The instant Levi ripped the man out of the Beast Titan's nape, Rui and every Attack on Titan fan watching nearly exploded with excitement.
After everything that had happened, after so many deaths, victory finally seemed within reach.
Then, without warning, a grotesque, enormous creature burst through the curtain of smoke. Running on all fours, the Cart Titan lunged forward at terrifying speed and snatched the blond man from Levi's grasp with a single bite.
Rui froze.
Again.
"What the hell?!"
There was another Titan supporting the enemy?
His disbelief immediately turned into fury.
"Sora, you rotten old bastard! Have you completely lost your mind?!"
The Beast Titan had killed Erwin. He had slaughtered countless soldiers. Levi had finally captured him... and now that thing simply appeared and carried him away?
Was this seriously happening?
When the Survey Corps had captured the Female Titan, Annie had still possessed the ability to crystallize her body. Even after being defeated, no one had been able to break through that shell and drag her out.
But this time, they had actually gotten their hands on the Beast Titan!
Was there really no one who could stop him from escaping?
The Survey Corps had spent almost the entire day fighting. Hundreds of soldiers had died. Nearly all their resources had been exhausted. Erwin had sacrificed his own life to create a single opportunity.
And in the end...
All of it had only been enough to drive the Beast Titan away?
What kind of monster was that thing?
Rui had not even finished venting the rage building inside him when the anime shifted to the other side of the wall, where the battle against the Colossal Titan was still raging.
Armin noticed that Bertholdt's gigantic body was gradually growing thinner. After observing him carefully, he reached a conclusion: constantly releasing steam consumed an enormous amount of energy and body mass.
In other words, he could not keep doing it forever.
The problem was that the scalding steam made approaching him impossible. No one could get anywhere near the Colossal Titan.
But Armin had a plan.
He and Eren would deal with Bertholdt, while Mikasa and the others fought Reiner, who had just regained consciousness.
As the episode continued, a sense of tragedy slowly seeped into the story.
Nothing announced it directly. There was no melodramatic music demanding that the audience cry.
It was worse than that.
The feeling crept in quietly, hiding inside every pause, every look, every carefully chosen word.
[If the plan works... I might never get to see the ocean.]
Armin stood over Eren's unconscious Titan body.
Moments earlier, the Colossal Titan had sent him crashing down with a devastating kick. Now Eren was finally beginning to regain consciousness.
Armin leaned toward him.
[Eren, wake up!]
His voice carried a desperate urgency.
[We still have to see the ocean together!]
Rui's eyes began to burn.
The ocean.
Again, the ocean.
That seemingly simple promise had followed the two of them for years.
To anyone outside their world, it might have sounded ridiculous. It was only the ocean. An endless stretch of water. Something ordinary.
But to Eren and Armin, it had never been just a landscape.
What did the ocean truly mean to them?
On the other side of the battlefield, Mikasa and the few remaining soldiers of the Survey Corps fought Reiner.
Here, Armin and Eren stood against the Colossal Titan.
The two went over the final details of the plan. Rui could barely follow some of the terms Armin used. Endurance time. Surprise attack. Timing.
None of it mattered.
Because somehow...
That conversation did not feel like preparation for battle.
It felt like a farewell.
[Eren, I'll be fine.]
Armin smiled.
[We promised we'd see the ocean together, didn't we? When have I ever lied to you?]
With the same familiar expression he had always worn, Armin reassured him and solemnly promised that if he reached his limit, he would leave the battlefield on his own.
On the screen, Eren looked confused.
Uncertain.
But Rui's heartbeat began to accelerate.
That pacing.
That way of framing the conversation.
A promise spoken at a moment like this...
Wasn't this exactly how the worst tragedies always began?
Armin leaped from the wall.
At the same time, Eren appeared to lose the last of his strength and fell from the fifty-meter wall, crashing to the ground without moving, as though he no longer had the energy to continue fighting.
Bertholdt suspected nothing.
To him, the battle was already over.
[Enough. I'll end this now.]
The Colossal Titan raised an arm.
Then Armin roared and charged.
The cables of his omni-directional mobility gear shot forward, and the hooks embedded themselves directly into the Colossal Titan's face.
Bertholdt showed no mercy.
A wave of heat erupted.
Armin hung in the air, suspended by the cables, enduring the full force of the scalding steam.
Rui's eyes filled with tears again.
The colossal body remained motionless as it continued releasing heat. Armin could barely breathe. The gear strapped to his body began to overheat, scorching his skin.
The pain had to be indescribable.
And yet...
Armin did not retreat.
He must have already realized that he would not be able to hold on for as long as the plan required.
But instead of releasing the hooks...
He tightened his grip.
He clung to the Colossal Titan like a tiny boat caught in the heart of a violent storm, holding on to its final anchor while the waves threatened to tear it apart.
Then the soundtrack changed.
Bertholdt realized Armin was still there.
[I see.]
The intensity of the steam increased.
[Then I'll release you from this right now.]
The heat became even more brutal.
Armin's clothes began to burn.
His omni-directional mobility gear was melting.
[Hold on...]
The voice of Armin's seiyuu trembled.
[Don't let go... not yet!]
The performance struck Rui straight in the chest.
