Kul Elna was the perfect choice for the dark ritual. It had 100 souls living there, they needed 99. None would miss a town of thieves and outcasts.
It hadn't always been that way. It had been a farming community long ago before being abandoned. When a small group of outcasts reviled for their unnatural white hair moved in it had been years since it had been seen. The group quickly grew to 100 filled with petty thieves and other unsavory types. Not all were thieves of course. There were the bartenders, the wives, the elderly and the children. None of that mattered when the pharoah's soldiers came. The young, the old, the men and the women were all slaughtered to fill the ritual.
But they only needed 99. The 100th soul escaped.
Bakura had been seven when he watched the village he had grown up in be sacrificed under the pharoah's orders to make items of gold. It had been pure luck that he hadn't been caught. Bakura had been out in the desert that day and late coming home. He had seen the soldiers from a distance and hidden. He managed to sneak in close enough to witness the slaughter, the image permanently burned into his mind as he watched friends, neighbors, and eventually his own family be thrown into large boiling pots where they were killed to create gold. Bakura might be young, but he was the child of a thief. He knew the value of gold. He just hadn't thought anyone would kill to make it.
He learned better that day. The pharoah's soldiers left carrying the seven gold items forged from the death of his people and left him behind. He was in shock for quite some time. He barely managed to pull himself together enough to head home out of the sun. He stayed in Kul Elna, unsure where else to go. This was home.
The spirits used in the dark ritual creating the Millenium Items didn't just pass on peacefully. They had been used to fuel the creation, the magic twisted enough to prevent them from moving on. Consumed with revenge the spirits returned to the village and turned to the only remaining survivor to grant it to them.
He was young when the spirits came. Their all consuming need for revenge blinded him. It gave him a purpose in life, and the spirits helped him live on his own. Despite his youth it wasn't long before he began to make plans to make the pharoah pay for what he had done to his people. But first, he would have to grow strong enough. So he began to steal, learning how to wield Shadow magic and fight. It wasn't easy. He earned plenty of scars including an ugly one on his face to remind him of his place in life. Every day was a struggle just to survive. But it would change. He would become strong enough to destroy Egypt's living god.
He was 13 when he discovered his Ka, a shadow spirit that had grown in his soul and would aid him in his work. He was called Diabound. With Diabound's help Bakura was finally able to move past the thefts he'd done before and become a tomb raider. It wasn't long after that he began to gain a following. He was considered unstoppable, just 18 when he became known as the king of thieves, stories told of him even in the pharoah's palace
The demon Zorc heard of the king of thieves. A useful fellow, willing to do anything for treasure. Zorc approached him, delighted to learn that his little ritual had created such a useful gift for him. Living with spirits for so long had blinded Bakura driving him partly mad. When Zorc approached him and promised him all the power he'd need for revenge if the Millenium Items were returned to Kul Elna and used to let Zorc in Bakura only hesitated for a moment before the urging of the spirits had him accepting regardless of the cost.
It wasn't long after that the pharoah died. Bakura was furious. How could he die before he had his revenge? His plans thrown to the wind Bakura attacked the palace the very day the next pharoah was placed on the throne disrupting the ceremony. Robbing the former pharoah's tomb right in front of him he stole the sarcophagus and dragged his lifelong enemy out completely devastating the body.
It wasn't long after that one of the new pharoah's loyal council members chased Bakura. His plans back on track, if moving a little swifter than expected thanks to his small loss of control, Bakura easily killed the magician and took the Millenium Ring he had worn for his own. With the first part of his deal with Zorc begun the demon acted on his part. Using Bakura's rage and the Millenium Ring's direct connection to the Shadow Realm Zorc sacrificed the Light in Bakura and made him an entity of pure Dark, capable of manipulating the shadows as if he was one of them.
It gave Bakura all the power he would need for what he wished, but a soul cannot be without Light or Dark and be able to survive. The opening left in Bakura with his Light gone allowed Zorc to bind his own soul to Bakura, a little insurance in case anything went wrong.