The Easy Path

The chapter opens in memory. Reaching for a dropped teaspoon, Eren accidentally manifests a partial Titan arm, and in seconds Squad Levi has him ringed with blades, shouting contradictory demands while an ecstatic Hange sprints over begging to touch the steaming limb. The flesh burns Hange's hand; Eren yanks himself free as the arm evaporates, and the teaspoon turns up intact in the Titan hand's grip. Levi later walks Eren through his squadmates' records, explaining that soldiers with kill counts like theirs survived by treating every possible threat as real, however much the reaction cost them. Hange connects the dots between Eren's transformations: injury alone is never enough, each change came with a concrete goal in mind, whether shielding friends from a cannon blast or picking up a spoon. Before Eren can dwell on it, the squad members bite their own hands, mirroring his trigger as their apology, and Petra asks him to lean on the team the way they intend to lean on him.

Back in the Titan Forest, that memory settles the question tearing at Eren. He shouts to Levi that he will keep riding. Almost immediately the Female Titan cuts down another pursuing soldier and surges to full sprint, closing on the squad, and Eren's resolve wavers until he recalls the trust his old friends gave him and his desire to build the same with this team. Her hand is reaching down for him when she runs into the ambush: Erwin and rows of veterans hidden in the trees fire the special target restraining weapon, and hundreds of harpoon lines lock her in place with barely a heartbeat to cover her nape.

Levi sends his squad ahead to tether the horses and switch to maneuvering gear, leaving Eld in charge with orders to keep Eren hidden and away from the captive. Additional spikes are driven through the Titan's knees and ankles to guarantee she stays put. When Erwin congratulates Levi, the captain redirects the credit to the soldiers who died buying time, then perches above the pinned giant, taunting the human hiding inside and promising to slice the limbs off whoever it is and pull them out of the nape.

A flashback shows Eren's accidental partial transformation and Squad Levi's lethal first reaction.

Hange deduces that a clear objective, not mere self-injury, drives Eren's Titan transformations.

The squad members bite their own hands in apology, and Petra asks Eren for mutual trust.

Eren chooses not to transform in the Titan Forest, trusting his comrades instead.

Erwin's hidden trap immobilizes the Female Titan with hundreds of harpoons, and Levi prepares to extract the human inside her nape.

The Easy Path concludes volume 6 as its fourth chapter and the 26th overall, by Hajime Isayama. Japanese publication came on October 9, 2011, with the English edition on August 27, 2013. It belongs to The Female Titan arc, following Bite and leading into Erwin Smith.

The anime covers its events in Bite: The 57th Exterior Scouting Mission, Part 3.