Bifurcated Weapon

Some assembly required.

"You're holding them all wrong. Keep in mind; these are dual swords. Two halves of a single weapon. Don't think of them as separate, because they're not. They're just two different parts of the same whole."

— Zuko, Avatar: The Last Airbender

Two weapons are always better than one, but they're awfully heavy to lug around separately. So what's the solution? Rig them to be able to combine as one, that's what! Often used to show that a normally singular-weaponed warrior can actually dual wield, the Bifurcated Weapon is two weapons in one. Weapons permanently stuck together, like gunblades, are not bifurcated, as they can't break apart through normal means.

The theory behind this is that while you can get more range out of two separate weapons, combining them into one mega-weapon should increase your battle prowess enough to finish off your foe. Most of the time, though, the weapon to be bifurcated is a sword, and it's usually rigged... to split right down the middle, making two mirror images of one sword, making one wonder why it was even joined in the first place. Staves are usually more logical as far as close-combat weaponry is concerned, as the long rod can be broken down into two smaller sticks to handle a more cramped area. And, of course, using this tactic with guns is a no-brainer, but watch out for the increased power/ammo consumption.

A different theory is that these weapons provide the wielder with a strategic advantage by making one's opponent become used to fighting a person wielding one weapon and then suddenly attacking with two, the sudden switch in technique being enough to throw off the enemy's balance, allowing the wielder to obtain victory. Doing so also shows that it's a versatile weapon, wielded by a trained, versatile person.

For the most part, these weapons are confined to fiction for a number of Awesome, but Impractical reasons. Some examples do exist in the real world, though generally not to the extent seen in fiction. One of the more well-known real-world examples is the bayonetted rifle: Separately, they're a knife and rifle that can be used as such, but by combining them the rifle grants the blade additional reach. A more modern example would be the underbarrel weapons, typically either a grenade launcher or shotgun, which can sometimes be detached from the primary barrel for use as an autonomous weapon.

