orchid arch
I'm not entirely sure, but you might not be deflecting the peojectiles but instead destroy them. Depends on how you hit them I think, side of the sword works best for me. And it just looks like they are flying back because of the remaining particles from the initial shot.
Again, not 100% sure
As for the shoes:
Do you fall immediately?
And you don get ported back up even after exiting the menu?
devout seal
It depends on your distance. If you're at the absolute farthest away you can be, the projectile will fizzle out on the way back.
Also it will sometimes do this when you kill the enemy that fired the projectiles before the projectiles disappear.