The Wings of Freedom (Chapter)

The alliance reaches Odiha and finds the city empty. Hange asks the Azumabito engineers whether the flying boat can be readied before the Rumbling crosses the mountains, and Kiyomi vows it will happen, begging Hange in turn to save Hizuru. The group hauls the craft into a hangar, where Armin suggests keeping the explosives rigged to it rather than discarding them. Pieck tries to comfort Falco, who is reeling from Magath's death and Liberio's destruction, but when he asks what they should do now, she can only admit she has no answer. Most of Marley has already been flattened.

Annie tells Mikasa she is finished fighting. Persecuted her whole life as a Marleyan Eldian, she cannot grasp the point of saving the humanity that tormented her people, and with Marley gone there will be no one left to shield Eldians even if the Rumbling stops. Mikasa notices Annie glance at Armin as she talks about wanting a peaceful life, teases her gently, then tells her Armin is boarding the flying boat regardless. Annie asks whether they plan to kill Eren; Mikasa insists she is going to bring him home instead. Annie also observes that Mikasa has stopped wearing her scarf, and Mikasa replies that she keeps it but chooses not to wear it for now.

Yelena, recovered from her fever, recounts warning Eren that the flying boat research facility at Fort Salta worried her more than the Global Allied Fleet, and predicts he will strike there next. She presses the group to concede that Zeke's euthanasia plan had merit, and Hange does, noting that Eren offered no future at all. Pieck arranges for Kiyomi to keep Gabi and Falco locked aboard the ship until departure, feeling she owes a debt to her dead comrades. During the equipment inspection, Levi grips his blades with a maimed, trembling hand and insists two fingers are enough. Reiner apologizes to Annie for forcing the mission forward when they were children, admitting a retreat might have let her and Bertolt see their families again; she confesses how often she nearly tried to kill him, and they embrace before she departs to watch over the younger Warriors.

As fueling begins, Floch staggers into the hangar, having clung to the ship since Paradis, and puts several bullets into the fuel tank; Mikasa kills him with a fired anchor to the throat. Repairs will take an hour, and the ground is already shaking. Dying, Floch begs them to abandon the pursuit lest everyone on the island die. Armin volunteers to hold off the Wall Titans, Reiner overrules him as too vital, and Hange overrules them both, refusing to spend any more Titan power and claiming the duty as the one who led them there. Hange names Armin the Survey Corps' 15th commander for his relentless drive to understand, then tells Levi to let go so the exit can look cool. Levi presses a fist to Hange's chest and, for the first time, tells them to dedicate their heart.

Hange downs Titan after Titan with blades and Thunder Spears, cloak igniting in the searing heat, and buys enough time for the flying boat to launch from the water. Levi offers a quiet farewell as Hange falls. Waking in a Wall Titan's footprint, Hange is greeted by Erwin and the assembled dead of the Survey Corps, and chides him for the trouble that came with being named commander. Erwin allows that it must have been difficult, and says they are ready to hear all about it.

The alliance reaches the abandoned port of Odiha and begins repairing and fueling the flying boat as the Rumbling closes in.

Annie withdraws from the fight, choosing to stay behind with Gabi and Falco, and shares a reconciliation and embrace with Reiner.

Yelena identifies Fort Salta, where Marley researches flying boats, as Eren's probable next target.

Floch riddles the fuel tank with bullets and dies at Mikasa's hand; his last words urge the group to abandon the mission for Paradis' sake.

Hange appoints Armin as the 15th Survey Corps commander, stays behind to slow the Wall Titans, and dies buying the flying boat time, awakening among the Corps' fallen with Erwin waiting.

The Wings of Freedom is the second chapter of volume 33 and the 132nd overall, from the pen of Hajime Isayama within the War for Paradis arc. Japan received it on September 9, 2020, one day after the September 8 English release. The anime adapts it within THE FINAL CHAPTERS Special 1, in the segment sharing the chapter's name.

It follows The Rumbling and precedes Sinners. A colored edition later appeared in Japan within the fourth Full Color Edition volume, and American readers got it in the second volume of The Best of Attack on Titan: In Color. The moment Levi tells Hange to devote their heart marks the only time he speaks the salute to them.