Priest Seto

Seto' (セト Seto) is a priest who is a cousin of Pharaoh Atem. Seto Kaiba is the reincarnation of Priest Seto.

Back 3000 years ago (5000 in the English anime) Priest Seto and Pharaoh Atem were friends and rivals who helped each other by testing their skills (just like Yugi and Kaiba did); as children their relationship was Atem as a prince and Seto as a priest on training. Bakura, the King of Thieves (Tōzoku Ō in Japanese) showed the royal court his Ka, Diabound's great power before running away. Seto decided that Bakura should be stopped and looked for a Ka that was stronger than Diabound. People could be tortured into revealing their Kas, so he decided to try rounding up and torturing criminals. This plan, he felt, would accomplish two things: finding a Ka that could destroy Diabound and reduce the number of criminals that ravage his pharaoh's kingdom. During his quest to find a Ka greater than Diabound, he found Kisara. Kisara was a foreigner who was being attacked by the people of her village because she was different. Seto rescued her twice (once when they were children from a raiders' camp, and when the townspeople were throwing rocks at her and calling her a demon) and found out that Kisara had the Ka of a White Dragon. Priest Akhenaden, another priest (and Seto's father), wanted to use Kisara's Ka to fight Diabound and put his son on the throne (this occurred after his dark side was brought out by Bakura). Seto disagreed with him, because if a person's Ka was extracted, that person would die. Akhenaden was the brother of Atem's father, Akhenamkhanen, which meant Seto was Atem's cousin. Seto believed his father died in battle so he didn't know Akhenaden was his father. Seto knew that if Atem died, Seto would be Pharaoh. Akhenaden extracted the Blue-Eyes anyway for Priest Seto to use against Atem, resulting in the death of Kisara. Later, Seto became possessed by the corrupted spirit of Akhenaden, whom Seto had stabbed after he killed Kisara, and dueled Atem. He used the White Dragon in this duel. Though he defeated Atem, Kisara freed Seto's mind from Akhenaden's spirit. Seto fought bravely by Atem's side in the battle against Zorc, the Dark One. When Zorc was defeated, Atem said his reign was over, and made Seto the new pharaoh.