Republic City, Air Temple Island.

"Try again." Jinora encouraged, with a flick of her wrist, she summoned a strong wind, the gates in the massive maze started spinning, "remember, be the leaf."

Korra took a deep breath, and charged into the maze, flowing with the wind, she thought, as she maneuvered to evade the spinning gates. It was difficult to say the least, to put herself into such mind set. Water, earth and even fire, which is supposed to be the opposite of her native element, all came natural to her, for all of these bending arts involves offence and defence, which means fight over flight.

Even with her father telling her to run before he was murdered by the Red Lotus, she still chose to stand her ground. In fact, this mentality was so instilled into her psyche that it became a second nature for her to always finding a way to defeat her opponents, rather than escaping from them. During every second in the spinning gates, the avatar had to fight the urges to attack. She tried to relate to waterbending, which also relies onto fluid motions. Almost there, thought the avatar, you are doing well. Finally, she reached the exit of the spinning gates.

"You are doing better," said the airbending prodigy, "be more fluid with your motion, try to get through the gates faster."

The avatar put her on house arrest as soon as she agreed to teach, she was restricted to the Air Temple Island, but it was already a huge upgrade considering the fact that she was previously in a prison cell.

"But I still can't bend air." The avatar was not pleased with the progress so far.

"What is the first element you learnt after water?"

"Fire." Korra replied, "I deliberately chose to shuffle it up to avoid the White Lotus's attention," with her identity being disclosed, now it serves no purpose to hide her past; besides, the airbender isn't going anywhere in any time soon, so she could speak with her guard down, "Why ask?"

"Which means the last element you learnt is earth," explained Jinora. She received a nod. "That's definitely not helping, earthbending requires the exact opposing mindset to airbending." She continued, "you know, there is a reason why the avatar must learn the elements in a specific order: to prevent such situations."

"What can I do about it?" The avatar asked, "I need to master airbending fast, I have yet to master the avatar state." And I have a war ahead, she swallowed the last part of her sentence, it wouldn't help her in any way to tell Jinora the war between the United Republics and the Earth Republic, since they don't exactly have a normal teacher-student relationship.

"You have to be patient about it," the airbender spoke, "let it comes to you. Mindset is important in airbending due to its spiritual nature. Have you ever tried meditation?"

"Yes," Korra explained, "I suspect I meditated into the spirit world for once. When I was in the Fire Nation's Royal Academy for my firebending, I studied a lot of materials in their library, they have a decent collection in spirituality and bending."

"That's great," Jinora was surprised, as the avatar hasn't present herself as the most spiritual person, "it's definitely going to help your airbending. I will guide you along the way." Without further due, she sat down into a lotus position.

…

Korra opened her eyes when she no longer felt she was in her body. First, she saw Jinora, or Jinora's spirit to be accurate; then she took a quick check around the environment. She found herself standing in a sea of purple flowers, surrounded by some weirdly shaped, leafless trees, behind them were mountains formed by some sort of crystal. It's the spirit world. Korra was speechless, she was lost in the beauty of the view.

"This is not the same place as where I was at the last time." Korra said, eventually, she managed to get out of her awe, "and I lost my bending after I came here."

"You are now in the form of a spirit," Jinora explained, "bending requires a physical body, so unless you enter the spirit world through the portal located in the Northern and the Southern Water Tribes, you are without your bending." She moved onto another topic, "Where were you last time?"

"I was in front of a huge tree," the avatar said, "inside the tree was a huge spirit, it was dark purple and had patterns across its body," she lifted the corner of her mouth, "it has a very gentle female voice, begging me to free it from its prison. The spirit somehow knew that I was the avatar."

"You were at The Tree of Time," the airbender spoke, "and the spirit talked to you was Vaatu, the spirit of dark and chaos. Legend says the first avatar imprisoned her in Tree of Time ten thousand years ago. I think she summoned you on purpose."

"Sounds too nice to be a spirit of dark and chaos," Korra responded with a laugh, "she definitely looks much nicer than the giant white kite in my body," she was referring to the avatar spirit.

"Things often have different nature from its appearance. But don't worry, the Harmonic Convergence had already passed, it will take another ten thousand year for her next opportunity to get out."

"Jinora, I want to share this with you because I think it has to do with my inability to airbend," Korra finally raised her courage, "the reason why I tried to hide my identity as the avatar, has to do with my promise to avenge my parents. In fact, vengeance has been the source that I derive my powers from, especially in the case of firebending…"

…

Southern Water Tribe.

"Are we going to stay neutral in this matter, sir?" A young woman with a pair of glasses and a serious face was chatting with the CEO of Varrick Global Industry.

"No, Ju Li, of course we're not," Varrick replied to his assistant, "how could I possibly miss a fight?" apparently the Southern Water Tribe native has a much less formal personality, "We've been stuck at home for too long, it's time to make some Earth Republic gold."

(Note: The place in the spirit world Korra went with Jinora was the same place at the Season 4 finale in the original timeline. As i mentioned in Part 1, i switched Raava's and Vaatu's voices and vibes, the spirit of dark and chaos has a gentle voice and a stereotypical "good" appearance.)