Master of the Levitating Blades

The majority of characters wield a single weapon when they fight, maybe with a shield to cover up their weak spots. Wielding two weapons at once is a flashy, highly difficult style, generally reserved for those of great skill. And then there are these guys, who decided to take that to the next level.

Either through magic or telekinesis, these characters can surround themselves with Flying Weapons — from just a few to hundreds at once — either launching them at their enemies or having them orbit in deadly circles. These weapons might be real, or ones created or duplicated by their abilities. In the majority of cases these weapons will be swords, but some users might mix a few spears, hammers and such into their repertoire.

Users of this type of fighting style can be divided into two categories, though many have elements of both:

• The Floating Armory. A character whose main strategy is invoking a Flechette Storm of dozens or even hundreds of weapons on their enemies, which will transform into a Storm of Blades if they are powerful enough. Most of the time they'll keep their distance, barely needing to lift a finger as their enemies hop on their toes trying to evade their attacks. All the while they add insult to injury by focusing their attention on something else. If an enemy does manage to close their distance, they will either use their flying blades as a shield to protect themselves, or pluck one from the cloud and start easily fighting their opponent off the conventional way.

• The Blade Dancer. Typically a female character, who carries a much smaller number of blades at one time (normally around four to ten), which move in geometrically beautiful patterns, guided by the gestures of their arms and body as if part of an elaborate dance. They distinguish themselves by getting more up-close and personal, never keeping their weapons more than a few meters away, and relying more on evasive movements and deflecting attacks. This also makes them more likely to carry some of the weapons in their own hands, to more quickly defend themselves.

Mind that this trope includes only characters who regularly use flying weapons as part of their main fighting style. It does not include those who only use it as a Special Attack or Finishing Move.

Compare Chunky Updraft, Juggling Dangerously, Orbiting Particle Shield and Razor Wings.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• 3×3 Eyes: Yaberu is a squid-like monster with four axe blades embedded into his head. In combat he can detatch the blades and send them flying around him, slashing at the opponent from a safe distance.
• Bleach: Byakuya Kuchicki's Zanpakuto can split into thousands of tiny blades resembling cherry blossom petals, which he can control at will. His bankai creates even more of them, which he can also sculpt into floating swords. An earlier-encountered Shinigami called Ikkanzaka Jirobo wields the Zanpakuto "Tsunzakigarasu" (Splitting Crow), which turns the blade in a swarm of floating shuriken-like blades he can control freely and even regenerate if destroyed, but he's leagues beneath Byakuya.
• Fairy Tail: Erza has two sets of armor that grant her this ability. Her Heaven's Wheel Armor can summon numerous swords to spin around her in a circle before being launched at her opponent. Her Ataraxia Armor has "wings" made of floating swords which she can command to move across the battlefield swiftly or use to form a barrier to block attacks.
• Fate Series: With the original Fate/stay night being heavy on this trope (see the Visual Novels section below), it naturally shows up in spin-offs.
  • Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA:
    • Kuro channels the abilities of Archer from Fate/stay night, but being a young girl she plays more heavily into the "blade dancer" imagery, using a variant of his fighting style more focused on mobility and evasion. She is later joined for a time by an alternate-universe Shirou with the combined abilities of his Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel counterparts.
    • In addition to Gilgamesh himself, Angelica (while channeling his abilities) can use an even more dangerous version of his arsenal by combining it with her own teleportation magic, allowing her to launch weapons from behind her opponent or accelerate them to enormous speeds.
  • Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works]: In addition to the multiple users of this trope from the Unlimited Blade Works route which the anime adapts, Illya also gets in on the action, creating floating swords from her hair during her brief fight with Rin (an extension of her mother's ability to create birds from her hair in Fate/Zero).
• Freezing: Miyabi Kannazuki's Volt Weapon takes the form of several floating daggers that she can control remotely.
• Gundam:
  • Gundam 00: The "Fang" weapons equipped to some GN-based mobile suits are small Attack Drones similar to the "funnels" of other continuities, but instead of having a beam rifle most of them are armed only with a beam saber, attacking by flying at the opponent. The later "GN Sword Bits" and "GN Scissor Bits" function similarly with a physical blade, and the "Shield Bits" are Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam AGE: The final Gundam of the series, the AGE-FX, is one of the stronger "blade dancer" examples in the franchise. It comes equipped with "C-Funnels" - wedge-shaped blades that orbit it in fan formations to cut down enemies - and is sometimes shown to follow their movements with its own. Some higher-end Vagan mobile suits can also generate a cloud of "beam bits" - small orbs of energy that can be directed to block attacks or launch themselves at enemies.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury: The Darilbalde has beam kunai that can fly around to ram into enemies or replace the suit's detachable arms. Mounting a melee weapon rather than a ranged one is seemingly a sacrifice to get by without the GUND Format which drones are usually operated with.
• Re:CREATORS: Altiar's main attack is manifesting several floating swords. She can manipulate them in a variety of formations, including using them to form a shield.

