I would never have believed that novel!Chris could be even more awesome than anime!Chris if I hadn't read it myself.

how about "caught"?

I think I explained that bit badly in the note. See, the idea is that the throwing and the catching happens so quickly that--by the time the narration gets around to describing it--it's already over. So Chris already has the dagger in hand. Now, the first bit implies that he's holding it the way you'd expect someone to hold a dagger after catching it (握って), then the second bit acts as a self-correction, saying, no, he's not grasping it so much as . . .

I'm curious, what does it mean exactly?

The True Companions trope was originally labeled "Nakama," and expanding the Anime & Manga folder will give you a bunch of examples/further explanation. The post-Baron Obstinate Arrows are probably a good Sutepri-verse example.

I actually intended "crew" as the translation for "連中," while "仲間" got reduced to just "a part." That said, it's kind of serendipitous that the Firefly quotation at the top of the trope page has Mal using "crew" to illustrate the point. X D