For another many-weapons-in-one-package deal, see the Morph Weapon or Swiss-Army Weapon, weapons that can change from one form to another, or Mix-and-Match Weapon, weapons made of two different weapons, bearing uses of both. Compare Scaramanga Special, weapons that can be disassembled into some innocuous objects as a means of concealment, and Combo Rifle, when guns can combine into one. Not to be confused with a sword that bifurcates other things. Certain Double Weapons also tend to crossover with this trope, although most examples are of the mundane variety where somewhere in the middle of the double-ended weapon's handle, it can detach and allow Dual Wielding.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Bleach:
  • Ikkaku combines his sword and scabbard (which he dual wields normally) for his Shikai, Hozukimaru. Said spear can also split into a bladed three-section-staff.
  • Captain Ukitake’s Zanpakuto, Sogyo no Kotowari, is an ordinary-looking single katana in its unreleased state; it magically spawns a second sword when released to Shikai. This is in contrast to fellow dual-sword wielder Captain Kyoraku who always wears two blades.
  • Similar to Ukitake's example, Hisagi's Zanpakuto, Kazeshini, splits into two scythes connected by a long chain when in Shikai. Subverted when it turns out the chain is the true essence of Kazeshini's power.
• Buso Renkin: One of the abilities of Victor's great axe Buso Renkin, Fatal Attraction, is to split into two smaller tomahawk axes, each with a blade made of red energy, allowing him to fight multiple opponents at the same time.
• Devil Hunter Yohko's Soul Sword had an axe blade built into the crossguard. Once (and only once), she impaled a demon, detached the hilt with the axe blade, and used it as a throwing axe to stop an incoming projectile. Being magical, it even reassembled itself afterwards.
• In the Digimon Universe: App Monsters manga, Shutmon can separate the blades of his scissors to dual-wield alongside his wrist-mounted blades. This is in contrast to the anime, where he just wields the whole thing as one big sword.
• The main villain of The Fuma Conspiracy begins fighting with Goemon with a staff, but shortly reveals that it can also convert to a set of oversized nunchaku.
• In GUN×SWORD, Dann of Thursday's BFS has a detachable knife (or maybe a wakizashi) attached to the back of the blade. Sin of Friday and Sen of Saturday are two mecha who can join together and separate freely.
• Gundam
  • In the Mobile Suit Gundam, the Gundam's Beam Swords could be combined into a Beam Javelin. This was later dropped in the movies.
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED the Buster Gundam normally wields two weapons: a beam rifle and railcannon. These can be combined by docking the barrel of one into the butt of the other, increasing the weapon's output, turning the former into a long-range beam sniper rifle and the latter into an anti-armor shotgun. How this works is less than clear.
  • SEED also likes doing this with melee weapons; Freedom, Justice, and a couple of others can combine their beam sabers into a double-ended saber. The Impulse takes this to the next level by applying the same function to its anti-ship swords. The Strike Freedom, wields two beam rifles which can be docked together like Buster's guns to form a long rifle.
  • Similarly, the Hyperion Gundam in Gundam SEED X Astray has a beam submachinegun that comes with a Beam bayonet. The bayonet itself can be launched for extra killy goodness.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam Wing's Wing Zero has the twin buster rifle that can be fired as a single unit or split down the middle to be dual-wielded...not to mention the fact that each half of the thing is effectively a mech-portable Wave-Motion Gun.
    • The model kit of Sandrock (EW) does this with its heat shotels, allowing them to combine at the hilt. In this case it's particularly ludicrous because the shotels are freaking huge to the point of being taller than Sandrock itself. Presumably a Shout-Out to the TV series version of Sandrock, can combine its (much more reasonably sized) heat shotels with its shield to form a pincer-claw weapon. A function only used once in the entire series.
  • Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam's X-1 and X-2 possess the Zanbuster, a beam rifle made by combining their pistol (Buster Gun) and cutlass (Beam Zanber) weapons.
  • BB Senshi Sangokuden (and SD Gundam kits in general) feature tons of bifurcated weapons. Some examples:
    • Date Masamune Gundam has a Fuuma Shuriken capable of splitting into a sheathed sword, a flail, a claw, a rifle and two water-walking sandals. They can also combine with his sword.
    • Sonken Gundam's BFS can disassemble into a set of armor and a small folding sword; his upgraded armor turns into a tiger. (And this is without the add-on that can turn into a Musha Dendrobium Orchis.)
    • Choukou Zaku III can detach the blades from his polearm and use them independently, or attach them to his shoulderpad and use both pads as boxing gloves.
  • The 00 Qan[T] from Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer has six blade bits that can also attach to its Cool Sword to become double its size. It can also function as a gun.
    • Speaking of the 00 Qan[T], the SD kit version takes this to a ridiculous extent, even for an SD model as mentioned above. By using the the storage device that came with the Exia R2 make to store the parts for the R1, it can attach two long blades, two GN Swords, and the GN Sword V (barely), in order to make a five way...Something. Along with attaching the GN Fangs to the GN Sword V, this makes nine blades in one.
  • Before that, the original 00's GN Sword IIs could be docked end-to-end into a Double Weapon — which Setsuna would occasionally throw.
• Hosei Meitoku from Hero Tales wields Soutenkyuu, a bladed bow that can also be divided and used as twin bladed swords.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Fate can split the Zamber Form of Bardiche into two normal-sized energy swords and merge them back to its original Humongous Mecha splitting size while in the heat of battle.
  • Also in StrikerS, Teana Lanstar's gun can become two guns or two energy daggers.
  • And in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, Signum's sword can be combined with its sheath to become a bow.
• Metal Armor Dragonar's eponymous Humongous Mecha has two beam swords which can be combined to form a Darth Maul-style double-bladed beam sword.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Kaede with her rather large Shuriken. Word of God says it breaks down into knives to be carried around, however this detail has never shown up, as she's never used them separately.
• One Piece:
  • Early villain Don Krieg wears huge, shield-like shoulderpads he can detach and use as firearms to shoot either stakes or bombs filled with shuriken or poison gas. He can even combine both shields to form his trump card, the Mighty Battle Spear (a spear with the two shields united at the top and a blade, which is capable of release explosions on impact).
  • Gekko Moria wields a huge pair of scissors he uses to snip the shadows of his victims and collect them. In case of emergency, he can pull the blades apart and wield them like cutlasses.
  • Wano arc introduces the "Karakurito" (Mechanical Swords), weapons looking like standard katana at first but with mechanical enhancements to provide a secondary mode of use and become a special weapon: Holdem's sword (in the anime at least) can become a Whip Sword, while Sasaki wields the Karakuri Rasento (Mechanical Helix Sword), a dao-like katana with diagonal bladed flaps on the sides of the main blade which can jut out and spin at great speed, turning the sword into a drill. King's katana has a similar mechanism, as shown when several alternate segments of the blade retract in a comb-like pattern to catch Zoro's sword and disarm him.
• S'yne Lokk from The Rising of the Shield Hero, wields the Vassal Sewing Set which takes the form of a giant pair of scissors, which can be separated in halves for Dual Wielding.
• Ryo's weapons of choice in Ronin Warriors are two katanas that attach at the pommel, but you only see this when he does his super attack, i.e. every episode.
• Rurouni Kenshin:
  • In the last arc of the manga, Yahiko faces an antagonist whose bo split into a six-segment nunchaku, and the ensuing battle demonstrates a fundamental weakness of such a weapon: by attacking it with his succession technique the instant it's about to separate, he puts enough strain on the joints that the entire thing splinters.
  • Shinomori Aoshi has a scabbard that contains two swords, a style he adopted after his first defeat by Kenshin. The second sword is drawn only for Worthy Opponents; for others he uses his basic one-sword style.
• In Samurai Deeper Kyo, Tokito of the Taishiro wields one of the four Muramasa blades, the Hokuto Shichisei, which can split into two swords. According to Tokito, this feature stems from the fact that the sword is named after the Hokuto constellation, which is the Japanese name for the Big Dipper. In China and Japan, apparently, the constellation is divided into two groups of stars. Likewise, the sword named after it is also divided.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
  • The title Gurren's shades can be used as a weapon (seeing that they were originally the Gurren's swords before it was captured by Kamina who had them welded together). Occasionally they split into two to pin down enemies (such as when setting up for the Giga Drill Break), but in the movie they divide into sixteen different shades to pin down a particularly large foe.
  • In episode 22, instead of dividing the shades, Simon uses both the shades and Gurren-Lagann's impromptu jetpack (a fighter that got drilled onto the mecha's back) as boomerangs.
• Garm from Vinland Saga uses a long metal spear as his weapon, but it is specially made to be separated into two shorter spears when Garm is forced to fight up close or in other situations (such as indoors or in a forest), where a long weapon would be awkward to use due to the surroundings.

Eastern Animation

• ScissorSeven has the titular Seven use a pair of scissors as his main weapon, which he is able to remotely control with his chi and separate in two for more attacks.
  • Taken to an absurd degree with another weapon of his: The Thousand Demon Dagger. A blade made of a thousand shards of iron held together by chi, with each and every shard being able to move at its weilder's will. This can let the weapon break apart and reform to bypass obstacles, gain in length, or be used as a projectile. It is in universe considered one of the deadliest weapons for those reasons. However, in incompetent hands, it's just a cracked blade.

Card Games

• Star Munchkin has several similarly named weapons ^note  the laser, raser, taser, faser, and bananafanafofaser among them that each are considered two-handed weapons, but can be combined freely to form one weapon, with the sum of each part's bonus, and which still only take up two hands. Some players attempt to acquire the complete set for bragging rights. And the bonuses, of course.
  • And most other players keep the Antimatter trap (that turns the bonuses of one item into an equally large penalty) on hand just for using on the first poor fool to try it.

Comic Books

• Mockingbird's usual weapon of choice is a staff that splits into two shorter halves for Dual Wielding purposes as needed and can be rejoined just as quickly. This apparently doesn't interfere with its ability to also, for example, act as a vaulting pole.