Comic Books

• In Apama - The Undiscovered Animal, Lawnmower Man has the ability to mentally control flying rods, which can tear through solid matter if they spin around fast enough.

Literature

• The Asterisk War: After her original rapier-style Lux, Aspera Spina, is wrecked at the climax of the Phoenix Festa, Julis is given a prototype Rect Lux. Nova Spina consists of four Laser Blades that she can manipulate remotely.
• Beware of Chicken: Xiulan has mastered the Blade of Grass technique, allowing her to multiply her two heirloom swords with spectral copies, up to eight, sixteen, or even thirty-two, depending on the seriousness of the fight. And then she wields them with qi-based telekinesis.
• Fengshen Yanyi: Nezha's brother Muzha is bestowed the Hook Swords of Wu, a couple of curved billhook-like swords which he normally wears on his back: by shaking his shoulder, he can send one or both blades flying at the enemy and slash their neck. The only other similar Fabao (magic tool) is Lu Ya's dagger, which is a Living Weapon with eyes and wings it can use to move around.
• Overlord (2012): Two examples of the second variant exist in the setting. Edström of the Six Arms plays it as straight as possible, even dressing like a dancer, while her blades move around her. Then there is Lakyus, leader of the Blue Roses, who simply uses the floating swords on her back as another tool in her diverse arsenal.
• Princess Nashetania Loei Piena Augustra from Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers is the heir apparent to the kingdom, and has been named "Saint of Blades." Her magic power enables her to summon multiple blades from the ground (and sometimes thin air), attack an adversary in formation, or form a kind of spinning shield. These blades then disappear when not needed. The princess intersects with Lady of War and Silk Hiding Steel.

Live-Action Films

• In X2: X-Men United, Magneto escapes from his plastic prison by reshaping iron that was smuggled via an unwitting guard's blood into three balls that he projects back and forth at great speed to demolish the plastic walls. When the prison's bridge is retracted, he reshapes one of the balls into a platform to cross the ravine with the two other balls levitating around him. He then uses said balls to destroy the door.

Live-Action TV

• In the TVB Hong Kong drama, Gods Of Honour, the Action Mom Yin Shih-Niang holds a sheathe containing a dozen swords, which she can launch all at once and control using her chi to target multiple opponents at the same time, for instance in one episode when battling two phoenixes simultaneously. She can also easily summon her used swords back into her sheathe with the bat of an eye.
• Kamen Rider Saber: Saber's Super Mode, Xross Saber, fuses the energies of all eleven Holy Swords into a single blade. This not only grants him the combined Elemental Powers of all the swords put together, but also The Power of Creation, allowing him to generate levitating copies of the original swords to attack enemies on his behalf. He can enlarge the copies to the size of buildings, multiply them into a Storm of Blades, or even have them fly through space to attack multiple targets on different sides of the planet at the same time.

Tabletop Games

• Fabula Ultima: The artwork for the vampire Carmilla depicts her with half a dozen "bloodblades"—i.e., swords made of literal blood—floating in the air behind her, implying that she wields these weapons telekinetically.

