Well, had never changed those off the default of 1, so I've done that now. Will check later today if that makes it work for the 3 fights-worth.
But it looks like the issue is that picking the initial choice 1 doesn't force an actual 'end' to combat. It tries to run combat in the underworld. Might there have been an accidental triggering of the two Undying choices as the same thing? In the initial choice, 2 returns to combat. In the return choice, 1 returns to combat. If mafia was confused and thought that 1 returned to combat both times, then we'd experience exactly what we get.