Fan Works

• In The Desert Storm series, Shmi Skywalker wields a pair of yellow and white lightsabers which she can combine to form a double-bladed saberstaff.
• In The Echo Ranger, Izuku's Mode Green has two Dragon Daggers as its default weapons, which can be combined into a gun called the Dragon Blaster.
• In Four Deadly Secrets Alice Sgathan’s two-hander sword splits into two separate blades with their own handles. It's also a gun.
• Friendship Is Magical Girls inverts this in regards to Applejack's weapon of choice, a pair of revolvers which can be magically combined into a shotgun.
• In Kingdom Hearts: Keyblade Masters, the Blade of Aegis is a Keyblade that is made of three individual weapons, each one holding the power of the elements. Only Gummi is able to wield it.
• The Night Unfurls:
  • Sanakan seems to be pretty fond of longswords that can be inserted into something to form a larger weapon, like the Kirkhammer and Ludwig's Holy Blade.
  • Kyril's Whirlgig Saw is a mace that can be attached to three saw blades to form a long-handled mechanical saw. It makes its debut in Chapter 11 of the original.
• Tattered Capes Under a Shattered Moon: Al's Burning Edict is a flamethrower rifle that can separate into a pair of machetes.

Films — Live-Action

• Aliens: Ellen Ripley duct-taping a pulse rifle, a flamethrower, and a flashlight together.
• In Kill Bill, the leader of the Crazy 88 has a fighting staff that can be pulled apart to reveal two short swords. Somewhat Truth in Television. You can get canes and staffs that conceal one or even two swords, but they're almost always display items.
• In Phantasm II, Reggie combines two double-barreled shotguns side-by-side to make a quad-barreled version. It only got fired once in the movie, killing every single bad guy in the room.
• Nordberg in The Naked Gun 2½ goes combining weapons until he builds a howitzer.
• The Three Musketeers (1993) has the assault on the ship that was to carry the Cardinal's Treaty to the Duke of Buckingham. Porthos encounters an Asian fighter, who pulls out a jian, then pulls it apart into two swords, and proceeds to show off his sword shuffling skills before attacking. Porthos, of course, mocks his show and cuts a rope holding a grille in place, sending the Ninja below deck.
• G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Stormshadow uses two katanas and at one point joins them together to use a single weapon
• The wuxia movie To Kill A Mastermind has one of its best swordsman using a blade that can split apart into a smaller blade, and then into a thin stiletto. Very useful for sneak attacks.
• TRON: Legacy:
  • Rinzler wields two Discs, which fit together as one. This weapon also showed up in the discredited sequel TRON 2.0 (which pre-dated Legacy) where it was called a "Sequencer" and up to four Deadly Discs could be thrown.
  • Some Black Guards have batons that splits in two Laser Blades wielded like bo sticks.
• The One begins with two very similar scenes of a prisoner being transferred, each in a different universe. The cops' equipment is one of the differences; In the first scene, their rifles have attached shotguns.
• The Sword and the Sorcerer - our hero Talon has a sword which conceals a poignard inside its handle, should the main blade/s be broken. His opponent, Cromwell, meanwhile carries a quarterstaff which houses a concealed switchblade.
• Shu Lien's weapon of choice in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a Dao that can split in two.
• Gideon's Axe in I, Frankenstein; the axe head can be disassembled and its two blades used as knuckle-dusters.
• The Scorpion King has King Agamemnon's sword which he can split in two, as seen in his mock fight with 2 of his troops.
• One of Snoke's Elite Praetorian Guard (and the last guard standing) in The Last Jedi has a double-bladed staff with energized edges that can split into two dagger-like weapons.
• In Yamato Takeru, Oto Tachibana wields a pair of knives that lock together to form a Battle Boomerang.

Literature

• In The Beastmaster, the title hero had a staff-spear that could be separated into a mace and... mini... spear... thingy.
• Ranger's Apprentice: Rangers carry two "strikers", essentially just short metal rods which are meant to provide a convenient weight in your hand for giving someone a Tap on the Head. However, they can also be connected together into a balanced throwing weapon.
• Sir Apropos of Nothing's staff can split into two batons, among other tricks.
• In Path of Destruction, the first Darth Bane novel, Bane's lightsaber instructor surprises him during a duel by pulling this trick with his saberstaff.
• Erik Morkai of Deathwolf carries a chainaxe that splits into a pair, which he uses against a Dark Eldar archon.
• In Dragonlance: The New Adventures, Set-ai wields a pair of weapons he calls "dragon claws", and teaches Catriona to use them. Later, she wields her own pair. They can be used as swords, tonfas, or held together like a staff.
• Rebuild World: Due to Akira eventually carrying around two assault rifles, an anti-material rifle, a chain gun, and a Grenade Launcher all at once, he asks his Friendly Shopkeeper Shizuka to find him a substitute weapon that can save him from having to switch between and carry all of that. The answer he settles on is the TOSON SSB Multiweapon Rifle. It can fire at an assault rifle's fire rate or a chain guns, can fire CWH Anti-Armor rounds at full auto, and can fire rocket propelled grenade Homing Projectile rounds good for shooting at or from moving vehicles. This becomes Akira's weapon of choice soon after, eventually upgrading to LEO and RL 2 variants that have Deflector Shields, and having up to six in his possession at once (two mounted on his Cool Bike).
• Raf from Troll Mountain has an ax with a dagger in the handle.
• WIEDERGEBURT: Legend of the Reincarnated Warrior: Main character Eryk's weapon of choice, the "ruler", is essentially what you'd get if you took Guts's Dragonslayer sword and broke it up into interlocking separable segments. On its own it can crush its way through mundane objects with sheer brute force, but Eryk can charge it with lightning to extend its reach and control it like a whip.

