Detective Comics #950

LEAGUE OF SHADOWS PROLOGUE - SHADOW OF A TEAR

Cassandra secretly spies out Christine Montclair, first ballerina of Gotham's Metropolitan Ballet, while she trains, trying to emulate her movements, and doing it perfectly. Christina then sees her and she's afraid, but Cass leaves as soon as she realizes it, with the ballerina acting like she has seen a ghost. Cass tries to explain this to Harper, and sees that her friend is trying everything to give her help: Harper's body language speaks of Love. But Cass cannot manage to explain herself, and leaves again. She struggles, remembering what her father tried to mold her into, and then she sees the Bat-Symbol in the sky.  She is witness to an encounter between Batman, Commissioner Gordon and Mayor Hady, who confesses he would like to be remembered as someone better than the man who gave Oswald Cobblepot permission to run a casino. Batman understands she was there, and finds her while she was dismantling a weapon cartel. He tries to understands what troubles her, but Cass cannot tell him, she's not able to: every fight she takes, she sees a hundred ways to kill her opponent, while she just want to stop them. She would like to be like the ballerinas she saw in Prague: elegant and sweet in what she tells with her body. But everything she can produce is violence.  Cass observes Luke and Clayface talk about the new stabilizer that Fox created for Basil, and all the difficulties of keeping Basil stable. She would like to tell him she feels like him, someone who was molded into something they not want to be, and also she sees Lucas struggling to change the world with his genius mind, and Jean-Paul transforming from assassin to hero thanks to his faith. She also sees Batwoman as an inspiration: like her, Kate's body was trained to be a perfect weapon, but to express honor and duty, not murder. In the end, she feels pain, because no one understands her struggles, not even Batman. But without knowing him, someone is observing her, and wants to help her: Cassandra's mother, Lady Shiva.