The Boy Inside the Walls

The Warriors reach the edge of Liberio, Gabi celebrating while Falco quietly studies Reiner. He cannot square the deputy chief's celebrated loyalty to Marley with the man's strange plea that Falco keep the Armored Titan's inheritance away from Gabi, and he starts to wonder whether Reiner can be trusted at all. Past the stares of disgusted Marleyan townsfolk, the unit enters the internment zone and scatters into family reunions: Zeke's grandparents beam over his accomplishments, and the Braun relatives shower Gabi with praise for the armored train she destroyed at Fort Slava. Falco slips away from his own family to help a wounded, traumatized veteran being herded toward a hospital, noticing the man wears his armband on the wrong arm.

At dinner, Karina Braun glows at the prospect of a second Warrior in the family and steers the conversation to the enemy island. Reiner obliges with caricatures of the people he lived among: a girl who stole a potato and tried bribing her instructor, an idiot, a hypocrite, an insufferably diligent jerk, a boy consumed by revenge, and the friends who followed that boy anywhere. He calls those years a nightmare for himself, Bertolt, and Annie, yet his word for the islanders is merely "different," a choice Gabi picks at until Karina recites the doctrine: everyone on Paradis is a devil who could unleash the Wall Titans on the world at any moment, and only Marley's good Eldians stand in the way.

Alone that night in his boyhood room, Reiner sinks into memory. His father was Marleyan, his mother Eldian, and the law kept them apart, so the boy chased Warrior candidacy as a path to honorary citizenship that could reunite them. His results were unremarkable; only his loyalty stood out. When Zeke announced that the operation against Paradis Island would begin within a few years and that six among the seven candidates would soon receive Titans, Reiner's excitement drew Porco Galliard's scorn and then his fists. Bertolt picked Reiner up afterward and asked whether trading all but thirteen years of his life was worth it. Reiner answered that he would die a hero who conquered the island devils and made his parents proud. Far across the ocean, a young Eren stares at the sky over Shiganshina, wishing for something interesting, as Armin walks up carrying a book.

The Warrior Unit returns to Liberio's internment zone and reunites with their families.

Falco begins doubting Reiner after his plea to spare Gabi from the Armored Titan, and unknowingly aids a disguised infiltrator wearing his armband backwards.

Reiner recounts a distorted, bitter version of his years among the 104th to his family.

Flashbacks reveal Reiner's Marleyan father, his motive for becoming a Warrior, and Porco Galliard's contempt for him as a candidate.

The chapter ends on the other side of the sea, with a young Eren and Armin before the fall of Wall Maria.

The Boy Inside the Walls is the final chapter of volume 23 and the 94th overall, created by Hajime Isayama. The Japanese release came on June 9, 2017, one day behind the English simulpub. It belongs to the Marley arc, bridging Midnight Train and Liar.

The anime spreads this material across the episodes Midnight Train and The Door of Hope.