Video Games

• BlazBlue: Nu-13 and her clone, Lambda-11, use the magically levitated swords that always accompany them for their heavy attacks. They can also summon up spectral blades for their drive attacks and supers.
• Castlevania:
  • The Ruler Sword enemies are huge swords which attack by levitating collections of weapons at the protagonists.
  • There's also Joachim Armster from Lament Of Innocennce, a vampire who controls five swords with his mind alone.
• Dynasty Warriors 7 introduces the "Flying Swords" weapon set, featuring five floating blades the user can move around and control to attack using hand motions.
• Elden Ring: Elemer of the Briar, a.k.a. the Bell Bearing Hunter, wields a Greatsword that he can telekinetically control to either attack you when you try to run away from him, or to skewer you like a drill. The magic that allows him to do this is apparently the specialty of his homeland of Eochaid.
• One of the last bosses in Evil Genome, Sophia, can summon her blades to fly circles around her in the last phase of her fight, using them to slice you apart from a distance.
• In Fate/Extella Link, Charlemagne is able to summon twelve floating "Bright Swords" representing his bonds with his Twelve Paladins. He can plunge them into the ground for a shockwave attack, send them hurtling through enemy lines, and utilizes them as part of his Noble Phantasm, Joyuese Ordre, where he shoots them along with his own personal sword as a barrage of Sword Beam attacks.
• In Fate/Grand Order, Nagao Kagetora's second Noble Phantasm, Touhachi Bishamonten - The Eight-Bladed Guardian, summons the countless invaluable blades accumulated by Bishamonten to strike down the enemies of the Buddha. The blades can only be seen by the devout and righteous and with it she's able to fight even the God of Makuzu, a monster with infinite magical energy, to a standstill.
• God Of Weapons: Every player character. They can simultaneously and seamlessly use as many flying weapons as they can carry in their Bag of Holding, with bonuses based on item placement.
• Guilty Gear: Played With. Ramlethal from Xrd fights with two large blades controlled by two familiars floating at her side. She still in control of them while attacking separately herself.
• Hollow Knight: Xero, one of the Warrior Dreams, fights with two nails hovering near him and launching them at the player character. At low health, he summons two more nails, making the fight more difficult. Galien, another Warrior Dream, favors big-ass scythes instead, which spin and bounce all around him in erratic patterns. Finally, Markoth, yet another Warrior Dream, in addition to summoning and launching nails at the player character from various directions, also employs a spinning floating shield that orbits him, and can occasionally launch it as a projectile in an outwards spiraling pattern. At low health, he summons a second shield.
• Honkai: Star Rail: The playable character Yanqing uses 6 floating ice swords in combat.
• In Kingdom Hearts II, Xaldin has power over wind and uses this to attack with his weapons without touching them.
• In Kingdom Hearts III: Re𝄌Mind, the Replica Xehanorts all combine together to form a copy of Armored Master Xehanort that wields a red-eyed copy of the latter's Keyblade while twelve more float around him to enhance his attacks.
• Darth Traya, from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, fights by controling three lightsabers at once, making them levitate around her with the Force. Provides the page image above.
• Irelia, from League of Legends, is a great example of the second variant, to the point of being her main descriptor. Adapting the ancient dances of her people, which she loved to practice, to her use of telekinetic blades to strike down the Noxians invading her land.
• NieR: The Dark Whirlwind spell summons magic swords around the player. Reskinned to resemble scythes in the remake.
• NieR: Automata: The Blade pod program is a sci-fi version of the move from the first game.
• In Nioh 2, the final boss Otakemaru is a variation/subversion of this trope: Tri-wielding colossal blades, one in his normal arms and two more in the disembodied hands behind him. It's also a cue for his elemental attacks- the element he's using matches the sword in his normal hands.
• In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the boss Cortez is a four-armed skeletal pirate who fights with four different swords. In one of his phases, they fly in front of him and protect him.
• Prayer of the Faithless: Emperor Daigo controls elemental blades as his flunkies as a Flunky Boss.
• The Final Boss of Samurai Shodown: Warriors Rage is Oboro, the mastermind of The Three Blades of Dominion (aka The Razor Trio). He's an old weak man but has mastered the telekinesis and instead to fight him, Oboro controls two magical and cursed swords the player has to defeat, being one of the most hardest bosses to defeat in the franchise.
• Samurai Warriors: Kojiro Sasaki from the second game onward uses his Monohoshizao sword but can also summon phantom giant blades to perform his strong attacks. He controls these blades through telekynesis.
• Scarlet Nexus: The female protagonist Kasane Randall uses her Psychokinesis to manipulate a set of blades which she hurls at her enemies as a Flechette Storm.
• Shantae: In Shantae: Half-Genie Hero and Shantae and the Seven Sirens, the ultimate form of the Pike Ball spell has a dozen scimitars orbiting Shantae.
• Spider-Man: Web of Shadows' take on the Vulture shows him as this. His wings are actually comprised of "feathers" that are large blades he magnetically controls and occasionally launches at you.
• Super Robot Wars: The T-Link System (being a lawyer-friendly version of Gundam's Psychoframe technology) allows a compatible pilot to control various types of remote weaponry through telekinesis. The closest to this trope are the R-3's "Strike Shields", which are simply blunt metal spikes wielded by telekinetically ramming them into the opponent.
• Terraria: This is how the Zenith functions; firing an assortment of blades (some of which require a lot of time to get) and decimating anything caught in its range.
  • Another weapon is the Terraprisma, which consists of several ethereal blades that hover behind the player and quickly attack nearby enemies. Actually obtaining it however is another story...^note you need to defeat the Empress of Light completely within daytime, during which all her attacks will kill you in an instant.
• Timespinner: Lunais, the protagonist, has telekinetic powers, and uses those powers to throw around orbs as her basic attacks. As the game progresses, Lunais can acquire orbs that transform into swords, hammers, and even guns. Some late-game bosses use similar fighting styles and powers.
• Totally Accurate Battle Simulator: The Swordcaster is a unit in the Spooky Faction that fights by throwing the swords floating around him at an enemy. If he is defeated, he will impale himself with these blades, hitting anyone who happens to be too close to him.

