The week between Episode Four and Episode Five was the longest the forums had sustained at that volume without a new episode to redirect the energy.
The thread for Episode Four had not stopped growing. People kept returning to the last thirty seconds. The dark cellar. The voice. Reiner's face when the name landed.
Episode Five aired on a Wednesday.
The episode was titled Declaration of War.
It opened on Reiner's voice.
Not the present.
"I keep having the same dream. I dream about the guy who hung himself in the fields. Why did he tell us that story right before he hung himself?"
"Obviously, that's something we'll never know."
"I bet he wanted someone to forgive him."
"Considering we left Marcel and ran, it's not like we can say much."
A pause.
"For some reason, I can't help but think... that old man, I think what he wanted... was to be judged by someone."
Then the episode picked up exactly where it had ended. The cellar. The dark. The two of them.
"Hey. It's been four years, Reiner."
Falco did not understand what was happening. He tried to leave. Eren told him to stay and listen. Reiner told him to do as Eren said. Falco sat.
Above them, Willy Tybur was preparing to take the stage. The building directly above the cellar was full of people. Every diplomat, every military officer, every foreign ambassador Marley had assembled for this moment. The entire backbone of Marley's power structure, gathered in one place to hear the Tybur family speak.
Eren told Reiner they had good seats.
They would be able to hear everything from the stage above.
Willy Tybur's speech began.
He told the assembled world the history they all knew. The part that had been written in every schoolbook across every nation that Marley's empire touched.
"Roughly 100 years ago, the Eldian Empire ruled the world with the Power of the Titans. From the rise of Founder Ymir until today, Titans have robbed enough lives to eradicate humanity three times over.
Countless cultures and peoples have been wiped out by Titans, their histories stolen away. The Eldian Empire's path of slaughter became humanity's history. And when the Eldian Empire ran out of enemies, they soon began slaughtering one another.
The Great Titan War had begun. Families holding the eight Titans waged a bloody war. Using this to his advantage, one Marleyan sought victory. It was the hero, Helos. Thanks to his clever manipulations, the Eldian Empire was tricked into killing each other, one by one. By joining hands with the Tybur family, they forced the unbeatable King Fritz to flee and retreat to the island."
"However, though he fled to Paradis Island, his power still remained. Tens of millions of Titans await on the island to trample the world. To this day, the only reason we haven't been trampled is merely a fluke.
Our scholars have no other explanation. To eliminate this threat, our motherland Marley sent four Titans to the island, but they were beaten back and only the Armored Titan returned. The darkest blot on humanity's history, the Eldian Empire, is alive and well."
The crowd was silent. Every diplomat, every general, every newspaper correspondent in the world that mattered, listening.
Then Willy said the thing that changed everything.
"Now then, the story I've told thus far is common knowledge. However, the truth is somewhat different."
A breath.
"In passing down the War Hammer Titan, the Tybur family inherited its memories. I will now reveal the truths we learned for the first time ever."
"Some 100 years ago, it was neither Helos nor the Tyburs who ended the Great Titan War. The one who ended the fighting and saved the world... was King Fritz."
"He anguished over the Eldian Empire's vicious history, tired from the endless infighting, and above all, he was pained by the endless oppression of Marley. When he inherited the Founding Titan, he schemed with the Tybur family and they fabricated a Marleyan hero. His name: Helos."
The statue. The beautiful empty statue Magath had called hollow inside. Helos had never existed. The man who had supposedly defeated the Eldian King had been invented by the Eldian King himself.
"The King moved as many Eldians as he could to the island and closed the gates. He claimed that if they were threatened, thousands of Titans would be unleashed as revenge. However, this was never his intention. King Fritz made a vow renouncing war so his ideology would be inherited. Because of this, Karl Fritz's ideology has been passed down, and the Titans have never left the island to attack. That is, the one keeping our world safe is the 'vile' King of the walls... Karl Fritz, and his desire for peace."
"Peace was all he wanted. But if Marley grew strong and came to take the Founding Titan or his life, he would accept it. He believed the sins of the Eldians were so grave, they could never be atoned for."
He quoted King Fritz's last request directly.
"'However, until that day of retribution, let me savor a brief paradise, free of conflict within the walls. That is all I ask of you.' That was his last request."
The crowd was trying to process what they had just been told. Around the festival grounds, voices broke the silence in fragments.
What does this mean? If this is true... Marley and the Tyburs saving the world was made up by King Fritz? If the King of the walls won't attack, why do they say Paradis Island is a threat?
Willy answered before they could finish asking.
"Yes... In exchange for our safety, the Tybur family joined hands with Karl Fritz and sold out the Eldians to Marley. We're no more than traitors lavishing in crookedly earned honor."
