Phoenix: Strange Beings

STORY

This is Part 11 of Tezuka Osamu's lifework, "The Phoenix."
The setting is 7th century Japan. Sakon-nosuke, daughter of a brutal lord Iemasa Yagi, has been brought up as a boy.
One stormy night, Sakon-nosuke leaves with his follower Kappei to kill the nun Yaobikuni of the Horai Temple.
He sets out to kill the nun because his father had asked the nun for treatment of his fatal illness, as Yaobikuni is known for her ability to cure any disease.
Sakon-nosuke, who had been forced to live as a man, naturally harbors great hatred for his father, and believes he will never be able to go back to living as a woman unless his father dies. Sakon-nosuke kills Yaobikuni, but on his way back to the castle, a mysterious force sends him back, and he finds himself unable to leave: there seems to be an invisible wall surrounding the compound. Meanwhile, some villagers visit the temple requesting that their diseases be cured. Sakon-nosuke disguises himself as Yaobikuni, and cures the patients using the "glimmering feather," which is the principal image of the temple.
The temple, in fact, is a separate world on a different plane of time, and Yaobikuni was the future incarnation of Sakon-nosuke himself.
Meanwhile, a host of strange creatures wounded in battle appear at the temple for treatment.