Sunset

In Stohess District, Military Police units pull survivors from rubble left by the awakened Wall Titans, whose departing column is not hostile but has flattened everything in its path. Public opinion splits between those cursing Eren for the deaths and those calling them a necessary price. Sent to fetch reinforcements, Hitch Dreyse notices a wet trail leading from the basement and opens a door onto Annie Leonhart, who presses a bladed ring to her throat. Hitch throws her off, then realizes Annie has already wounded herself and could transform at will. The standoff dissolves into a bargain, and soon Hitch is saddling a horse to help her leave. On the ride out, Annie reveals she remained aware throughout her four years in the crystal, hearing Hitch's chatter and Armin's visits as if from a great distance, until Eren's voice pulled her out.

Annie then opens up about her past. Discarded as an infant because blood tests exposed her mother's affair with an Eldian, she was adopted by an Eldian man who trained her ruthlessly as his ticket to a better life. She eventually crippled him in retaliation, and he was pleased anyway, proof she could kill even barehanded. Nothing mattered to her after that until the morning the Warriors departed for Paradis, when her father broke down, admitted everything he taught her was wrong, and begged her only to come home. Annie tells Hitch her sins are beyond redemption, yet she would repeat every one of them to reach her father again. In Liberio, that same father stands at the head of the internment zone's Eldians, fighting back against Marleyan officers who dismiss his warnings about the Rumbling.

Shiganshina, meanwhile, sorts itself in the disaster's wake. Keith Shadis counsels the trainees to feign loyalty to the Yeagerists and wait for their moment. Armin, exhausted and snapping at Mikasa that Eren is beyond saving, rides off with Gabi to intercept Connie before Falco can be fed to his Titanized mother; he catches himself afterward, lamenting that Erwin should have been the one saved. Mikasa notices her scarf has vanished. Floch executes a defiant Anti-Marleyan Volunteer and imprisons the rest, declaring that Eren is erasing the world's threats while he erases resentment at home, and tells a hollowed-out Jean and Mikasa that Hange and Levi died at Zeke's hands. Outside the city, Pieck and Magath watch the Marleyan airships flee, and Hange approaches them unarmed, towing a sled that carries a companion described as a stubborn man who refuses to die.

Hitch discovers the freed Annie in the Stohess basement and, after a brief struggle, helps her escape the city on horseback.

Annie reveals she was conscious for her entire four years in the crystal and recounts her abandonment, her adoptive father's brutal training, and his final plea for her return.

Mr. Leonhart resists arrest in Liberio while trying to warn the authorities about the approaching Rumbling.

Armin departs with Gabi to stop Connie from sacrificing Falco, and Floch has the Anti-Marleyan Volunteers imprisoned after executing one.

Floch tells Mikasa and Jean that Zeke killed Hange and Levi; in truth Hange approaches Pieck and Magath in the wilderness with the gravely wounded Levi in tow.

Sunset is the third chapter of volume 31 and the 125th overall, released in Japan on January 9, 2020 with the English release a day earlier. It belongs to the War for Paradis arc and was adapted as the anime episode of the same name.

The chapter delivers the series' fullest account of Annie's backstory and motivations, nine years of publication after her debut. It bridges Thaw and Pride in the chapter order.