It drops you mid-escape and never bothers to explain itself, which is exactly the point. Scrooge tearing out of that research facility, psychic power ripping through the chasers sent to drag him back, is Guilty Crown's ugliest idea stated plainly: kids get remodeled into weapons and then blamed for being weapons. Then Carol asks him to reach into her body and pull the blade out with his right arm, and you realize you're watching the King's Mark before Shu ever fumbled his way into Inori, a decade early and with none of the pop-star packaging. It's a bundled promo for a PC game, so it ends the way promos end, abruptly and greedily, but Production I.G animate that Void draw like it costs something. Stick around for it because Carol asks to be used, and Scrooge does it anyway.

Set in Japan in 2029, ten years before the main Guilty Crown story, this prequel short centers on a character codenamed Scrooge. After years of experiments that altered his body through genetic manipulation, he breaks out of the research facility that confined him and turns his psychic abilities on the pursuers sent to catch him. On the run, he encounters Carol, a fellow test subject, and the pair flee together. When three psychic hunters corner them, Carol asks Scrooge to pull a weapon from inside her body using his right arm. A girl named Present also crosses their path, her fate linked to theirs. The animated special was released on a DVD packaged with a limited edition release of the PC game Guilty Crown Lost Christmas, and it mixes action, drama and science fiction.