Bite

Bite is the 3rd chapter of the 6th volume and the 25th chapter overall of the Attack on Titan manga, written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama.

Summary
Waiting outside of the Forest of Giant Trees, Jean questions their new mission of standing guard and making sure no Titans enter. After vaguely threatening the squad leader in front of Armin, he eventually admits that he's going to follow the orders he was given. A five meter class Titan approaches the edge of the forest, attracted by the soldiers in the trees. Well out of reach, the soldiers don't attack, opting instead to let the Titans gather at the bottom of the tree.

Inside the forest, Eren and Levi squad are still being chased by the female Titan. Petra tells Levi that they should switch to Three Dimensional Maneuver Gear and he readies his weapon. Before they start their attack, two soldiers rush in from behind the Titan and attempt to get to the nape of her neck. As they are about to deliver their blows, she crushes one against a tree and then swats the other and tosses him behind her. Looking back at the scene, members of the squad beg Levi to give the order for them to attack. Levi pulls out a flare gun and tells them to cover their ears before firing off a sound grenade. He reminds them of their mission. They are there to protect Eren, leaving him surprised as he thought they were there to protect others from him. With those words, the squad decides to continue on horseback. Another small group of soldiers comes up behind the Titan. When another soldier is killed by the Titan, Eren insists that they go back and help the other. They order him to keep riding forward. Enraged and unable to bear the thought of anyone else losing their life, Eren prepares for transformation. Upon seeing what he's doing, Petra tries to talk him out of it, but he ignores her and tries to transform anyway until he hears Levi say he doesn't blame him. Levi tells him that there is no wrong decision in this situation but he has to decide if he is going to trust his team and the people risking their lives or himself. One last plea from Petra causes Eren to second guess transforming.

Thinking back on a time when he was still in the Survey Corps headquarters, Eren remembers Levi devising a plan that would allow them to stop him from losing control without killing him. Similar to what Armin did when Eren lost control, they will cut him out of the Titan body. Hange creates an experiment to see if the new plan will work. Eren is put at the bottom of a dry well and will try to induce a transformation when given a signal. He repeatedly bites his hands, hoping the pain will cause the change. However, even after seriously injuring his hands nothing happens. Adding to his dilemma, his ability to quickly heal seems absent as well.

Later that day, everyone is gathered for a meal and Levi tells Eren that their mission to plug the hole in Wall Maria, and consequently getting to the basement of his old house in the Shiganshina District, will be scrapped. He orders Eren to do something about it and then walks away, leaving Eren worried about the effects his failure could have on everyone. He tries to eat his food, but due to his injuries, he drops his spoon. As he bends down to grab it, he explodes into his Titan form surprising everyone, including Levi. Confused, Eren tries to free his arm from the Titans torso he has just created when he hears Levi shouting "calm down". Believing he is talking to him, Eren tries to explain that it wasn't on purpose. However, when the smoke clears and Eren sees he's surrounded by soldiers with their weapons drawn, it becomes obvious that Levi is ordering his men to calm down. The group do not listen to Levi who tell them not to attack as he has a gut feeling about it and threaten to kill Eren unless he proves he's not hostile and shout at him with a barrage of both questions and insults. Hearing enough Eren shouts "Be quiet! All of you just be quiet !" which they do but don't put their swords up. Hange, after hearing the explosion from the transformation, runs over in amazement at the site of Eren's partially changed body. She jumps for joy at the possibilities and begs him to touch the arm before he can give an answer she touches it anyway and recoils in joy after feeling the burning sensation causing one of her subordinates to call her a maniac. Hange then asks Eren how the arm connected to him and begs to show how it works this gives Eren the idea to simply pull his arm out while Oluo threatens him again. Nevertheless Eren frees himself and his titan arm begins to disintegrate much to hange's disappointment but allows her to take notice of the spoon (undamaged) was reaching for. Levi then asks Eren how's he doing to which Eren replies it's hard to say. Later at night, Eren and Levi are talking about the event that have just followed with Levi telling Eren that trust was the first of his squad's criteria and replies that his squad did what they did not because they were monster's but due to the choice of having to go on their instincts. The two are then taken to Hange who shows the spoon and comes to the conclusion that to in order to assume Titan Form a clear objective must be in mind she references the other events in which he transformed as proof. Eren then tells her she may be right as he remembers a previous event of the feeling he went through as a Titan but cannot believe that he transformed to pick up a simple spoon. Gunther hearing this asks Eren if it was true that he really had no intention of transforming on purpose and when confirmed by Eren the member of the squad glance at each before sticking out their thumbs and biting down on them like Eren's self pain transformation process they all agree it was painful and say it is a way of apologizing for making the mistake at accusing Eren and hopes he would forgive them. They say because of fear and instincts they had to do so and Eren had every right to be upset with but state that if he didn't put trust in them they were all doomed.