Live-Action TV

• In later seasons of Xena: Warrior Princess, her chakram could be split into two pieces.
• Power Rangers and Super Sentai love this trope with most seasons having a larger weapon made out each Ranger's main weapons, and in special cases, combining bifurcated weapons. There have also been many instances of bladed weapons that can be re-formed into guns (sometimes by combining with the blade mode's sheath) during the franchise's long history. A few 80s-era Super Sentai series had team guns that could split into shields and swords.
  • In Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Billy's Power Lance. It was used as a staff-like weapon as often as he split it in half. MMPR also had the Power Blaster, made by combining all five Rangers' weapons.
  • Ninja Sentai Kakuranger: Ninjaman in Samuraiman form creates a spear by combining his sword with its sheath.
  • Power Rangers Zeo had two: the Zeo Power Pod Sword could combine with the Zeo Laser Pistol to form the Advanced Zeo Laser Pistol, one of which could then further combine with the team's individual weapons to form the Zeo Blaster.
  • Power Rangers Turbo had the Turbo R.A.M., which could be a remote control car that could also take a cannon form.
  • Power Rangers in Space/Denji Sentai Megaranger had standard Ranger blasters that could separate into two blasters.
  • Power Rangers Time Forces Chrono Sabers (aka Spark Vectors in Mirai Sentai Timeranger). Double Weapon and Dual Wielding. The Vector Weapons could also combine into the Vector Blaster.
  • Ban/Deka Red's twin guns in Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger could combine into a longer sawed-off rifle with more power. The other rangers similarly had batons and taser-rigged knuckle dusters that can combine into a sort of gun. These carried over into Power Rangers S.P.D., as well.
  • Power Rangers Operation Overdrive has Kamdor, whose two swords combine into a double-bladed naginata.
  • Juken Sentai Gekiranger had several examples. The GekiTonfa used by Ran and Retsu could be used as two separate tonfas or combined into a bo staff. Jan's GekiSaber could be wielded as two asymmetric weapons or combined into a single, larger blade for greater striking power and Ken's SaiBlade could dock with the Super Geki Claws for more combination attacks.
  • Power Rangers Samurai Had the Bullzooka combine with the Mega Blade to form the Shogun Spear.
  • In Power Rangers Megaforce, the team's weapons combined into the Megaforce Blaster.
  • Power Rangers Dino Charge got a few. First, the Dino Charge Morpher and the Dino Saber combine into the Dino Blade Blaster. Red's Morpher could alternatively combine with the T-Rex Super Charge Zord to form the T-Rex Super Charge Morph Blaster. Finally, the team weapons could combine into the Dino Spike Sword.
  • Mashin Sentai Kiramager: The sword and handgun that the kiramagers use can be combined to make a rifle, although only Juuru does this because he is the only one who uses both.
• Kamen Rider does it a few times too, especially in both Heisei Era phases.
  • Kamen Rider Agito's Burning Form has the Shining Caliber. It normally is wielded as a dual-wielded sword, however, when he transforms into Shining Form, it's wielded as a pair of swords.
  • Kamen Rider Knight's Survive form in Kamen Rider Ryuki gives him the Darkvisor-Zwei, a Knightly Sword and Shield combo that replaces Knight's Darkvisor. It almost counts as a Swiss-Army Weapon, as not only can it be used as the usual Sword and Shield combo, but when still sheathed/combined the weapon turns into an arm-mounted energy crossbow.
  • Parodied in Kamen Rider Den-O when the Owner at one point uses a SPOON that is one of these. Also played straight with the Dengasher, which is both this and a Swiss-Army Weapon, as it can be disassembled into four parts and reassembled into five different combinations, including Den-O Wing Form's preferred modes of a handaxe and boomerang.
  • Kamen Rider Double: Cyclone Joker Xtreme comes with the Prism Bicker, which can split into the Prism Sword and Bicker Shield.
  • Kamen Rider Gaim: Gaim's Musou Saber can be combined with his other sword into a naginata, his flail into a kusarigama, or his BFG into a BFS. The movie-only Kamen Rider Mars is equipped with the Sword Bringer, which can be sheathed in the Apple Reflector.
  • Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: The Gashacon Sparrow granted by Girigiri Chanbara (and wielded primarily by Kamen Rider Lazer) is a bow that can be separated into a pair of kama.
  • Kamen Rider Zi-O: The Zikan Gilade and Saikyo Gilade are a pair of swords that can be combined into the Saikyo Zikan Gilade, one of the few Rider weapons that's of greatsword length.
• Ultra Series: Some Ultramen uses weapons, and a few of them falls into this trope.
  • Ultraman Zero: Zero can combine his Twin Zero Sluggers into a massive curved blade that glows with plasma energy and can slice kaijus apart with ease.
  • Ultraman Orb: In Hurricane Slash mode, combining the powers or Ultraman Jack and the aforementioned Zero, allows Orb to summon the Slugger Lance, created by combining Jack's Ultra Lance and Zero's Twin Sluggers.
  • A variation in Ultraman Leo; one episode had Leo fighting the spear-wielding Alien Kettle while unarmed, so what does he do? Grab a pair of smokestacks from a nearby factory, put them together - tada, instant nunchucks.
• Star Trek features two Cool Starship versions. The first is the USS Enterprise-D, which can separate the saucer section. Usually intended to get the civilians and most of the crew to safety while the drive section goes into battle, the two units have also fought side-by-side. The USS Prometheus takes it to a new level by separating into three warp-capable, combat-armed sections.
• Batwoman (2019): Subverted. Kate's staff is seemingly an example, but actually she just snapped it in two. Luke complains that now he has to build her a new one.
  Kate: It would be cool if it broke in half, though.
  Luke: Yeah... but it doesn't.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons also has several weapons that split or have bits pop out to aid in disarm or sunder attempts.
  • The "Adventurer's Vault" supplement for 4E introduces Paired weapons, which are magical weapons that start off as one weapon but have the ability to split into two identical weapons for Dual Wielding. A nice little weapon for the Ranger on a budget, or who doesn't want to splurge for two different magical weapons.
• In Warhammer 40,000:
  • The Klaivex leaders of the Dark Eldar Incubi sects have the option of replacing their regular klaives with demiklaives. Demiklaives can be used either connected together as a single large and powerful blade or separated into a pair of regular-sized blades for increased speed.
  • Combi-weapons are given to specialists and officers, particularly among the various flavors of Space Marines. They are the Marines' signature Boltgun as the main weapon with an underbarrel (or overbarrel) weapon with one use, usually a flamethrower, meltagun, a plasmagun, or a gravity gun. Other variants include the much more traditional grenade launcher, one that shoots poison needles, and a crossbow (It Makes Sense in Context).
  • One weapon used by sects that are associated with the Ecclesiarchy uses an Eveiscerator Chainsword with a heavy flamethrower built into the hilt.
  • The Adeptus Custodes (the Imperium's most elite mooks) use halberds with a variety of short range guns guilt into the haft to help them soften up targets before getting in close.
• Shadowrun has a few examples (mostly assault rifles with underslung grenade launchers/shotguns), though the rules allow a creative mechanic to bolt together just about anything.
• GURPS: Martial Arts has stats for adding a number of different functionalities to melee weapons. Both High-Tech and Ultra-Tech have accessories for guns and beam weapons as well as stats for crazy real-life stuff like the Cutlass Pistol.
• In a clear shout-out to Aliens (as well as a nifty way to make up for the severe lack of variety compared to d20 Modern), d20 Future contains rules for combining various bits of tech and, yes, other weapons into any given weapon. With the right modifications, one could make a fully automatic plasma shotgun with an attached acid-grenade launcher that can be fired around corners without looking thanks to targeting software integrated into contact lenses. Also, flashlight! Because seriously, screw you, Doom 3.

