Akina: "On that fateful day, a single card was acquired... It signaled the beginning of the Fated Clash!"
The fifth main series of the Cardfight!! Vanguard anime.
Six cards known as the "Six Desires" were born with the power to change fate. Each of them has chosen a single person to partake in the "Fated Clash" in which the last one standing would have their wish granted. The story follows the one chosen by the "Fated One of Miracles" Akina Myodo, a high schooler, who never played Vanguard before, but accepts the invitation to cure his little sister, Hikari.
The series takes after the events of Will+Dress D2 with several characters from those series returning with most of them being supporting characters.
Tropes:
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Played with; While the winner of the Fated Clash gets their wish granted, Gabwelius states that the losers only lose the chance to fulfill their wish. However, the person in the fox mask states that the participants of the Fated Clash will die thus putting Gabwelius' words in question. Episode 10 reveals that all the participants died as collateral of Suo's wish for "nothing" and that Taizo was the Sole Survivor simply because he didn't partake in the Fated Clash at all and didn't watch the fight between Akina and Suo.
- Bad Future: Downplayed; "Fox Mask" is Hikari from the future, who came to the past to prevent the death of Akina (and the other participants) in the Fated Clash.
- Big Brother Instinct: What causes Akina to join the Fated Clash is to wish for Hikari's health to improve. In return a future version of Hikari going to the past to prevent her brother's death in the Fated Clash.
- Big "WHAT?!": Both Taizo and Mikoto are in disbelief over the fact Akina rearranged his deck so that he does not have a single heal trigger or sentinel, which absolutely no one right in their mind would do. However, the former does compliment Akina for his daring strategy.
- Brutal Honesty: Upon recognizing Taizo, Akina calls him the "guy who lost in the finals of the Vanguard Deluxe" rather than runner-up as Taizo prefers.
- Contrived Coincidence: Aside from Taizo and Masanori, all other participants of the Fated Clash are people connected to Akina with Nao being his senpai at work, and Mikoto and Suo attending the same school as him with the latter being his classmate. For bonus points, Mikoto is an online friend of Hikari, whom she tries to meet up with to help buy her first physical deck, but due to her sickness, Akina comes instead.
- Crazy Enough to Work: Akina knows that his chances of victory are very slim against Taizo so he goes against all logic and makes his deck a complete beatdown and rush deck that runs eight Critical, seven Front, and one Over Trigger along with not having a single Sentinel to play as aggressively as possible. Due to the fact Taizo didn't know this, he ended up wasting a turn attacking rear-guards due to assuming Akina's last card in his hand was a Sentinel along with not wanting to trigger Rezael's Divine Skill.
- Defeating the Undefeatable: Akina defeating Taizo is treated as this since Taizo is a high-class pro Vanguard fighter with Nao outright telling Akina that he only has a 1 in a 100 chance of defeating him.
- Didn't See That Coming: What prevents Taizo from winning his fight against Akina is his not foreseeing the risky all-out offense strategy Akina made to defeat him, which removes all Perfect Guards and Heal Triggers in Akina's deck with him also running seven Front Triggers.
- Foregone Conclusion: Episode 1 shows Raika defeating Taizo in the finals of the second Vanguard Deluxe tournament, thus spoiling how Will+Dress D2 will end.
- Gender-Concealing Voice: Initially "Fox Mask" spoke in a deep voice highly implying there is a guy underneath the mask, which hides future Hikari's identity.
- Honor Before Reason: Despite coming from an affluent family, Megumi works in a card shop to earn money to buy the cards herself rather than rely on her family's wealth.
- Horrifying the Horror: Masanori is a self-styled Card-Carrying Villain, who causes lots of problems in overDress for his own amusement, but he is outright horrified at how much of an Empty Shell Suo is and after their fight would rather not interact with him again citing "bad.
- Instant Expert: Downplayed; While Akira is the only newbie in the "Fated Clash", he manages to defeat his teacher, Nao Inabe, who is training to become a pro fighter, and Taizo, the runner-up of the Vanguard Deluxe, in the Fated Clash. Although this is downplayed since as stated, he would normally lose to them, but Nao didn't know the full power of Rezael's Divine Skill and Akina was able to grab the 1 in a 100 chance of victory through a risky strategy against Taizo.
- In Spite of a Nail: Despite the efforts of "Fox Mask", the final match of the Fated Clash is still between Akina and Suo with the former managing to defeat Taizo, who in the original timeline didn't partake.
