Above and Below (Episode)

"I don't trust Marley. But I do trust the comrades I've fought alongside."

- Pieck Finger to Gabi Braun

Above and Below (天地) is the 16th episode of the 4th season and the 75th episode overall of the Attack on Titan anime, produced by.

Overview
Floch Forster, Hange Zoë, and a number of Jaegerists are traveling to a Forest of Giant Trees when they hear the explosion caused by Zeke Jaeger triggering a Thunder Spear. As Zeke succumbs to his wounds, a Titan crawls up to him and tears open its belly, stuffing his body inside.

Meanwhile, Yelena has Dot Pyxis and other dissenting members of the military assembled in Shiganshina District. Eren Jaeger goes to meet with the imprisoned Gabi Braun, to have her send out a distress call to Marley in exchange for saving Falco Grice. However, a disguised Pieck approaches Eren and claims she wishes to help him destroy Marley. As a proof of her intentions, she offers to show Eren the location of her fellow spies in Paradis Island.

Summary
As Floch Forster and the other Jaegerists escort Hange Zoë, they hear an explosion off in the distance. As they ponder what it could be, Hange recognizes it as an explosion caused by a Thunder Spear.

Nearby, a mutilated Zeke Jaeger slowly succumbs to his wounds from Levi Ackermann's Thunder Spear. After dying, one of the Titans Zeke had created regenerates and crawls up to his body. It rips open its abdomen and picks up Zeke's corpse, shoving it into the wound.

At Shiganshina District, Yelena and the Jaegerists have rounded up Commander Dot Pyxis and the other Eldian military members and tied different colored cloths around the arms of the military. Pyxis assumes this is to reveal who drank the tainted wine and who could be deemed as a threat. After some banter, Yelena glares at Pyxis and, due to them not trusting Zeke, claims they must be punished for their actions.

Meanwhile, several Scouts have tea inside their prison cell along with Nicolo and the Braus family. Conny Springer asks Armin Arlelt if he can use his Colossal Titan to get out, and Armin replies that he could, but if he did so, he would blast the entire town and that his Titan is not very precise. Jean Kirschtein asks why Eren beat Armin up back at the restaurant, and Armin explains that Eren verbally hurt Mikasa Ackermann, so he attacked Eren. Though Jean pushes for details, Mikasa refuses to let Armin elaborate. Jean suspects that Eren would not do what he did without a good reason and wonders if there is something else that Eren has in mind.

Yelena, Onyankopon, and Greiz arrive outside their prison cell and Yelena greets them as the heroes of Shiganshina. Conny yells at Onyankopon for siding with Yelena, but Onyankopon is unsympathetic, considering that he had been under house arrest and in about the same situation not long before.

Jean suspects that Yelena is feeling good considering that so much has gone according to Zeke's plan. They attacked Marley, they got the support of the Eldian people, and they used the wine spiked with spinal fluid to control the military. With the Founding Titan, they can destroy Marley and get revenge for their homelands. Jean calls this the real reason why they came to Paradis Island.

Onyankopon says they civilized this island, which was a century behind the rest of the world. Greiz mocks them, and Nicolo calls him a rat who sold them out. Greiz is unrepentant though, expressing his dislike for repeatedly hearing about Nicolo's affection for Sasha Braus and starts insulting her. Yelena ends Greiz's frustration by swiftly shooting him in the head. She bows as she offers an apology to the imprisoned soldiers. She has no use for anyone who would curse the Eldians as devils and clarifies that the Anti-Marleyan Volunteers' goal has never been about revenge. Instead, they wish to save both Eldia and Marley from the chain of hate. Yelena then explains Zeke's euthanasia plan to them.

In a prison cell, Gabi Braun is surprised when Eren Jaeger appears with two Jaegerist members. He orders her to cooperate with him if she wants Falco Grice to survive, but then one of the soldiers plunges a knife into the throat of the other; the soldier is revealed to be Pieck and holds Eren at gunpoint as she closes the cell door.

