Squad Levi

The battered rescue force climbs back over the Wall. Connie and Historia collapse at the top, Mikasa's broken ribs have worsened from the ride, and Erwin abruptly loses consciousness in front of the alarmed soldiers. Surveying the carnage, Eren asks how many died to bring him back. Jean's answer is brutal: of the roughly one hundred who rode out, Military Police included, only around forty came home, and the Survey Corps lost nearly all of its remaining veterans. As Eren sinks into guilt, Armin raises a strange detail from the retreat: the pursuing Titans abandoned the soldiers entirely and swarmed Reiner instead, as though something commanded them. The group wonders aloud whether Eren himself was responsible. Encouraged by Jean, Eren recovers his determination, vowing to master that control, seal Wall Maria, and make the traitors answer for everything. Historia then approaches, corrects them on her true name, and proposes crossing to the far side of the Wall.

Later, Pixis briefs a recovering Erwin on the state of the interior. During the recent scare, the population sheltering underground would have exhausted its food within a week, meaning riots are a certainty if Wall Rose ever truly falls. Levi remarks on Erwin's severed arm, but the commander dismisses it as cheap payment against the soldiers his orders have buried, joking that he hopes to settle the balance in hell. Hange and Connie arrive with the Ragako findings: not one villager or corpse recovered, and the count of Titans found matches the count of missing residents. Connie breaks down after Hange points out how much the crippled Titan on his house resembled his mother's photograph. The implication follows that Pure Titans may simply be transformed humans, fused completely into the giant bodies, with the weak point at the nape concealing what remains of the person. Levi grasps the ugly corollary at once: he has been cutting down people all along. Erwin, by contrast, wears an unsettling smile. Levi then announces that his squad has been rebuilt around members of the 104th to guard both Eren and Historia.

At an isolated safehouse far from any settlement, the reconstituted squad falls into familiar bickering: Sasha teased over her potato incident, Eren nagging about dirty boots, Jean complaining. Watching them, Eren quietly remembers Petra, Oluo, Eld, and Gunther, the original squad that once filled this role.

The rescue operation's toll is tallied: over half the force killed and the Survey Corps stripped of most of its veteran strength.

Armin observes that the Titans inexplicably ignored the fleeing soldiers to attack Reiner, raising the possibility that Eren commanded them without knowing it.

Historia openly abandons the Krista Lenz identity and urges the group toward the far side of the Wall.

Hange's Ragako report supports the theory that Pure Titans are transformed humans, and Connie effectively learns his mother became the Titan on his house.

Levi rebuilds the Special Operations Squad from 104th survivors, tasked with protecting Eren and Historia.

The volume 13 release appends five extra pages in which Historia declares that the Krista persona, modeled on a girl from a half-remembered book, is gone for good.

Squad Levi opens volume 13 as the 51st chapter overall, with simultaneous Japanese and English release on November 9, 2013. It launches the Royal Government arc and was adapted across the anime episodes Scream and Smoke Signal.

The tankobon version expands the chapter with a redrawn page and an extended conversation in which Historia laughs off her old persona and vows never to forgive Ymir, an addition absent from the original magazine printing. The chapter sits between Scream and Krista Lenz.