| As children, Detroit native Sandra Wu-San and her older sister Carolyn spent virtually every moment of every day practicing the martial arts. Because of the girls' young age, talent, and unique bond as sisters, their practice evolved into a secret, perfected language that only they could share. Sandra loved her sister more than anything, and that love gave her the humility to hold back in her spars with Carolyn. An assassin named David Cain saw this spark in Sandra one day when he visited Detroit to see the amazing young women perform. Believing the spark he saw in Sandra was one he and she both shared, Cain decided to flame it by removing the restraint that held her back. One fateful day, Sandra found the bloody corpse of her sister, murdered in cold blood. |
| Discovering that David Cain had been the one to kill her sister, Sandra Wu-San hunted for the murderer, only to be lured into an ambush by Ra's al Ghul's League of Assassins, of which Cain was a member. Although she lost the battle, in the heat of the moment Sandra realized how much she had held back when fighting Carolyn and got a taste for just what heights she could attain with more experience--her life now had purpose. However, Cain exacted a price for sparing Sandra's life after the battle with the League. In order to be reborn as something new and terrible, Sandra agreed to bear Cain's child and leave that child for him alone to raise. The child, Cassandra Cain, was to be Ra's al Ghul's "One Who Is All," a perfected bodyguard whose only native tongue was an instinct for hand to hand combat and the ability to read people's intentions simply by observing their slightest muscle movements. With Carolyn gone, Cassandra and Sandra were the only two humans known to share this gift. The day of Cassandra's birth, Sandra also set out for her own rebirth, as the Lady Shiva: creator and destroyer. |