Visual Novels

• Appears in several permutations in Dies Irae:
  • Eleonore von Wittenburg is the one who does this the most, utilizing the first variant to call down a hail of gunfire or to rain down artillery support, all without having to lift a finger.
  • Ren during the finale plays it a bit straighter as he uses swords instead and falls more into the blade dancer category. He gains the ability to summon the relics of his fallen allies that he then has flying around himself to aid him in the fight.
  • Reinhard takes this the furthest by using things such as airplanes, tanks and even battleships in this fashion, and that's before getting into his undead army.
  • Wilhelm downplays it in that he can engage in this trope if he feels like it, it is just that most of the time he simply wants to be up close and personal with weapon in hand.
• Fate/stay night:
  • Gilgamesh is the perfect example of the "floating armory" variant. He is so arrogant, and owns so many powerful Noble Phantasms, that instead of wielding his personal weapon he will simply stand around smugly while a near infinite supply of lesser (but still legendary) weapons strike down his enemies for him. Though he's rarely seen surrounded by the weapons themselves, but rather by portals to his royal treasury, from which their ends can be seen poking out ready for launch.
  • The second route, Unlimited Blade Works, is named for the endless Field of Blades inside Archer's heart which contains records of every weapon he has seen. Due to Archer being uninjured in this route, he's able to show the full extent of his Spontaneous Weapon Creation abilities, which culminates in him and Shirou being able to manifest Unlimited Blade Works into reality and make all its swords rise up to fight for them. Because they're actually wielding the weapons, not merely launching them as projectiles, this allows Shirou to overwhelm Gilgamesh's Storm of Blades with his own, despite his weapons being technically weaker than the originals.
  • In the final route, Heaven's Feel, the Bad Ending "Sparks Liner High" has Shirou enter Dancer territory with the "Triple-Linked Crane Wings" technique - generating multiple copies of Archer's paired swords Kanshou and Bakuya (which can return like boomerangs if one is thrown while the other is held), filling them with explosive levels of mana, and overwhelming his opponent by charging into melee while unleashing rapid attacks from all directions. It's a Bad Ending because this Shirou is no longer compatible with Unlimited Blade Works, and the backlash from tapping so much of its power kills him before he can land the finishing blow.

Web Animation

• RWBY: Penny fights with blades that are stored in folded format inside a small compartment on her back. She can use up to ten blades at once, which are attached to her body by wires that are as hard to see as a spider's web; being electronically connected to each other and Penny, she can command them to fight in the surrounding air as if she's a Marionette Master. She can also form a circular funnel with them from which come blasts of energy, and her blades and wires are so strong that she can use them to winch down airships and slice them in half.

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