Toys

• BIONICLE:
  • The Toa Nuva originally used weapons that had 3 modes: staff, two single blades and a third "Transport" mode, with the exception of Pohatu who instead had a pair of claws that could become a ball for him to kick around.
  • Rahkshi staffs have dagger and Staff modes.
  • Whenua Metru used to have a drill (That didn't look anything like a drill) that split into a pair of shovels.
  • Gresh has his Jungle Shield which can be split into 2 bladed tonfa.
  • And given that they're made out of LEGO, their advanced armaments are limited only by your brick stock and imagination.
  • Dual-mode weapons make a comeback in the BIONICLE relaunch. For example, Onua can use the halves of his mighty hammer as clawed shovel-blades on his hands.
• Skeletor's sword in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002) can bifurcate like this, and he can pull apart his sword when he needs to dual-wield.
  • In the original 1980s version and the toyline, He-Man and Skeletor owned two halves of a bifurcated sword, which they would occasionally combine to combat a serious mutual threat. Ordinarily, two people both holding the hilt of a single sword would reduce combat effectiveness, but since both swords were magical, Skeletor was a sorcerer, and He-Man was channeling some serious ancient magic, the combined magnitude of magic involved probably justified the awkwardness.
• There's the Super Soaker Triple Aggressor Which, as it's name implies, its a Trifurcated weapon. It's a large super soaker with a smaller water pistol and sponge-grenade attached to it. It's about as awesome as it sounds.
• Shows up a lot in The Transformers toys, particularly the Generations line:
  • The most extreme example goes to Roadbuster's action figure, who has six different guns that can be combined together in a wide variety of ways.
  • The Combiner Wars toyline has this feature as a gimmick for Voyager Class figures, which formed the bodies of the Combiners- they all came with two weapons that combined together to form a larger weapon for the gestalt form to use. The largest example goes to Victorion, who wields a BFS formed from the weapons of all five of her component robots. Leader Class Ultra Magnus also can combine his paired blasters with his shoulder missile pods to create a large warhammer in reference to his Transformers: Animated and Transformers: Prime incarnations.
  • Masterpiece MP-9 Rodimus Prime includes Hot Rod's laser pistols, which can be combined into Rodimus Prime's rifle, while the figures based on the MP-12 Sideswipe mold (including Red Alert, Clampdown, Tigertrack, and G2 Sideswipe) include weapons that can be combined for use in vehicle mode (or just to keep them together in storage).
  • The primary gimmick of the 2018 Siege line is interchangeable and combinable weaponry, to facilitate this most toys of that line come with at least two weapons which can combine together to make a larger weapon.
  • 2022's Legacy: Evolution further markets this feature as an application of the line's vaguely-defined "Evo-Fusion" gimmick, but in practice does nothing to truly evolve the concept.

