"And what, pray tell, did I do, dear daughter?" she burned from his words, heat scorching the underside of her skin as he just seemed amused than anything else, his question frustratingly rhetorical just to rile her further.

"Because of you-," Sarafina growled, scowling so hard that if looks could hurt, her father would have been through the worst kind of torture, "-Mom died... and grampa had to hide me in the realm of darkness! I was FIVE!" she snapped loudly, teeth grinding and throat instantly sore with how roughly the words left her chest, "Five years old and it was to hide from YOU! MY OWN FATHER!" no matter the pain thrumming through her neck, the seething rage ran deeper than any hurt.

"Your mother was a fool for defying me," she was seeing red at his opinion, talking about her mother like she was nothing, "My father, even more of a fool for 'hiding' you-," he gestured with quotation gestures, "-and using a worthless boy to create an obsolete weapon. In the end, the man was left with a broken child and a pathetic excuse for a being of darkness,"

"Don't talk about my mother and friends like that!" Sara shouted, struggling harshly in the restraints and feeling them tighten due to it, but she couldn't have cared less at the moment. No one spoke ill of the ones she held dear! "You're nothing but evil incarnate of what was once human!" the lilac-haired girl spat venomously, scowl growing deeper with her furiousness building.

"You have no grounds to think yourself better, dearest daughter," and the man was calm, which only infuriated her more that he refused to react with anything but a calm, collective response, "If not for you, the Heartless would have never existed,"

She faltered. Without exteriorly reacting or biting back at the comment, her heart skipped, mind unhelpfully supplying old memories and nightmarish experiments of the time, the Heartless and what had happened. How they became they were they were and the hand she and her father had in it. Despite it all, she continued to steel herself from showing her waver, staying strong.

"Anybody else having trouble processing this?!" Sora spoke up with an incredulous expression, appearing both lost and unable to register the conversation. Vanitas didn't blame him, nor the others that raised their hands to agree with the brunette copy. In all honesty, it didn't surprise him that this was hard for them to take in.

"Wait! Does that mean she's-," the ravenettes' attention snapped to the hand that grabbed his lighter half shoulder, a moment of tension raising since he tended to snap at others for even thinking about touching him.

"Xehanort's granddaughter? Yeah," Ventus replied calmly, not reacting to the hand at all, save for patting it in a way of reassurance or even comfort. He knew for a fact that they were all shock upon realizing that little piece of information. None of them could stand Xehanort, not that he was around anymore.

"When were you planning on telling us?" Terra spoke up, directing his firm and authoritative gaze towards the ravenette like it was his fault that they hadn't known any of this. He'd get him back for that later with a case of his own logic, because it wasn't his doing. It wasn't his choice to tell them, it wasn't his story to explain.

"Truthfully? Never," he replied bluntly and honestly, not giving a care for the look he received from both him and Aqua that he hadn't been planning to ever tell them about her. As he'd decided years prior, it wasn't his right to tell anyone, nor would he. Ven had even been sworn to secrecy by both him and Sarafina.

"I didn't actually know her as well as Vanitas. This was around the time Aqua fell into the dark world," said blonde mentioned, drawing most attention to himself and giving the ravenette a break from the nasty looks he seemed to continue getting from everyone, despite being a part of the team or whatever.

"What happened to her?" Aqua asked with obvious concern, her question pretty much rhetorical and heavily sympathetic, like a mother wanting to console another womans' hurt child. She was really the mother of the group.

"Not my story to tell," Vanitas replied quietly, remembering his time with her and how most of their interactions were spent. She'd been a kid, a bunch of years younger than himself, though that's not taking into account that he was taken only months before from Ventus' heart. He meant it as Ventus' age, not Vanitas' physical one.

"You can tell them your side of it," Ven motioned towards him, reaching out and giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. He didn't want to, he felt as though explaining it would only complicate things. Too much and a balance could be tipped, they'd treat her differently. But then... maybe it would help them connect further with her. She'd wanted that from the start, right? A lot of friends, all close to her heart.

"Fine," he grumbled after a moment, hoping that this would lead to the latter, "Around the time I started causin' shit for you guys, Xehanort assigned me to keep an eye on his granddaughter when he wasn't around. She was pretty young and a pain in the ass at the time," he shrugged, recalling the hair pulling and flailing arms for whenever she wanted to leave and he wouldn't allow it, "This was after Xander killed her Mom, by the way," he mentioned grimly, having not seen it himself, but remembered the darkness that filled the old man every time he remembered.

"Probably from being mistreated by him," Axel commented with a frown, his mind seemingly focused on the pain in the ass part of that explanation. It wasn't all that surprising that everyone would think that.

"Actually, you probably wouldn't believe it, but Xehanort wasn't entirely a heartless bastard. He really did love Sarafina," as astonishing as it sounded, the man actually had feelings despite wanting nothing more than a world plunged into chaos, "When Xander came around to take her back, he made me fight him," and he remembered that well. He'd been weak, which had led to Aqua beating him in Radiant Garden, "While I fought him, Xehanort hid her in the realm of Darkness and then beat his ass," which had been a sight to see, "When we thought she was safe from the guy, we went to check the realm to get her back, but she wasn't there,"

"As far as I know, back then, the Heartless were as harmless as those Dream Eater's Sora and Riku have," Ventus spoke up again, Vanitas remembering the conversation where Sara had explained this to them, mentioning that they hadn't been dangerous at all, that they were a similar creature to Vanitas' Unversed until Xander got his hands on them.

"Xander corrupted them, and they're the Heartless you see everywhere nowadays," Vanitas voiced his reminder, running a hand through his chaotic hair. He didn't want to explain anything else, though he had a feeling that there were more questions coming.