- Literal Genie: When Suo won the Fated Clash in the original timeline and got his wish for "nothing", Blangdmire interprets his wish as becoming nothing with him opening a void that sucks everything within a few hundred meters including the other four participants present (Akina, Nao, Mikoto, and Masanori).
- No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: Taizo's stance on the whole idea of Fated Clash's wish. Yes, he could win it and use the wish to become the master of both the business and Vanguard worlds like he always wanted... but half his reason for doing so is for the sake of succeeding in both fields on his own merits. All the wish would do is shortcut him to the top. He only ends up participating at all because the Fox Mask convinced him to win to save the other competitors from the "fate of death" that surrounds the contest.
- One Extra Member: There are six fighters wielding the "Six Desires" each of them representing a nation of Cray. However much to the surprise of Gabwelius, the person in the fox mask is the holder of the seventh card although their true identity implies that they partook in a Fated Clash in the future.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Masanori is always playful and mocking in his fights yet he is outright unnerved by Suo, who not only lacks a single reaction to his taunts, but more or less is a complete Empty Shell. When Suo wins the fight with his ace's Divine Skill, which makes Masanori feel completely helpless against the overwhelming attack. He is brought down to his knees.
- Prophecy Twist: When Hikari won her Fated Clash in the future and wished to change her brother's fate of death, she initially thought she had to prevent Akina and Suo from partaking in the Fated Clash by trying to convince them to drop out and when that didn't work got Taizo to partake to defeat her brother, which also didn't work. However, what truly allowed her to change Akina's fate was her lending him her Fated One card, whose skill works as a Man of Kryptonite against Blangdmire's game-ending Divine Skill.
- Screw Destiny: "Fox Mask" attempts to do this by making either Akina or Suo lose or withdraw from the Fated Clash, but ends up unsuccessful with the two still being the last fighters remaining. However, Taizo does believe that Akina can alter his fate since despite the low odds in their fight, Akina is still able to grab the small chance of victory in his hands. Once "Fox Mask" reveals her identity, she and Akina fight to decide, who shall be the one to defy fate with Hikari wanting Akina to give up on the Fated Clash and Akina desiring to fight against Suo despite his low odds of victory.
- Secret-Keeper: Taizo is the only one who knows the true identity of "Fox Mask", but keeps it a secret as part of their deal.
- Sequel Hook: In the post-credits scene, a being similar to Gabwelius starts talking about that with fate now changed, she will start the "Destined Showdown".
- Spit Take: Mikoto does this to Akina when he is the one who helps her buy a physical deck from a card shop due to recognizing him from the Fated Clash.
- Straw Nihilist: After the death of his parents, Suo's only desire is absolutely nothing. When he won the Fated Clash in the original timeline, his wish caused a hole to open, which sucks the whole stadium and all present participants inside highly implying they are all killed with nothing left behind thus truly becoming nothing.
- Talk to the Fist: Upon meeting Gabwelius, a flying chibi dragon thing from Cray, Akira's first response is to punch the mysterious creature that startled him.
- There Can Only Be One: In the Fated Clash, six fighters compete against each other until there is only one remaining.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: What Akina essentially is to Suo due to Akina genuinely wanting to be his friend despite Suo's sheer lack of disinterest in him.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: When Akina trains for his fight against Taizo. Akina and Nao discuss the unorthodox plan Akina made. On Taizo's last turn, Akina reveals that he has removed all Sentinels and Heal Triggers in his deck in favor of Front Triggers and more offensive cards.
- Vagueness Is Coming: A person in a fox mask tells Akina to withdraw from the Fated Fight or else he will die.
- Wham Shot: Episode 9 has "Fox Mask" unmasking themselves revealing that they are an older Hikari from the future.
- Wham Episode: Episode 10 reveals that in the original timeline, all participants aside from Taizo, who did not take part in the Fated Clash, were all killed by Suo, whose wish for "nothing" sucked him and the surrounding area into a black hole with nothing left behind.
- The Worf Effect:
- This is usually done to characters from overDress and will+Dress to showcase the strength of the Divine Skills from the "Fated One" cards, such as Megumi losing to Mikoto and Shinobu losing to Masanori.
- Masanori is brought to his knees by Suo to showcase just how terrifying the Empty Shell is.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Implied; When the fox-masked person tries to get Suo Yobitsugi to withdraw from the Fated Fight, Suo, who couldn't care less about it, decides his participation by shuffling the Fated One of Zero card in his deck and only joins the clash if he were to draw that card. Despite the 1 in 50 odds, Suo drew it. "Fox Mask" outright says this trope when the Fated Clash's final fight will be between Akina and Suo despite their attempts to stop it.