Video Games

• ANNO: Mutationem has Ann's Dual Blades, which can combine into a double-headed glaive.
• This trailer from ArchLord has a soldier draw a sword stored as the hilt of his pike.
• In Batman: Arkham Knight, at the beginning of the fight with the eponymous villain, he pulls out a pair of pistols to kill Batman at close range. When that fails, he links them together into a carbine rifle and takes up a sniping position. The weapon is also the trope image for Combo Rifle.
• Bloodborne has the Blade of Mercy (a shortsword that can split into dual daggers), the Burial Blade (a scimitar that can attach to a handle to become a scythe), Lugwig's Holy Blade (a greatsword that functions as a sheath for the detachable longsword inside), the Kirkhammer (a stone-headed hammer that also functions as a sheath for a detachable longsword) and the Rakuyo (a double-ended sword that splits into a rapier and dagger).
• In Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare there is an assault rifle, the Type-2, that splits into two machine pistols. Or two shotguns if you're using the Butcher variant.
• In one City of Heroes arc, there's a villain named Trapdoor who's POWER is to bifurcate HIMSELF (he's actually summoning alternate reality versions of himself, it seems). If you don't defeat these Bifurcations, Trapdoor's regeneration level goes through the roof, making defeating him impossible.
• Devil May Cry:
  • Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening:
    • Protagonist Dante wields Agni & Rudra, a pair of serrated scimitars (that are actually the heads and attached spines of a pair of demons) that he can combine into a Double Weapon for certain attacks. The swords join together by having the "mouths" at the pommels clamp onto one another. Kinda gross when you think about it...
    • The player may find themselves on the receiving end of this during the fight with Agni and Rudra if they're not careful. Agni and Rudra have separate health bars. If the player kills one and the other gets away and jumps back on top of the statue upon which they were perched before the fight, they'll call their fallen brother's sword to them and wield both at once, making them far more dangerous. Of course, the fact that you now only have one enemy to focus on tends to counteract this.
  • Devil May Cry 5: Cavaliere, one of the new Devil Arms Dante can obtain, is a rather extreme example. It is a demonic motorcycle that can split into a pair of massive saw blades, with the wheels acting as said blades and the handlebars acting as hilts.
• In Dynasty Warriors 5 and 8 Cao Pi wields two swords joined at the hilt that can be separated during some combos. Lu Bu (and later, his daughter Lu Lingqi) has his "cross pike", 2 Double Weapons that can combine at their centers in a cross shape.
• Final Fantasy examples:
  • Pictured above is Cloud's sword in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, the Fusion Sword. It's actually six BFSs joined together. And he can simply unclip any of the component swords in the middle of a battle for an instant secondary weapon. A common Fan name for the weapon is the "Swiss Army Sword" (but that's a different trope).
    • The sword also goes by the name First Tsurugi (translated as "First Sword") in the fandom due to a mistranslation of a developer's words. The film creators never got around to actually naming them except for calling the base sword "First Sword", so the general term used for the whole thing is just "Fusion Swords".
    • Surprisingly enough, there do exist cosplay versions of this sword that manage all six parts.
  • In Dissidia Final Fantasy, Cloud has the fusion swords from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children mentioned above, but only in his alternate costume. Normally he wields the first Tsurugi, but when he goes into EX mode it changes to the fully assembled version. When he uses Omnislash v.5 the Fusion Sword does not split into the separate weapons.
  • In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Cloud switches from his classic Buster Sword to the Fusion Swords when set to any of his Advent Children-based costumes. Since the update that added Sephiroth he also uses Omnislash v.5 in such costumes, complete with the sword splitting.
  • In Final Fantasy IX, Zidane had to pick between daggers or two-bladed swords, but in Dissidia Final Fantasy, he switches between the two in different attacks.
  • Garland from Final Fantasy can split his BFS into two smaller swords, in addition to its other functions, in Dissidia Final Fantasy.
  • In both Final Fantasy XII and Dissidia Final Fantasy, Gabranth uses two swords that connect into one.
  • Sazh's pistols in Final Fantasy XIII will fuse into a single assault rifle at the end of an attack combo, while Fang's twin-bladed spear can be pulled apart into a sansetsukon.
    • Lightning's summon, Odin, wields a BFS. In Gestalt Mode, she splits it and dual-wields the halves.
  • Noel's twin blades in Final Fantasy XIII-2 combine together into a giant spear.
  • Final Fantasy XIV'
    • The Red Mage uses a rapier and Power Crystal. For spellcasting, they attach the crystal to the hilt of their sword, converting it into a Magic Staff of sorts.
    • The Viper takes a page out of Zidane's book and uses a pair of swords that join at the hilt to become a Double Weapon.
• In Granblue Fantasy, the Stance System of Yuisis revolves around her Relic of Ditoria. The standard Heavensbane Mode is a classic sword-and-board set that grants her defensive skills; Starslayer Mode combines the short sword and shield into a single greatsword for an overwhelming offense.
• The titular Heavenly Sword is a large sword that can separate in the middle to become two smaller swords. (Which can also become two swords-on-chains.)
• In Injustice: Gods Among Us, Nightwing can change fighting styles by combining his trademark eskrima sticks into a bo staff.
• Pit's bow in Kid Icarus: Uprising and the Super Smash Bros. series split into two swords.
• In Kingdom Hearts, Xigbar's two crossbows can combine in two different ways. By connecting the front of one into the end of the other, he can create a sniper rifle. By joining the two ends together, he can create a longbow.
• Dual Blade in the Lufia series is one of these... maybe. Different games have shown it as either one or two blades, suggesting it may be able to separate and recombine.
• Metal Gear:
  • In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Snake can find or buy attachments for his weapons, including shotguns and grenade launchers, both of which have three different types of ammo.
  • In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Sundowner uses a pair of machetes that can combine to form a giant pair of scissors.
• Monster Hunter:
  • The Charge Blade is fairly nimble while in sword and shield mode, where attacks charge energy, and can be combined into a huge axe with slow and powerful attacks.
  • Switch Axe, a weapon that can switch between an axe for reach, and attacks in this form fills a gauge that is used when in sword mode for quick and damaging empowered attacks.
• Nioh 2 and the DLC have two new weapons: the "Switchglaive" (in original "Naginatagama") is a mechanical weapon which, depending on the stance, can turn into either some sort of axe (with the blade parallel to the handle), a giant scythe or a naginata. In the DLC we have the "Splitstaff", which is essentially a long staff able to split into a whip-like nunchaku weapon.
• A few characters in Samurai Warriors have such weapons, such as Sanada Nobuyuki (His long-handled katana becomes a dual-bladed sword), Otani Yoshitsugu (command baton which conceals a sword) and, possibly the biggest example, Katakura Kojuuro (a shield holding his sword, a gun, multiple ejectable knives, a portable cannon, a Laser Blade and a flute).
• Keiji Maeda from Sengoku Basara wields an extra-long nodachi with an appropriately large sheath, but he can also combine the two by slamming the handle in the sheath and turn the weapon into an impromptu giant polearm. The Japanese dub refers to these weapons separately as the "Super Sword" and "Scarlet Spear" respectively.
• In Soulcalibur VI, Grøh's weapon of choice is a pair of swords that combine at the hilts to form a single weapon.
• Splatoon: Splatoon 2 introduces a pair of guns called the Dualie Squelchers, which are actually the Dual Squelcher from the original Splatoon split into two halves. After a player performs a dodge roll with them, the two guns will be temporarily held together in a way that effectively converts them into a single Dual Squelcher.
• Star Wars:
  • In Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, Boc is a Dark Jedi who has a "thick" lightsaber that, in times of great danger, he would pull into two smaller sabers.
  • In Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, some Jedi (not including you) can split their Darth Maul-style light-lances into two lightsabers. Which makes sense, since Maul's saber was effectively made by welding two lightsaber hilt props together — and when it was cut in half by Obi-Wan, he was still able to use one. This trick gave Darth Bane a nasty shock in Path of Destruction, since the Sith hadn't been teaching anyone to deal with a twin-saber style. The player character can also (if wielding a saber staff) extinguish just one of its blades to use medium stance (or to throw it).
  • Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order: While on Ilum to repair his master's lightsaber (itself a double-bladed lightsaber), Cal finds a kyber crystal that splits into two fragments. He uses those fragments, in combination with another lightsaber given to him by his friend Cere Junda, to create a new lightsaber that can be split into two seperate blades for special moves.
    • By the sequel, Jedi Survivor, Cal has developed multiple different stances to take advantage of this trope. While the same core hilt is used in all of them (including the Single and Blaster Stances), it can combine with a shorter "shota" hilt for the Double-Bladed Stance, split for the Dual Stance, or use both and a pommel battery for the Crossguard Stance. Cal can use any two of these and switch between them at will, making him incredibly versatile in combat.
• In Strife there is the Sigil, an Artifact of Doom Evil Weapon with some assembly required. Any given piece of the Sigil is a devastating weapon but it grows more powerful as they are combined.
• Sword & Fairy 6: Yue Jinzhao normally wields two swords, but in his second style he combines them into a two-handed sword.
• Near the end of Tales of Symphonia, Lloyd Irving obtains the ability to wield the previously half-elf-only Eternal Sword. The purple sword magically splits into a red blade and a blue blade to fit Lloyd's fighting style. He also fuses it back together when performing his Limit Break. More accurately, the Eternal Sword's power split into two weapons he already had, one which was given to him by his adoptive father and the other by his biological father. Also, the Eternal Sword wasn't restricted to half-elves; Anyone with elven blood in them (or using a special trinket) could've used it if they had a pact with Origin.
• Hubert Oswell's weapon in Tales of Graces is a double-ended blade that not only splits into two pistols but can be used as a bow!
• In Warframe, the Dark Split-Sword is ordinarily classified as a heavy sword, but applying a Dual Swords stance mod causes it to split into two blades.
• In The Warriors video game, the boss of the Baseball Furies, Cobb, wields two black baseball bats tied together. His attacks are slow, but it does quite a bit of damage.
• Wolfenstein: The Old Blood: B.J. accidentally breaks a water pipe while climbing it, only to realize that the shape it took makes it a great pair of weapons. B.J. can dual-wield them as a stake and cudgel or combine them into a greathammer.
• World of Warcraft:
  • One old version of Illidan's Twin Blades of Azzinoth was a single weapon detachable into two separate ones. The concept was dropped and the live version, available to players, is simply two huge double-headed curved glaives without any possibility of combined into one.
  • After Varian Wrynn was split into two people by Onyxia, Jaina Proudmoore gave them the elven blades Shalla'tor the Shadow Render and Ellemayne the Reaver in preparation for facing Onyxia. When the two Varians became one again, their swords also merged together, becoming Shalamayne. During the Broken Shore Legion cinematic, Varian splits Shalamayne into the original two blades. Shalla'tor and Ellemayne were meant to do this: they were originally made for twin Night Elf warriors. Varok Saurfang also splits Shalamayne into two weapons during his duel with Sylvanas Windrunner. Despite the fact that Sylvanas saw Varian split the sword on the Broken Shore she is tripped up by this maneuver and gets hit in the eye with the second blade. She doesn't let it slow her down for long though.

