WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Attack on Titan Season 4, Episode 25, "Night of the End," now streaming on Funimation, Hulu, and Crunchyroll.
Now that Attack on Titan has revealed the origin of Ymir and the Titans, it's time for the series to address its greatest mystery. The 25th episode of Season 4, for the second time in AOT's history, teased but did not show a fight between Mikasa Ackermann and Annie Leonhart. Fans of the franchise, as well as the characters, have wanted to know who would win a scrap between the two women since their days in the Cadet Corps. Mikasa versus Annie has been a dream fight since even before anyone knew about Titan Shifters or the Ackermann bloodline, and as the series approaches its end, the people deserve to know who would win.
Even though the Marleyans who survived the invasion have teamed up with the Eldians who don't ally with Floch and the Jaegerists, the two groups do not get along. To the surprise of no one, tensions remained high as the disparate soldiers sat around a fire and contemplated what to do about Eren and the Rumbling. Ideally, Mikasa would prefer to talk Eren off the genocide-ledge, but the more pragmatic Annie understands that Eren may need to be killed. When Annie implied that to stop Eren they'll probably have to fight his friends first, Mikasa decided it was time to stand up to her longtime rival.
Mikasa and Annie never really got along even before Annie was outed as a spy, and their antagonism stems all the way back to their days in the Cadet Corps. During Season 2 as Eren fought Reiner when the latter outed himself as the Armored Titan, Eren flashbacked to a training session against Annie. After Annie used her unique fighting style to pin Eren to the dirt, a stunned Reiner came hurtling toward them, having been thrown across the field by Mikasa. As Mikasa asked Annie to teach her the move she'd just used on Eren, the rest of the 104th gathered in excited awe as the fight between Annie and Mikasa was "finally happening."
Annie taunted Mikasa by saying her technique was meant to be used against humans, but she nonetheless agreed to try it on Mikasa to gauge how it would work on a "beast." As the two women prepared to fight while bets were made amongst the 104th Cadets, the flashback ended. While Eren's recollecting of Annie's signature technique allowed him to defeat Reiner in combat, AOT never revealed who won the fight. Fast forward to Season 4 and it turns out Annie's time in her crystal didn't soften her opinion of Mikasa as the two nearly came to blows over what to do about Eren and the Rumbling.
The world of Attack on Titan has changed quite a bit since Annie was last awake. Mikasa has come fully into her Ackermann strength and the creation of Thunder Spears has leveled the playing field between humans and Titans. If Mikasa were to fight Annie's Female Titan now, Thunder Spears would likely allow Mikasa a swift win. Human to human combat between the two, however, is a different question. While Mikasa has super strength thanks to her Ackermann heritage, Annie is a very talented fighter whose entire style revolves around defeating people who are stronger than her.
Hand to hand on the ground, it's difficult to speculate who would win in a fight between Mikasa and Annie. Unfortunately, Attack on Titan doesn't have time to answer this burning question now that the Rumbling is in full swing. It's probably for the best that cooler heads prevailed in Mikasa's and Annie's dust-up, considering the entire human race is on the brink of extinction. There are only three episodes left in Attack on Titan and this ragtag group of Marleyans and Eldians has a lot of work to do if they plan to save the world -- so personal grudge matches are going to have to wait.
