Small Blade

Trapped trainees pile furniture against the doors of an upstairs room in headquarters while Titans press against the windows outside. When a giant arm smashes through the wall, one soldier chooses a bullet over being eaten. On a rooftop nearby, Mikasa Ackerman joins Connie, Jean, and the others, all of them nearly out of gas for their vertical maneuvering equipment. Jean explains that the resupply failed because the terrified supply crew barricaded themselves inside the depot. Connie argues for spending their last gas fighting; Jean doubts their numbers could matter.

Mikasa searches for Eren's squad and is pointed to Armin, who cannot meet her eyes. Sobbing, he lists the dead of his entire team and finishes with Eren's name. Mikasa shows no visible reaction. She comforts Armin, then repeats the lesson Eren once gave her: those who want to live must fight. Shaming the group out of its paralysis, she launches alone toward headquarters, and one by one the others follow. Armin suspects she is not thinking clearly at all, only moving so the grief cannot catch her.

Her gas gives out mid-flight and she crashes onto a cloth awning. Grounded, with two Titans converging, she reflects that her life has been good and prepares to die. The memory of Eren saving her as a child, and his demand that she fight, pulls her back to her feet. As she braces to strike the Titan ahead, the one behind her instead drives its fist through the other's face. Mikasa stares in disbelief at a Titan attacking its own species.

The trainees stranded on the rooftops learn the gas shortage stems from supply staff hiding inside headquarters, leaving escape over the walls impossible.

Armin tearfully reports the deaths of his whole squad, including Eren, to Mikasa and the assembled trainees.

Mikasa spurs the survivors into a push for headquarters, cutting down Titans until her gas runs out.

On the verge of surrendering to death, Mikasa recovers her will to fight, and a mysterious Titan intervenes by pummeling the Titan attacking her.

Mikasa's line about the world being cruel and yet beautiful debuts here and becomes one of the series' signature quotes.

The chapter title doubles as a Mikasa mission name in the game Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains.

The Japanese title is 小さな刃 (Chīsana Yaiba). The anime adapts the chapter as Small Blade: The Struggle for Trost, Part 3, and the rogue Titan's identity is revealed in the following chapters.