-Daya—
In the same way that Korra missed her days of carrying water once she moved onto the physical combat phase of her training, so too did she miss this last phase when she moved on to the spiritual phase.
Korra found ways around all of Zheng's different attacks, and she was able to beat him many times now, both with and without blades. She would not celebrate. She never even smiled after conquering this great feat that had kept her beaten down for so long. Time escaped her grasp, and she just went through her days doing the exercises and finding new ways to beat Zheng.
There came a time when Tomkin declared her spiritual training to start. Korra showed no signs of relief, she was not afraid of Tomkin anymore. She was dealing with something much larger.
Almost like clockwork, Tomkin's introduction of Korra's spiritual training occurred the night after Korra was revisited by the spirits in the night. She woke to find the young, dark-skinned boy by her bed. Beyond the boy was a taller man with white hair. Both had a hood which completely veiled their faces. Korra was able to speak to them.
"Who?"
"We are the spirits of the dead. To ask who we are, you look no further than yourself."
"We serve our great mother, Daya, from the otherworld. She has brought us life. She has guided us."
"Mother wanted what was best for this world. She sought peace with eyes unclouded by hate."
"But now, like this race, she has become filled with it. Filled with agony and pain and hate. She has awoken. She can speak. She can move. She can find you, Oni."
Korra listened as these two spoke to her. Cryptic messages. They called her a name. "What…what did you call me?"
"You are the great creation, Oni, bridge between the worlds. Your form has changed, but your mission has not."
Korra did not understand, but these two boys spoke as if they were in trouble. As if something wrong was happening. Korra could not sense this back in the South Pole, but now she had no doubt that there was danger afoot.
"What is happening? Please, tell me," Korra demanded.
"Mother will find us here. She will find you, Oni. She needs you, just like you need us. Things are not good. Dark times will come to bring necessary change. Change that may finally allow peace. Please, Oni, you must be the bearer of light. Light the new way, and we will finally be able to rest."
Korra had just begun her spiritual training, and so with this new sense of the cosmic energy around her she may have been attracting delusional spirits. Oni…a familiar name. They may have not been mistaken. After all, Korra was the bridge. She was the avatar, but they never said 'avatar'.
While the previous phase of training left Korra physicaly sore, now she was experiencing unbelievable mental stress. The easy part was learning the fighting and what it depended on, now she had to understand it.
Tomkin no longer sparred with her. Rather the spiritual phase involved fewer face-to-face sessions. Korra was told to meditate and feel the cosmic energy swirling around her. The few times they met in person, Tomkin told her very little.
"This part of the training relies on you, Korra. You must understand for yourself what you have learned. You can feel the energy moving around you. There is cosmic energy everywhere, in all things. Bending depends on this cosmic energy to manipulate the elements. But the benders do not use this energy directly."
Tomkin stopped to breathe. "The cosmic energy that flows around us is difficult to understand. Difficult to grasp. It flows to and from this world to the Spirit World. Within this energy are voices, movement, life, spirits, power, and chains that bind all life on the planet as one being. We are all one no matter the nation we hail from. Your training, you have learned to feel this energy. To feel the energy from all living things and from the earth. All things rely on this energy, and being able to interact directly with it is something almost no one knows how to do, but it is more powerful…"
Tomkin bent the water out of his cup and swirled it around in the air
"…than any bending."
Korra could feel the energy being given off from Tomkin. She could feel his every movement, and she found that there were other sources of this energy all around her. It was confusing and difficult to filter, but soon she would learn to control her senses and use this knowledge to her advantage.
The knowledge came with a cost. A more accessible medium between Korra and the Spirit World, much like what Tomkin had to deal with when growing up, Korra assumed.
"It is hard having to deal with this ability. As you can see, it does not change the chi paths within you. You will not be able to bend new elements. That is fixed, I am afraid, and Amon seems to have changed this fixed structure within you. Chi flows within our body a certain way, and sometimes it allows people to interact with elements depending on the pattern it flows. A certain pattern you had which connected you to the elements was somehow returned to the spirit world. But bending is superfluous. Every action causes a reaction within these energy fields that you can feel. Because of this, one can interact with the life that is carried by this cosmic energy."
Korra was visited by another ghost again that night. A familiar one. A tall entity whose face was also veiled by a hood. However, within the darkness glowed a green eye. She told Korra to come with her, and Korra obeyed.
This ghost called herself Daya, and claimed to be Korra's mother. Daya showed Korra many things. Initially, these things were places that Korra had never seen. The first was a forest, and Daya led Korra to the edge of a cliff. On this cliff, Korra overlooked thousands of floating platforms, each with towns and houses on top of them. Below were giant birds with people on their backs, and farther down was a glowing green abyss.
"Is this the spirit world?" Korra asked. Daya shook her head, but pointed down to indicate that the abyss below was indeed the Spirit World. Korra felt she wasn't on earth anymore.
Over the next few nights, Daya took Korra to new places, each beautiful and interesting. Korra was on top of a misty mountain, below her rested a small town. The rocks within the caverns of the mountain stuck out in all directions. The clouds were swirling in a way unlike Korra had witnessed before. Korra stayed close to Daya. She felt comfortable with her. She felt so close to her. Daya would hug Korra at the end of their journey and Korra would find herself in her room again as if no time had passed.
