The Swallow (燕 Tsubame?, Swallow) is Crono's fourteenth-level katana in Chrono Trigger. It has a base critical hit rate of 30% and increases speed by 3.
The weapon's sprite in-battle is colored with a unique deep-blue, with its slashing trail being a single thin-blue-colored "line".
Acquiring the Swallow
After charging Marle's Pendant at the Mammon Machine in Zeal travel to Forest Ruins and disable the prism barrier. A Nu would appear and offer one of the two items, an offensive, and defensive item. The offensive item is the Swallow, while the defensive item is known as the Guardian Helm.
Name Origin
The name of this weapon is named after the bird of the same name, the swallow; via the blade's color, a majority of swallows are recognizable for their blue colored feathers and unique fork-shaped tails. The speed boost the weapon provides also nods to the agility of the said bird.
The bird itself may be symbolic of Zeal's prior nature in terms of being high in the skies and where it was originally housed (on an island north of Enhasa and East of the Zeal Palace, which eventually became the Forest Ruins later in the timeline).
Serge, the protagonist of Chrono Cross, wields weapons called Swallows.
Trivia
- The weapon has coincidental ties to famed samurai Sasaki Kojirō's Tsubame Gaeshi (燕返し Swallow Return/Reversal?) sword technique, also used by the Master-at-Arms.
- Coincidentally due to lost records of the technique, most portrayals of the Tsubame Gaeshi portray it to be a double slash attack that cuts in one direction and returns on the same line.