The Nameless Soldiers

Eren's Titan lies broken atop Wall Maria where the Colossus Titan's kick deposited it, and Jean has to insist he is alive before anyone refocuses on Bertolt's advance. Jean, Connie, and Sasha bait the Colossus with taunts so Mikasa can plant Thunder Spears in his nape, but Bertolt reads the obvious ploy and vents a massive blast of scalding steam. The spears deflect, grappling hooks tear loose, and everyone is hurled back with burns; shrapnel opens Mikasa's arm. When she asks Armin for a counterattack, he has nothing. Behind them, a fresh sound turns their blood cold: the Armored Titan, fully healed, is on its feet again.

On the other side of the Wall, Zeke's boulder barrage steadily pulverizes the survivors' cover. Levi presses Erwin to sound the retreat while Eren can still carry the wounded, and offers to face the Beast Titan alone. Erwin instead reveals a final plan he has kept quiet because it spends every recruit's life along with his own. Around them the rookies are unraveling; Marlowe tries to calm a young soldier raging that horses are pointless for men already dead. Erwin, watching them, quietly admits the truth he has hidden for decades: everything he has done was in service of reaching Eren's basement and answering the questions born the day his father died, and now he must die one step short of it. He asks Levi whether he too can see the dead soldiers watching, waiting to learn what their devoted hearts purchased. Levi's answer is an order dressed as a promise: give up on the dream, take the recruits into hell, and leave the Beast Titan to him.

The plan unfolds as a naked frontal charge. Erwin lines up the recruits, telling them their signal flares, fired in constant volleys, will blind Zeke's aim while Levi uses the ring of Titans surrounding the Beast as anchor points for his gear. One recruit challenges the point of a meaningless death, and Erwin agrees that dying feels the same either way, then argues that meaning is not something the dead carry but something the living confer, each generation giving significance to the fallen before it. Zeke, entertained that the Survey Corps' answer is a straight cavalry charge, crushes another boulder and hurls the fragments. As the debris shreds horses and riders, Erwin keeps roaring his soldiers forward, commanding them to rage, to scream, and to fight, until the stones tear through him and the charge alike, while Levi cuts his way through the Titan line, apologizing silently to the dying decoys.

Bertolt's steam burst neutralizes the Thunder Spear ambush and injures the Special Operations Squad, and the Armored Titan recovers and rises.

Erwin reveals his final stratagem, a decoy charge that will consume the recruits and himself.

Erwin confesses that his life's true goal has always been the answers waiting in Eren's basement.

Levi persuades Erwin to surrender his dream, lead the charge, and entrust the Beast Titan's death to him.

Zeke's projectile barrage annihilates the charging soldiers, striking Erwin down as Levi closes in through the Titan ranks.

The Nameless Soldiers is the second chapter of volume 20 and the 80th overall, by Hajime Isayama. Its Japanese release on April 9, 2016 came one day after the English simulpub, and it originally ran under the title The Unknown Soldiers. It belongs to the Return to Shiganshina arc, between Perfect Game and Promise, and the anime adapts it in the episode Perfect Game.

Among the dead comrades Erwin envisions, Isabel Magnolia and Furlan Church make their first appearance in the main manga. Fans have also noted that one Titan Levi kills on his approach to the Beast strongly resembles Marina Inoue, Armin's voice actress in the anime.