Armored and Colossus Titans have smashed the gates of Wall Rose. Pixis moves to organize evacuation into the interior, but an assemblyman overrules him, ordering every gate of Wall Sheena sealed against the refugees. Nile Dok, whose own family lives in the threatened territory, protests that the order condemns half of the surviving human race, and when the Assembly holds firm, he refuses to comply. At that moment Darius Zackly enters with armed soldiers and reveals the truth: no breach occurred. The report was theater staged by Pixis to test how the rulers would act with millions of lives on the scale. Having chosen self-preservation, the nobles are arrested, their downfall cushioned by the Berg Newspaper's exposure of Interior corruption. The dozing figurehead king is shaken awake to witness it. Erwin, freed, warns Nile that humanity now walks an even more dangerous road.

In the forest, Hange arrives with Marlowe and Hitch to tell Levi's squad the coup succeeded and their fabricated crimes are dissolved, crediting citizens like the Reeves Company and the newspaper as much as the military. Levi cuts the celebration short: Kenny Ackerman still holds Eren and Historia. Hange produces a letter hinting at the captives' location, trap or not, and the squad accepts the risk. Elsewhere, Kenny idles with his knife while Rod Reiss speaks with Historia before a chained, half-stripped Eren.

Pixis's false-breach gambit forces the Assembly to reveal it would sacrifice the population of Wall Rose to protect the interior, and Nile Dok breaks with the government rather than enforce the order. Darius Zackly arrests the nobility, completing a bloodless coup, while press coverage of Interior Squad corruption keeps the public from turning on the military.

The Survey Corps is cleared of all charges. Armed with a letter pointing to a possible location, Levi's squad sets out to recover Eren and Historia, who remain prisoners of Kenny and Rod Reiss beneath the Reiss chapel.

An assemblyman's remark about waiting a few days to obtain something alludes to the Founding Titan, hinting the government expected to reclaim Eren's power imminently. The chapter ran under the title Finale (Shūmaku) in its pre-volume magazine printing.

In the anime adaptation, the false report names Karanes District instead of Stohess as a breached gate, an apparent correction since Stohess belongs to Wall Sheena and its fall would have implied two Walls lost at once. The chapter adapts to the episode Reply and sits between Trust and Sin in the Royal Government arc.