It was too cruel.
Even while being burned alive...
He still would not let go?
Even as his own body was being destroyed, Armin refused to abandon his position?
[My dream...]
The words escaped through the pain.
[My life...]
The flames grew stronger.
[Everything I have...]
His entire body was burning.
[I'll give it all up!]
Then came the final promise.
[Eren...]
[You have to make it there.]
[You have to reach the ocean... and see it for me.]
Armin screamed.
His equipment burst completely into flames, but his body remained attached to the Colossal Titan as the heat burned him into a blackened figure.
Rui could no longer look away.
What did the ocean mean to Eren and Armin?
His vision blurred.
"This..."
He struggled to breathe.
"Is this freedom?"
That scene completely destroyed the last of his emotional defenses.
What did it mean to be a friend?
What did it truly mean to sacrifice yourself for someone else?
Armin was not a commander. No one expected him to act like Erwin. No one would have condemned him for being afraid to die.
And yet...
At that moment, Armin made the exact same choice Erwin had.
Erwin had abandoned his dream of discovering the truth about the world.
Armin abandoned his dream of seeing the ocean.
Both of them surrendered the thing they desired most in order to create a chance for victory.
In midair, the cables holding Armin finally burned through.
His charred body was swept away by the wind.
But until the very end...
Until the final second in which his hands could still obey him...
Armin did not let go.
That night, millions of viewers across Japan watched the scene in silence.
Armin had refused to abandon his position even at the cost of his life because he knew that while the Colossal Titan was releasing steam, it could not move.
And there was more.
That ability consumed Bertholdt's strength rapidly.
The longer Armin endured, the more energy Bertholdt lost.
And the greater the chances that Eren's surprise attack would succeed.
By the time Bertholdt finally realized something was wrong, it was already too late.
The Eren lying on the ground...
The one who should have been unconscious...
Was no longer inside his Titan body.
The hardened shell had been left behind.
The real Eren had already escaped.
At the exact moment Rui least expected it, when Bertholdt had completely lowered his guard, Eren appeared using his omni-directional mobility gear.
The blade cut through the air.
Blood erupted.
The massive body of the Colossal Titan collapsed with a thunderous crash.
Eren pointed his sword at Bertholdt.
There was no triumph on his face.
Only grief.
On the ground, Armin's body lay motionless.
Burned.
Reduced almost to bone.
And yet...
There was still one faint, almost imperceptible sign of life.
After ripping Bertholdt from the Colossal Titan's nape, Eren walked over to Armin.
Then the ending credits began to roll.
Rui collapsed against the back of the sofa.
He took one tissue.
Then another.
Then another.
The tears would not stop running from the corners of his eyes.
The story...
It was too cruel.
"Sora, you rotten old bastard..."
His voice came out hoarse.
"What the hell are you doing now?"
Why did that man's stories always end up like this?
Why, every time the audience thought they had finally grown used to his cruelty...
Did he find the exact place where it hurt the most?
That night, the entire Japanese anime industry erupted.
"INSANE! Now that's a true protagonist!"
"Forget Eren! The real heroes are Erwin, Armin, and every soldier who sacrificed their life!"
"The first half of the episode, with Levi tearing apart the Beast Titan, almost made me jump out of my chair. Then the second half came, with Armin sacrificing himself... I'm a grown man, and I ended up crying!"
"Armin, rest in peace. Commander Erwin... you too."
"I can't stop crying! Does that bastard Sora have no heart?! How could he do this?!"
"Enough! We can't send Eren, the protagonist, on a suicide mission too! Armin's sacrifice was already more than enough!"
"Unbelievable! I'm officially declaring it: this is the greatest television arc of Sora's entire career as an anime Kantoku!"
"I finished the episode and felt completely hollow. Armin didn't deserve this..."
"That old thief's character writing is terrifying! I always thought Armin was a coward. Smart, sure, but without the courage needed to lead. Today... I realized how wrong I was."
"My God! My God! My God! One of the most powerful episodes in modern Japanese animation has just been born!"
Week after week, whenever an episode of Attack on Titan ended, someone online would inevitably complain.
They said the narrative was too fragmented. That there were too many characters. That Eren's role as the protagonist was too weak. That Sora was taking the story in a strange direction.
But that night...
No one talked about any of it.
Across forums, social media, and fan communities, almost every discussion revolved around two people.
Erwin.
And Armin.
Armin had given up everything.
And his dream had never been grand.
He did not want to rule anyone. He did not want wealth. He did not desire power.
He only wanted to see the ocean.
A small wish.
A simple dream.
But at the end of that battle, Armin entrusted that dream to Eren.
He asked his friend to reach the ocean in his place.
Then he chose to die in the flames.
The episode had been so powerful that it seemed to transcend the limits of ordinary television animation.
In that moment, Armin's character arc struck millions of anime fans across Japan with almost unbearable force.
All because of a wish so small.
To see the ocean.
In any other world, it would have been something ordinary.
But in that story...
It was a dream for which people had to offer their lives.
Every viewer interpreted the scene differently. Every person found a different kind of pain inside it.
But one question remained in everyone's heart.
The freedom Eren desired so desperately...
How much more would have to be sacrificed before he could finally reach it?