Toward the Tree on That Hill (Episode)

Toward the Tree on That Hill (あの丘の木に向かって) is the 35th and final episode of the 4th season and the 94th and final episode overall of the Attack on Titan anime, produced by. It is the fourth of four episodes, available only on Japanese streaming services, that constitute the episodic version (各話版) of Special 2.

Overview
Armin Arlelt remembers a conversation he had with Eren Jaeger in the Paths during the boat ride to Odiha. During it, Eren admits his conflicted feelings over his actions and inability to break free of the future he saw. Armin tries to get Eren to find another way, but Eren is steadfast in his belief that this future is coming about because of the kind of person he is. Given that reasoning, Armin then says he is responsible as well, for being the one who encouraged Eren's dreams of the outside world. Eren is touched that their friendship remains unbroken, but informs Armin he will erase this memory until everything is over.

Following the death of Eren, Mikasa Ackermann leaves with his remains to provide a burial that the rest of the world would likely deny. The Power of the Titans has left the world and Armin and the surviving Scouts and Warriors become heroes. Paradis Island militarizes in fear of reprisal from overseas, but Armin and his companions go there nonetheless as ambassadors for peace, confident that those on the island will want to know their story.

Summary
As Eren Jaeger and Armin Arlelt, looking like little boys, watch lava that flows like a river, Eren tells his friend about Ymir Fritz and how much she had suffered under King Fritz but always remained subservient. When Eren touched her in the Paths, he realized that Ymir loved Fritz, and that is what kept her bound all this time. Still, she kept searching for someone to release her and finally she found them. It was Mikasa Ackermann, though Eren does not know why. However the outcome Mikasa would bring about is what he has been striving for ever since he received his vision at their medal ceremony following the Battle of Shiganshina District four years ago.

He admits his head is now a mess, as one of the side effects of having the Founding Titan's power is that there is no past or future and everything happens simultaneously. Eren thinks back on things that he had to make happen, such as Dina Fritz's Titan ignoring Bertholdt Hoover the day the Warriors broke through Wall Maria so he could send it towards his own mother.

Armin stops Eren before he can go further and now they are adults looking out over the sea. He asks Eren if he thinks Mikasa will be able to forget about him and live happily with someone else. Eren feigns apathy, and Armin punches him, angered on Mikasa's behalf. Armin verbally tears into him and finishes with the suggestion that she should find someone better given how Eren has treated her, which finally gets Eren to tearfully admit he does not want her to find anyone else and for her to think only about him after he dies. Armin is shocked by the admission and Eren asks him not to tell her any of it, because he really does want her to be happy. Eren does not actually want to die and leave Mikasa or any of his friends.

Hearing this, Armin tries to convince Eren to find another way, but Eren says he is pretty sure "they" did not want to die either. The sea around them is now blood, and Eren will trample eighty percent of humanity. This will cause the world outside the Walls to drop to the same level of technology as Paradis Island, making a war of reprisal impossible, but even then, Eren does not see an end to the conflict.

Armin asks if this means all they have done is pointless. He tries to get Eren to understand that he has not actually killed these people yet, so he can still make a choice, but Eren explains that no matter how hard he tried, everything always occurred exactly as he saw in his memories of the future. Armin refuses to accept this. Unmoved, Eren says he always wanted to level everything like this. He thought he was doing this to protect those he cared about, but people like Sasha Braus and Hange Zoë died because of him, and he kept setting his friends up for lethal confrontations with Floch Forster. As he looks at bits of hair and gore he picked out of the blood water, Eren thinks he finally knows why everything turned out this way, and it is because he is an idiot who obtained an immense power.

Armin picks something out of the blood water and says he understands wanting to erase some people out of the world. Eren calls him a liar, but undeterred, Armin says he was the one who put the idea of a free world in Eren's head. The object Armin picked up was the seashell from when they first saw the sea. He hands it to Eren and thanks him for showing him what was beyond the Walls. He emphasizes that the two of them are responsible, so they will always be together in hell.

Eren is touched that their friendship remains unbroken, but tells Armin that he will erase the memory of this conversation until after everything is over.

Armin wakes up, no longer inside his Titan, following the battle with Eren. The conversation he had with his friend had actually happened back on the boat ride to Odiha. Armin now remembers everything. Mikasa approaches him, carrying Eren's head, and causing Armin to finally realize his friend is gone. He tells her that the outcome of her choice would erase the Power of the Titans from the world.

Around them, Eldians are coming to their senses, human again. Eren's friends remember their own conversations with Eren and what he hoped for them. Families and friends reunite, with the living catching glimpses of those who have passed on.

Mikasa takes this time to let Armin know that she is leaving, because Eren would not be allowed a proper burial here. She suggests she will take Eren to the place he liked napping, and Armin agrees that would be a good spot.

Armin rejoins everyone to find the Marleyans and Eldians are at odds once again, despite the Eldians saying that they are ordinary people now. Müller demands immediate proof, and Armin tells him that proof is that if they still had Titan powers they would use them to resist. He introduces himself to Müller as the one who killed Eren Jaeger.

As Mikasa leaves she sees Ymir, now looking like a young woman rather than the child in the Paths. She knows now that Ymir was the one who kept peeking into her head. Mikasa views Ymir's love as a long nightmare, but accepts that she exists because of the lives Ymir created. Ymir shares a glimpse of a reality where she did not save Fritz's life and remained alive with her children and then fades away.

Three years after the Battle of Heaven and Earth, the world is still reeling from the effects of the massacre. Paradis Island fears reprisals from overseas and has built up a military led by the Jaegerists. Conflict has not gone away. Eren told Historia Reiss what he knew of the future, however she is certain that this future was not the result of Eren's choices alone, but rather the cumulative choices of everyone. If they must continue to fight, it will be so that one day they will no longer need to.

Armin, Jean Kirschtein, Reiner Braun, Annie Leonhart, Conny Springer, and Pieck Finger are on a journey as ambassadors for the Allied Forces to Paradis, though they are uncertain of the welcome they will receive given that they have betrayed the island and killed Eren. Pieck and Reiner express mild surprise their ship has not already been blown out of the water, and Jean blames Eren for forcing them into the roles of "international heroes" while also asking them to live long lives. Armin is more philosophical, saying that this is their answer to Eren and as Scouts they are dreamers who do not know when to quit, though Annie points out that they were not all Scouts.

Armin believes they will not be killed immediately because the people of Paradis will want to know their story and why people who tried to kill each other would now show up and call for peace.

In Shinganshina District, Mikasa sits beside Eren's grave beneath the tree. She tells him that the others will be visiting soon. Mikasa remembers how she would find Eren there napping and begins to cry, wishing to see him again, when suddenly a bird flies down and wraps her scarf around her the way Eren once did. Spirit lightened, she thanks Eren.

A world without Titans
''Even if the Titans disappear, the fear will not. Even if the number of people decreases, conflicts will not. Still, someone must wish for it someday. There should be a world where we can join hands with each other. There should be a future where we can respect and talk to each other. That future is just around the corner.''

Trivia

 * Itterasshai is credited as "insert song" in this episode.
 * The final scenes featured in Special 2 as side- and post-credits footage, respectively showing various points in the future of Paradis Island along with a child and their dog rediscovering many years later the tree under which Eren was buried, were omitted from this episode.