Too Little, Too Late

From a hiding spot inside a building, Commander Magath phones for an entire army division and the offshore fleet to seal the internment zone, insisting that none of the invaders from Paradis escape, above all the Founding Titan's holder. He muses that Willy Tybur's design has worked: the massacre of visiting officials has united the world's powers against the Eldian Empire, dooming the attackers. Yet the enemy must already know that, and as Magath puzzles over their real plan, a bomb sails through the window and detonates.

The Survey Corps sweeps the rooftops, answering rifle fire with pistols built into their anti-personnel vertical maneuvering gear. When Jean sees a second building explode, he confronts Floch about limiting civilian deaths, but Floch counters that everyone in the internment zone is an enemy who cheered the deaths of the Walls' people, calling Eren's ruthlessness the model to follow. Atop the headless Attack Titan, Mikasa presses Eren on whether he understands that children died in his rampage. He never answers; the War Hammer Titan is rising again despite its ruined nape. It launches a hardened pike that Mikasa and Eren barely escape, and Eren proposes a plan to disable and devour it, asking her to keep it occupied.

At a hospital, a doctor turns Colt away, telling him every bed is taken and Udo is beyond saving. Colt lays the body down and urges Gabi to shelter with her family while he searches for Falco, but she refuses, unable to accept why Udo and Zofia died, and sprints toward the fighting. At a checkpoint, guards deny her a ride with the reinforcements moments before the Corps hits the convoy with bombs and gunfire. A sniper round kills the guard shielding her, and Gabi spots the shooter, Sasha Blouse, on a rooftop. After Sasha reminds Connie to set his signal lamp, the pair withdraws, and Gabi picks up a dead soldier's rifle. Regrouping, Jean's squads confirm the reinforcements are stopped, the streets blocked, and the lamps placed; everything now hinges on disabling the War Hammer in time.

Recalling that the War Hammer's body formed from the feet upward, Eren deduces its operator never left the ground where it first appeared. Transformed once more, he finds a fleshy cable running from a hole in the street to the Titan's left heel and hauls up the crystal-encased Lara Tybur, severing the link and dropping the giant lifeless. As he raises the crystal to his jaws, Galliard's Jaw Titan clamps onto his nape from behind. Levi slashes the jaw joint before it can bite through, and after Eren slams him into a building, Galliard flees, recognizing an Ackerman, only for Mikasa's Thunder Spears to knock him from a wall into a ring of Corps soldiers. Fire from the Panzer Unit on Pieck's Cart Titan scatters them, and in the confusion Lara Tybur regrows her cable, rebuilding the War Hammer Titan and impaling the Attack Titan inside a tree-like lattice of hardened material. Zeke's Beast Titan arrives, Gabi charges toward Eren swearing to kill him, and as Zeke commands his Warriors to wipe out every invader, Levi gives the Corps a single order: survive.

The Survey Corps bombs the building sheltering Magath and destroys Marley's incoming reinforcements.

Jean and Floch clash over civilian casualties, and Mikasa confronts Eren about the children killed in his attack.

Gabi defies Colt after Udo's death is confirmed and arms herself with a fallen guard's rifle after witnessing Sasha's sniping.

Eren discovers Lara Tybur controlling the War Hammer Titan from underground through a cable and severs the connection, though she later restores it and traps the Attack Titan.

Galliard's Jaw Titan ambush is foiled by Levi and Mikasa, and the chapter closes with Zeke's Beast Titan ordering annihilation while Levi orders the Corps to survive.

Too Little, Too Late closes volume 25 as its fourth chapter and is the 102nd chapter overall, drawn and scripted by Hajime Isayama during the Marley arc. It was released in Japan on February 9, 2018, one day after the English edition. The anime spreads its events across the episodes The War Hammer Titan and Assault. It follows The War Hammer Titan and precedes Assault.

The Japanese title, ato no matsuri, translates literally as after the festival, an idiom for arriving too late, comparable to the English phrase late to the party.