Ruler of the Walls

Under the cover story of a practice drill, the Garrison moves Orvud's citizens out while skeptics grumble that the military is flexing its new authority after the coup. A wall of steam announces Rod Reiss's approach, and the district's cannons open up to no effect: every wound closes as the giant crawls onward, and Erwin notes that these northern troops, stationed in the safest region of Wall Sheena, lack the front-line experience to hit a nape at such an angle. Hange delivers the counterweapon, gunpowder in barrels and netting, plus spiked wheelbarrows rigged like oversized maneuvering gear.

Erwin urges Historia to withdraw for the monarchy's sake, but she challenges the idea that people would follow a queen who exists in name alone and takes her place in the battle line. Eren, watching, measures her resolve against his own self-pity, remembering the soldiers who died for him and the mother he lost, and strikes himself across the face in frustration. When the Titan reaches the Wall, shifting wind blankets the defenders in scalding steam, and by the time it clears Rod is already hauling his deformed bulk upright, taller than the fortification itself. Civilians and Garrison troops alike flee, leaving Squad Levi, drenched in water against the heat, to execute Erwin's plan.

The wheelbarrow charges detonate against the Titan's superheated palms, costing it its balance. Eren transforms atop the Wall and hurls the net of gunpowder barrels into Rod's exposed mouth, which is possible only because dragging his face along the ground had already worn it open, exactly as Erwin predicted. The head detonates into scattered chunks, and the squad takes wing to slice each falling piece in search of the true body. Historia finds it. As her blades pass through her father's nape, fragments of his memory wash over her: a young Rod demanding his father use the Coordinate against the Titans, Uri and Frieda vowing to save humanity, and Rod on his knees before her mother Alma. She wakes on a cart ringed by townspeople who saw her strike the killing blow but cannot place her face. Rising, she gives them her name, Historia Reiss, and declares herself the Walls' rightful ruler.

Conventional artillery proves worthless against Rod Reiss's regenerating Titan, forcing the battle onto Erwin's improvised gunpowder plan. Historia overrides Erwin's protection order, arguing that a figurehead queen would command no one's loyalty, and fights alongside Squad Levi.

Eren's Titan delivers the explosive payload into Rod's mouth, blowing the head apart, and Historia herself severs the nape, killing her father and glimpsing his memories of Uri, Frieda, and Alma. She then announces her identity and her claim to the throne before the citizens of Orvud.

Erwin's plan hinges on two physical quirks of Rod's Titan: body heat extreme enough to detonate gunpowder on contact, and a face scraped away by friction from crawling, leaving the mouth as the sole vulnerable opening. The three children watching from Orvud mirror Eren, Mikasa, and Armin at Shiganshina five years earlier, a parallel Eren himself draws before Armin counters that this time soldiers stand ready to fight.

The memories Historia inherits at the moment of the kill supply the Reiss family's backstory in miniature. The chapter adapts to the anime episode Ruler of the Walls and runs between Outside the Walls of Orvud District and Friends in the Royal Government arc.