Web Animation

• RWBY has a number of examples, thanks to the series' great variety and creativity when it comes to weapons.
  • Blake's weapon, Gambol Shroud, at first appears to be a mundane BFS—that's actually her weapon's sheath, which has a sharp edge in and of itself. The real weapon is a second blade which doubles as a handgun, and the sword and sheath can be dual-wielded together.
  • Cinder's weapon, Midnight, takes the form of a pair of curved blades which can be combined together by their hilts to form a bow. Flashbacks show that she used to wield a metal version of this weapon, but has since taken to manifesting it out of Dust since stealing half of the Fall Maiden's powers.
  • Emerald's weapon, Thief's Respite, are a pair of falx/handgun weapons which can be combined together by a metal chain to create a kurisagama-esque weapon.
  • Winter uses a single longsword, which, when she gets serious, can be split in half to form an etroc and saber.
  • Jaune's weapon, Crocea Mors, is a longsword and shield with the latter being able to collapse into a sheath for the former. In Volume 4, his weapon gets an upgrade that involves the sheath partially expanding into shield form while the sword is inside it, turning it into a proper BFS.
  • Maria Calevara, introduced in volume six, used a pair of kama called Life and Death that could be linked together to form a double-ended scythe. In an interesting twist, the two halves each had a ring of gravity Dust, attracting each other whenever the connection was triggered (which she used to achieve Not Quite Flight by anchoring one to a rock or giant Grimm). While the weapons were broken in the same fight that cost her eyes, Maria still uses at least one as a walking stick.

Webcomics

• Thaco in Goblins fights with two swords which, when not in use, can be combined into a walking stick. He later ends up losing one of them, though.
• Kevin from Chaos Theory has a shotgun that can split into two pistols.

Western Animation

• Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender wields a pair of Dao that are interlocked as his weapon of choice, making them appear as a single weapon while sheathed. Truth in Television: Modern Shuang Dao (double knives) like the ones used by Zuko are commonly used in various Kung Fu styles, and look virtually identical to the ones used by the aforementioned firebender.
• Cheetor in Beast Machines has a pair of short swords that can combine into a single Precision-Guided Boomerang.
• Parodied in The Simpsons when Homer joins the gun club. Moe demonstrates how to turn one gun into five guns. He does this attaching four different guns to a shotgun and connecting the triggers together with strings.
• In the 1981 Filmation series Blackstar, the MacGuffin of the series was the "PowerStar", a sword which was split into two halves, the "Power Sword" and the "Star Sword".
• Robin from Teen Titans once slapped two of his bird-a-rangs together, somehow turning them into a sword. It didn't make sense, but it was cool. More common were his kali sticks, modified so that they could be clicked together into a single short staff. Which could then grow to a full-sized quarterstaff. Not that they ever were shown to extend when separated...
• Asajj Ventress of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and other series taking place in the same timeframe plays this relatively straight, combining her two lightsabers into a double-bladed one. It's a slight variation though, in that the combined weapon has an S-shaped hilt, due to the curved shape of the individual sabers. In at least one of the video games, she can also connect the hilts with a cord to create lightsaber chucks.
• Galtar and the Golden Lance: The title hero wields the eponymous weapon as a pair of sabers, which can join together at the pommel into a Double Weapon or a more powerful sword, it also retracts into a double pommel-shaped stick.
• Six of Generator Rex commonly fights with two collapsible swords. He can connect them to create a powerful magnet, which he uses to throw debris into whoever he's fighting.
• An upgrade to the Amulet of Daylight from Trollhunters gives Jim a pair of daggers that can be combined into a Battle Boomerang.
• In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002), Skeletor had a sword that could split into two swords.

