Response

A stopgap invention from the technological squad, a harpoon-studded net stretched across the breach, is holding the Titans out of Trost for the moment. Watching the snared Titans, Captain Hannes frets over what could go wrong, then reassures a subordinate that Eren, Mikasa, and Armin are talented enough to still be alive on the front lines. Atop the Wall, the surviving trainees regroup. Word of recent events spreads through Connie while Jean deflects questions about Mikasa. One shattered trainee, Daz, tries to end his own life rather than face the Titans again, stopped only by Marco, and even Sasha asks to be listed among the wounded.

Cannon fire suddenly booms from inside the Wall. Reiner spots what looks like Titan vapor, and he climbs over with Annie, Jean, and others to investigate. They find a skeletal Titan torso with Armin and Mikasa sheltered unharmed inside its hollow abdomen. Eren pulls himself from its nape, one arm briefly fused into the flesh, having unconsciously conjured the half-formed body to block a shell fired on Captain Kitz Weilman's order. Knowing the corpse will soon boil away, Eren tells his friends he means to leave, drawn by his father's promise that the basement in Shiganshina holds the answers. Mikasa demands to come along, and their argument ends when Eren proposes a second path: Armin will decide for all of them, provided he can convince the military that Eren poses no threat. Both friends confess they have always trusted Armin's judgment in a crisis, and Armin, realizing they never once looked down on him, vows to win the argument or die in the attempt.

Stepping out of the steam with his hands raised, Armin offers the Garrison everything they have learned. Weilman, convinced he faces Titans wearing human skin, readies another volley. Armin answers with a soldier's salute, declaring himself ready to die so long as his death advances humanity's restoration, and though some soldiers waver, Weilman's hand still rises to signal fire. Commander Dot Pixis halts the order at the last instant, moved by Armin's conviction and ready to hear the trio out.

The harpoon net temporarily plugs the hole in Wall Rose, stabilizing the Trost front. Eren's partial transformation, an empty ribcage and torso raised in an instant, shields Armin and Mikasa from a direct cannon shell and publicly confirms his shifting power to the Garrison.

Eren abandons his plan to flee to the basement alone, wagering his future on Armin instead. Armin's impassioned salute stalls Captain Weilman's execution order long enough for Commander Pixis to arrive and take charge, opening the door to Eren's use as humanity's asset.

Daz's attempted suicide and Sasha's plea to be counted out illustrate how completely Trost has broken the trainees' morale, giving weight to Hannes's forced optimism. Armin's inner monologue about his childhood debts to Eren and Mikasa reframes the salute as repayment, the moment he stops seeing himself as their burden.

The chapter spans two anime episodes, Whereabouts of His Left Arm: The Struggle for Trost, Part 5 and Response: The Struggle for Trost, Part 6. It falls between Where's the Left Arm? and Icon in the Wall Sealing arc.