Korra began to develop affection for Daya as the weeks passed and the visitations continued. She felt the motherly vibe, but at the same time there was something off about the spirit. The beautiful scenes she was shown became bland, and Korra just did not understand what it meant. Soon the scenes changed to a town that looked like it belonged to this world.
"Fire Nation", Daya uttered. She had a beautiful woman's voice that made Korra feel safe, but the combination of the words she said and the scene in front of her seemed sinister.
The Fire Nation capitol was in flames. Two people, a man and a woman, seemed to be the only two survivors in the burning city. They were firebending at each other. The gravity of what Korra saw became more apparent. They were trying to kill each other. The firebending was so powerful that any direct hit would have killed one of them. That was their intention. Blue and orange flames shot up to the sky. Soon, the woman yelled and charged up a lightning bolt more powerful than any Korra had seen. At this, Daya led Korra to a new place. The sky was painted orange just the same, and Korra was watching another fight to the death between a young boy and an older man whose firebending was just as powerful as the previous scene.
The boy had an arrow on his head, and Korra recognized him as Aang, the previous Avatar, fighting the Fire Lord Ozai in the Great War. Daya gave a sickening grunt and led Korra away.
Korra was not as eager to see her ghostly Mother over the next few nights. There were no more beautiful and comforting scenes. Death filled the visions. Arrays of bodies resting on spears planted in the ground. Fire, earth, and water emblems on all of them. People burning under the fists of demonic firebenders, and being crushed under earth overlords. People being sacrificed. War-torn cities being demolished. Genocide of the Air nomads.
Korra was sickened. She could not watch. She wanted to be close to Daya, but at the same time it was she that was showing Korra these gruesome scenes. Then Daya spoke.
"Korra, do you see what is in front of you?" she asked.
"It is awful. Why is this happening!?"
"I have asked myself the same question. Why? It is not normal. It is not right. This is not the world we intended to create, my dear, Oni. They lust for power. They tend to violence. They are incurable beings. They have failed."
Daya's voice reminded Korra that they were friends in all this.
"You would not turn on me, Oni, would you?" she asked Korra.
Korra was unsure what this meant, but she wanted to answer Daya. "No, never. I can solve this problem. Whatever needs to be done I will do it to save this planet."
"You must end the human race."
The darkness surrounded the two, and soon a green light nearly blinded Korra. The light shaped itself into a sickle shape surrounded by black. Korra was looking at two bright eyes. The black then morphed to form a body behind the eyes, but the body was of no human form. Some kind of monster rested behind Daya.
"End the human race? But why has it come to that?"
"Oni, you serve as the Avatar. You serve to balance the matters between the physical world and the otherworld. Our world. The world responsible for creating the human race. You were created to bridge the two worlds. To be the spiritual guide to the human race."
Daya put her arms on Korra's shoulders and the green eyes burned into Korra's mind.
"I love you, Oni. Your body has changed over the centuries, but you are still in there. I know it. The Oni who served me. The Oni who lived only to carry out my wishes because I know what is best for this race. I tried to save them. They can only be saved through us. But now, Oni, you rest quietly, trapped, within these bodies that call themselves Avatars. They have failed me. They seek to settle the conflicts of man and man alone. They do not have any care for the spirits. I ask of you, you must give yourself up to me so that I may act through you. So that I may bring the necessary end to this existence. Don't let this new body control you. Allow me to enter into the human world through CHAOS," she gestured toward the monster behind her, "and I will save them from their self-destruction. I will bring us into the new era."
Korra backed away. "But there must be another way. There must be something wrong, I can stop it. Whatever is happening I can make things right again."
"You have already failed, Avatar. Too many times. The Oni I know must be released so that I may bring my retribution. You see, it is not one problem, but rather the wars and violence that this race has brought over the centuries. They show no respect for the spirits responsible for their world and all life. They do not respect anything but their own power, and will do anything to get it. They are a failed race. They must end, and there is no way to right the wrongs that have been done."
"No, you're wrong, Daya. I can make things right. I can turn it around whatever it is. I know something is happening in Republic City, I know it is agitating the spirit world. I can stop it. It doesn't have to come to this. I don't want it to."
Daya looked away. "Oni is gone. I see that you, the one they call Korra, are in control, and there is nothing I can do. But you will see, you will see that this world has left behind respect and kindness, and thrives off of power and hatred and violence. And that is incurable. You will see, and when the time comes, you will believe me. You will give in to me. I will find a way into the physical world, and I will end the entire existence."
Korra panted in her room. She tried to decide if it was real or not. What was this about? Had these spirits mistaken her for someone else? Who was Oni? Did she accidentally tap into some enormous plan that she should not have found? Whatever the case, something big was happening and it was about to come to the physical world. Korra knew something was wrong, but she did not know what. Her best guess was that someone in Republic City would knew, and so she decided to venture there to see what was happening. If she could put an end to whatever was threatening the peace, maybe she could stop it and prevent everything Daya said.