He did not flinch from it. He said it in front of every camera and correspondent in the assembled world and did not lower his voice.
"The reason that I stand here and willingly part with this sham is because I know our world is in great peril."
Below, in the cellar, Eren had heard every word.
He was quiet for a moment. Then he turned to Reiner.
"You hear that, Reiner? Isn't that why you destroyed the wall? You guys were trying to save the world. Weren't you?"
Above ground, Pieck and Galliard had been called to a separate location by a soldier claiming Commander Magath had summoned them. They followed. They went through a door.
The floor gave way beneath them.
They dropped into a pit. Too narrow to transform. Too cramped for even one of them to shift into Titan form without being crushed to death by the walls on either side.
Galliard, from the bottom of the pit: "It's a classic trap. Too cramped for one of us to transform, let alone two."
Pieck: "Yeah, we'd be squashed to death. Why'd that scrawny soldier even do it?"
"I don't know, but I feel like I've seen them before."
Above them, through the pit opening, the soldier who had led them here looked down.
"Stand there and watch. This is my atonement."
The Survey Corps had neutralised two of Marley's Titan shifters before the operation even began.
Willy continued above the festival.
"Using the power of the Founding Titan, Karl Fritz erected three walls. These walls, formed by tens of millions of Colossal Titans, have served as a shield and spear, safeguarding peace.
But recently, an uprising took place on Paradis Island. King Fritz's peace was undermined by a person who stole the Founding Titan. Once again, there's a threat to our world... a rebel against peace!"
He let his voice carry across the entire festival ground.
"His name: Eren Jaeger!"
In the cellar, Falco turned to Eren with the specific look of someone who had just understood something terrible.
The letters. The ones he had mailed every week, thinking he was helping a sick man reach his family.
"I'm sorry, Falco. I needed your help."
"The letters! The ones you had me send! What were they?!"
"They didn't reach my family, but they did reach my comrades."
Falco stared at him. He had been walking out through the gate with Survey Corps intelligence communications in his hand every week for months.
Eren turned back to Reiner.
"It's like Willy says... I'm the bad guy. I might just destroy the world."
A pause.
"But to me, you were the bad guys, too. That day, when the wall was destroyed and Titans invaded my hometown, I watched my mom get eaten. I couldn't understand. Why, Reiner? Why was my mom eaten by a Titan?"
"Because... on that day, we broke the wall."
"Why did you break the wall?"
"To sneak in during the chaos and see how the King would react."
"What was your mission?"
"To retake the Founding Titan and save the world."
Eren looked at him for a long moment.
"I see... If it was to save the world, you didn't have much choice."
Then:
"Back then, you told me: 'I'll make you guys suffer and die in the worst way possible.' Isn't that why you came?"
Reiner said he vaguely remembered saying that. Eren told him to forget it.
"True, I saw everyone on the other side of the sea as my enemy. But then, I crossed the sea, slept under the same roof as them, ate the same food..."
"Reiner, I'm the same as you. Sure, there are jerks here, but good people, too. Across the sea, within the walls... it's the same. But you guys were taught everyone in the walls was a devil. You were children who knew nothing, but it was drilled into you. You were just kids. What could you even do? Right, Reiner? Hasn't that been eating away at you?"
Reiner broke.
"No! You're wrong, Eren! That day, when Marcel was eaten, Annie and Bertholdt tried to turn back and end the mission. But I... I talked them into it and made them go on!"
"I wanted to be a hero! I wanted people's respect!"
"It's my fault! Your mom was eaten by a Titan because of me!"
"I cursed the blood I was born with. More than anyone, I wished the Eldians were wiped out."
"I'm sick of this... of myself! Just kill me!"
A silence that lasted several seconds.
"But I do not wish to die. And that is because I was born into this world."
Above them, Willy reached his conclusion.
"The threat of Paradis Island is the stampede of millions of Colossal Titans... a rumbling. As I mentioned, the vow renouncing war prevents the King's bloodline from fully using the Founding Titan. But currently, this Eren Jaeger who possesses the Founding Titan may begin this rumbling at any moment.
Once the rumbling is set into motion, there is nothing that we can do. Nothing but tremble at the footsteps of doom, fleeing in vain. All lands and civilizations will be trampled, literally razed to the ground."
"We are people of different races and nations! However, it is time to join as one and face this dreadful enemy! Lend me your strength, those of you who wish to live! Those of you who wish for a future! If we work together, we can overcome any obstacle in our way!"
"Here and now, as representative of the Marleyan government, I proclaim..."
Below, Eren's voice at the exact same moment.
"Like I thought, I'm the same as you."
Above: "...to the enemy forces of Paradis..."
"I keep moving forward."
"...a declaration of war!"
"Until I destroy my enemies."