Sneak Attack (Chapter)

From atop the Wall, Zeke Yeager rains boulders on the Marleyan airships, sending one after another down in flames while Yelena watches in rapture. His barrage drives Pieck off the Wall's edge, and though she counsels retreat, General Magath insists on personally judging the traitor. Floch's Yeagerists arrive and fan out to flank the Marleyans. Below, Porco Galliard nurses the damage the Attack Titan dealt him, Reiner lies senseless inside his Titan's mangled shell, and Eren keeps climbing toward his brother.

Onyankopon unlocks the imprisoned Survey Corps veterans and pleads with them to help Eren. Connie throttles him in fury until Armin intervenes and accepts that Onyankopon knew nothing of the wine plot. Armin then reasons out Eren's real motive: the euthanasia plan never sounded like Eren, and siding with Zeke was the price of triggering the Rumbling, waking the Wall Titans to crush the world's armies and buy Paradis half a century of safety. Jean and Connie agree to fight, the prisoners are freed, and Pixis assigns equipment by armband while Mikasa quietly folds the scarf Eren gave her and leaves it behind.

Nile hands Falco over to Colt and Gabi, who shelter in an abandoned house. Gabi, having witnessed ordinary kindness across Paradis, finally understands what changed Reiner: the island's Eldians are no different from Liberio's. Falco confesses his feelings to Gabi along with his real reason for pursuing the Warrior program, and Colt hopes Zeke will hold back his scream once he knows Falco drank the spinal fluid. On the Wall, Zeke spots the charred husk of the Cart Titan too late to realize the deception. The Titan artillery mounted on the living Pieck fires on Magath's order, tearing through the Beast Titan's shoulder and nape and dropping Zeke off the Wall, while Magath frets that a surviving Zeke could still scream.

Zeke's bombardment destroys most of Marley's airship force while Yeagerist reinforcements under Floch flank the Marleyan ground troops.

Onyankopon frees the jailed Survey Corps soldiers, and Armin deduces the Rumbling is Eren's true plan to shield Paradis for decades.

Mikasa leaves Eren's scarf behind before gearing up, and Falco admits both his role in the Liberio raid and his feelings for Gabi.

Pieck, believed dead, ambushes Zeke with the Titan-mounted artillery; Magath's shot guts the Beast Titan's nape and sends Zeke plummeting.

The Japanese title, 騙し討ち (Damashi uchi), describes a treacherous or deceptive strike, fitting both Pieck's faked death and the chapter-ending cannon ambush.

The anime splits this chapter's content across the episodes Judgment and Sneak Attack.

The chapter's epigraph is Onyankopon's protest that the volunteers acted for the island's people because they believed in its future, with children as that future, a direct denial of Zeke's euthanization plan.