As Pieck aims her pistol at Eren, she orders Gabi to take the dead soldier's rifle and point it at Eren. She then tells Eren to take his hands out of his pockets or she will shoot him. Eren calls her out, saying that if she truly wanted to, she would have already done so, but Pieck's mission is to capture the Founding Titan, which means that she cannot kill him without eating him. Violating her mission would doom not just her, but her entire family. Pieck makes a show of raising her gun and giving up but says that she had another reason why she could not fire. If Eren has the Founding Titan, he might be able to defeat Marley.

Pieck explains to Eren why she became a Warrior, and how she would like to show her father a bright future before her term is up. For that to happen, she needs to crush Marley, so she would be willing to help. Beside her, Gabi grapples with the fact that Zeke masterminded the attack on Liberio, and now Pieck is also talking about becoming a traitor. She asks what they have been fighting for.

Pieck asks her if they are Marleyans or Eldians, and when Gabi says they are Honorary Marleyans, Pieck corrects her, saying they are Subjects of Ymir, which is the one inescapable truth. No matter what they say they are, they will always be people who can turn into Titans. They can keep proving they are "good Eldians" all they want, but they will never be free.

Hearing this, Eren asks Pieck to prove that she is willing to help him. She then offers to show him where the other infiltrators are in this town, but they will have to go on the roof for her to point at them.

In their cell, the captured Scouts absorb what the euthanasia plan means for the Eldian race. Yelena calls it a peaceful end. When Jean points out that the population will eventually dwindle to nothing more than the elderly, leaving their country unprotected, Yelena says that they will still use the rumbling as a deterrent. The royal family and the Founding Titan will be maintained, and Historia Reiss already has a successor. The Founder will only need to be passed around until the end of that child's lifetime.

Jean is skeptical that plan will work, and Yelena admits that there are no absolute guarantees, but she is certain that Zeke and Eren will end the threat of the Titans, leaving an impact on human history, long after they are gone. As Armin breaks down and cries at the nobility of the plan, a soldier runs up to Yelena to notify her of enemy infiltrators.

The Jaegerists suit up in anti-personnel ODM gear, making enough noise that Nile Dawk notices the commotion in his cell where he is being held with Falco Grice and a number of other dissenting soldiers.

Eren leads Pieck and Gabi upstairs through the main hall, where Pieck waves at the crowd of Jaegerist soldiers below, which includes a disguised Porco Galliard. As they continue up the building, Eren reveals that Falco is also being held here and that he has been affected by Zeke's spinal fluid. Pieck asks Eren if he knows why Zeke has that special ability and if he might know any other secrets. She does not feel that Zeke has been entirely upfront with his fellow Warriors.

They reach the roof before Eren answers, and Pieck and Gabi head outside while Yelena warns him not to trust Pieck. Eren says he does not, and the feeling is mutual. He then tells Pieck to point to the enemy's position.

Pieck clasps Gabi's trembling hand and smiles at her, before turning around and point at Eren.

The roof beneath him rumbles and jaws emerge through the stone in an attempt to eat him. Galliard's Jaw Titan fails to capture Eren, severing his legs at the knees, and Eren transforms into his Titan before Galliard can attack him again. Galliard lands on the roof and protects Pieck and Gabi from the force of Eren's transformation.

Gabi is surprised that Pieck did not actually betray Marley. Pieck tells her that while she does not trust Marley, she does trust her friends. She has Gabi look up, and above them is a fleet of airships led by Magath. Magath sees the smoke signal from Pieck and Galliard, notifying the Marleyan military that they have found the Founding Titan. He says that it is time to get revenge for Liberio, as Eren prepares to face them.

Shiganshina District
''The fortified residential district of Paradis Island where the Operation to retake the Founding Titan began in 845. In the five years following the Fall of Wall Maria, it was inhabited by Titans. However, with the operation's failure, the hole was plugged by Eren Jaeger and the current state of the district is unknown. The primary goal of the new strategy is for the Cart Titan and Jaw Titan to infiltrate Shiganshina, the southernmost district.''

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