Real Life

• The more mundane and realistic bayonet attached to a gun counts for this trope too - it's a knife attached to a gun. Traditionally, this turned the gun into a spear; today, the knife is often just used as a knife as well as a spear. Still, it has a rather deadly reputation. Before the advent of modern medicine very few of those who had been attacked with a rifle equipped with a bayonet survived.
  • The deadliness was assisted by the fact that when the bayonet reached more-or-less its peak in historical use (19th-century), it was a triangular blade attached below the barrel (image◊). The triangular blade alone caused a rather nasty gaping wound that was difficult to stitch shut. However, projecting from the barrel like it did made it so that after impaling an enemy with it, one could simply twist their rifle causing the bayonet to rip a humongous C-shaped gash that was nearly impossible to mend. By the time of the American Revolution, the reputation of these bayonets was so great that, while standard issue to soldiers in the British Army, they didn't see much use. In many cases, the sight of the soldiers standing in line suddenly ceasing fire to fix bayonets and then slowly walking towards the opposing army was enough to rout their opponents.
  • Averted by very early versions of the bayonet, which fitted into the barrel and so rendered the gun part totally useless, often until well after the end of the battle when the blade could be forcibly pried loose. This was mostly a field modification or an emergency stopgap for when pikemen weren't available, and very much a last-ditch thing.
  • A sword bayonet turns the rifle effectively into a halberd - good not only for thrusting attacks but also for blows and slashes. Related innovations placed ax heads on the barrel.
  • Not quite sane, but also implemented: chainsaw bayonet (see the source of inspiration above). Like this. Just don't fall asleep with it.
• Some versions of bo could be released or unscrewed to split into a tri-staff for closer combat or crowd control. ^note Which is really appropriate as the first tristaff is said to have been made by a warrior who broke his bo in three pieces. It is said that he chained the sections together. Of course, the problem is, it can't be reversed quite so easily.
• Then there is the canceled Swiss-Army Weapon OICW (Objective Individual Combat Weapon) that the U.S. Army was working on, which was an assault rifle and grenade launcher with about two dozen other features that made it Awesome, but Impractical due to being too heavy, too expensive, and not effective in any of its intended roles.
  • The South Koreans created their own version, the K11, which entered service in 2010, though was ultimately pulled in 2019 for many of the same reasons the OICW failed.
• The sarissa, a gigantic 20-foot pike used by the Macedonian phalanx under Alexander the Great, was able to split apart for transport. Theoretically, the two ten-foot sections could have been used as weapons, one with the spearhead and the other using the weighted end that kept the sarissa level. If it ever was used this way, however, history has not recorded it.
  • Well, one historian has interpreted the remains of metal tube-like things as being for joining the two halves together. He was criticized quite a bit for, shall we say, less than rigorous research. It also just so happens that later pikes would incorporate identical metal things on the end, to prevent the enemy cutting the end of the pike off, and weren't able to be split in half. He might have been correct, but it seems rather unlikely.
• Another example from ol' mundane reality is the current vogue for putting a grenade launcher under the barrel of a rifle. There are also ways to put a cut-down shotgun under the barrel, like the Knight's Armament Masterkey and the M26 Modular Accessory Shotgun System.
  • Before them both was the rifle grenade, an anti-personnel/anti-tank grenade that one could stick to the end of the barrel and fired using either normal or specialized ammunition, which has been around since just before World War II. Most modern armies have replaced them with anti-tank rockets and underbarrel grenades, but a few military forces still use them.
• Several axes & maces have hollow hilts which can hide a dagger inside. One example◊ is a mace belonging to the Radziwiłłs' private army.
• One type of Nerf Dart Tag blaster pistol (called the Crossfire or Strikefire, depending on which set it's in) was designed with this in mind; while nearly every single Dart Tag or N-Strike blaster has a sight rail for attaching accessories like sights, scopes, lights, and the like, the Crossfire/Strikefire instead has a clip that attaches to those sight rails, allowing it to be combined with other blasters.
  • The Nerf Titan ASV-1 has a similar concept: part of it's construction is a reverse tactical rail, allowing any gun with a rail to be attached to the right side. Example: the Maverick REV-6.◊
  • The more modern Longshot, known as the NERF Brand Sniper Rifle, is also capable of separating into two guns.
  • The N-Force Vendetta can either be a dual blade sword or detached for Dual Wield, similar to the Darth Maul example below.
• One Batman toy/costume (released around the time of the Tim Burton movie) featured a utility belt that had a set of binoculars, "grapple" (Nerf-style) gun, flashlight and other such implements. For some reason, all of these combined together into a sniper rifle. Because everyone knows how much Batman loves guns.
• The toy version of Darth Maul's double-edged lightsabre is inadvertently this as a result of functionality: you can unscrew the ends to put the batteries in, but more often than not it's more fun to dual-wield.
• Sometimes, butterfly swords are known to be made in such a way that you can carry two of them in the same sheath. Of course, this involves a bit of skill to make, as the grip's flat on one side for that reason. The same is true of some modern Shuang Dao.
  • There are, in fact, Rapiers that are made the same way, so that two symmetrical rapiers can be carried in the same sheath, called 'a case of rapiers'. It's a convient way to carry them if you plan to use one in each hand, not that that was particularly common, though it is shown in a few martial arts treatises like Giacomo Di Grassi.
• The Maasai, or the lion-spear, is a weapon from Africa that can probably be used in this way. That's because both ends of the spear are deadly, and the lugs used to hold them onto its small haft are big enough that you can use them as two separate swords. Normally, however, it's used as just your regular spear that's specialized for lion-killing.
• There have been a few add-ons to the AR-15 that allow it to carry another gun in its furniture. Most experts or even knowable fans consider this very much Awesome, but Impractical. The point of carrying a pistol and rifle is that if anything goes wrong with the rifle, you can use the pistol. You obviously want the pistol in an easy to reach carry holster for this purpose and not attached to the rifle where they could both be lost at the same time, and even ignoring that, the pistol adds weight to the rifle, making it harder to carry or aim.
• Karate Mart has a 2 piece collapsible staff that can be combined into one long staff, and separated into dual-wielded sword-sized batons.
• Trifurcated weapon in the case of a man who fused three double barreled shotguns together to make a six barreled one. Seen here.

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