Managing Mankind and Kane (1996–1998)
Eventually Bearer turned heel again by betraying his long-time protege at SummerSlam 1996 to align himself with The Undertaker's arch-enemy, Mankind and Goldust; during this time to form a group called "Forces of Darkness" to include The Executioner & Vader, Justin Bradshaw and The Stalker in order to take out Undertaker. In April 1997 at In Your House 14: Revenge of the 'Taker, The Undertaker set Bearer's face ablaze using a fireball, which was done in retaliation for Bearer having Mankind set a fireball to The Undertaker's face several weeks prior. Resulting from The Undertaker's actions, Bearer suffered (kayfabe) burns to his face and was bandaged for a time. Once healed from the burns, Bearer changed his looks, shedding the makeup of ghostly pallor and jet-black color to his natural strawberry blond hair and less make-up. No longer using his ghostly appearance and mannerisms, he became loudmouthed and shrill. Around mid-1997, Paul Bearer coerced Undertaker (WWF Champion at the time) into being his protégé again with the ultimatum of revealing a deep, dark secret from their past. During this time, Bearer made references to the "fires of hell," likening The Undertaker's dark secret to The Undertaker's act of setting fire to his face. Under duress, The Undertaker accepted after several weeks of resistance. While "managing" Undertaker this time around, Bearer engaged in tyrannical behaviors towards him, harassing him constantly. Eventually, Undertaker lost his patience and refused to allow Bearer to continue being his manager, leading Bearer to reveal the secret.
The dark secret suggested that Bearer had a disturbingly traumatic past with The Undertaker which long preceded Brother Love's joining the two in January 1991. The dark secret dates back to The Undertaker's youth and involves domestic matters: Paul Bearer, while working for The Undertaker's parents as an apprentice mortician in their family funeral home business, witnessed a felony act during The Undertaker's adolescence. Bearer claimed that Undertaker had committed an arson murder, burning down his parents' family funeral home, in the process, killing them. This act also killed The Undertaker's younger "brother"—or so The Undertaker long thought. Bearer, who claimed to be attending a mortuary science college course at the time of the fire, hid Kane in a mental asylum during the rest of Kane's youth into adulthood. At the time throughout mid to late 1997, The Undertaker denied all this, claiming it was his younger brother's fault. Bearer, blaming The Undertaker, accused him of being an "arsonist", "murderer", and "liar." (Connected to these accounts, it was later revealed approximately six months after Kane's WWF debut that he was actually the half-brother of The Undertaker. The Undertaker's mother had an affair with Bearer and, as a result, gave birth to Kane. Bearer unintentionally (kayfabe) revealed to a Raw audience that he was actually Kane's father. This came to light when Bearer informed Jerry Lawler on Monday Night Raw, at a point in which he thought cameras had stopped rolling for a commercial break but were still on. Up until that point, The Undertaker was under the impression that Kane was fully related to him and his family. Presumably, The Undertaker's deceased father lived his entire life under the same impression) Because of the fire, The Undertaker thought Kane had been dead for all those years, claiming he was a "pyromaniac", obsessed with starting fires and, due to the incident, couldn't possibly be alive. However, Bearer introduced the vengeful, fire-personified Kane in October 1997 at Badd Blood: In Your House. In this first appearance for the character, Kane cost The Undertaker a Hell in a Cell match to determine the #1 contendership for the WWF title against Shawn Michaels. This led to a bitter rivalry between The Undertaker and Kane and Bearer. Kane was not revealed as Bearer's son until April 27, 1998, on Monday Night Raw, a day after the first Inferno Match, at Unforgiven, where Kane was set on fire. The Undertaker was shown to have also been unaware of this at that time, and helped to build the feud up further, as Undertaker initially refused to believe the story until an in-story DNA test proved it to be true. The feud lasted into summer of 1998, when Kane seemingly abandoned Bearer to side with The Undertaker, beginning a face turn.
The Ministry of Darkness (1998–1999)-Bearer and The Undertaker became a heel team again toward the end of 1998 when Bearer betrayed his own son, Kane, in favor of managing The Undertaker once again. Once becoming a heel with Bearer, The Undertaker shamelessly admitted to setting the funeral home ablaze for which he had initially claimed was an accident or blamed Kane. Shortly thereafter, Bearer (returning in early 1999 to his signature black hair and mustache, but wearing a buttoned sweater and black overcoat, without the pasty white makeup and speaking in the same voice as his 1997 predecessor) and The Undertaker formed the Ministry of Darkness. Both he and The Undertaker took a hiatus from the WWF unceremoniously in September 1999 as a result of The Undertaker suffering an injury.