Mochi saw the sharp claws heading in a direct trajectory toward her chest, emitting a crimson glow. Instinctively, she squeezed her eyes shut, gritted her teeth, and awaited the imminent impact. However, the agonizing wave of pain she expected never arrived; in its place, a sharp, dry metallic crash echoed throughout the basement. She slowly opened her eyes, bewildered, searching for the origin of that flash of sparks.
Instants earlier, Claude was fully convinced that victory was already his. The girl had defended herself stubbornly; in fact, she had endured far more than he ever imagined. Just a few months ago, when he faced her for the first time, the situation had been overwhelmingly different: back then, he was infinitely superior. Now, however, their powers were practically equal. Had he delayed his revenge a bit longer, she would have ended up surpassing him; of that he had no doubt. Fortunately, fate smiled upon him by granting him this long-awaited reunion. He would make her pay dearly for all the humiliation he had suffered, collecting on every day he had spent fantasizing about the torment he would inflict upon her. He longed to savor that intoxicating feeling when his claws pierced her soft flesh...
But that satisfaction never came. Blinded by overconfidence, the clown lost his concentration for a second and made a blunder, truly humiliating for someone of his experience: his claws did not strike the girl's body, but rather a thick steel rebar protruding from the cracked concrete of the wall.
Claude was momentarily dumbfounded by what had just happened, paralyzed by his own carelessness. It was barely a flash of distraction, but Mochi had no intention of wasting the single sliver of opportunity presented to her since the fight began.
The dilemma lay in her precarious position: she was lying on her back on the floor after her heavy fall. If she tried to get up to attack with her fists, the monster would snap out of its stupor long before she could reach it. She had no alternative but to risk testing a blind shot, something she had never attempted in a real fight.
It was a wild idea that had crossed her mind recently, and whose effectiveness she was unaware of. Even so, she channeled all the remaining strength in her arms and back to push off the ground, and propelled both legs forward in a violent double kick.
"Critical Strike!" she shouted with all the strength in her lungs.
To her immense relief, the maneuver worked. She felt the last of her remaining ether reserve drain all at once, activating her weapon's special ability. At the precise instant her boots collided with the anomaly's chest, a detonation of dark mist erupted furiously. The force of the shockwave threw Claude backward with violence, slamming him with a deafening crash against one of the thick concrete pillars, causing the structure to crack deeply upon impact.
Mochi stood up in a hurry, but as she did, a sudden wave of dizziness hit her. For a second, the entire world spun violently around her. Her legs trembled and she staggered uncontrollably, forced to press a trembling hand against the cold wall to keep from collapsing again. Her cat ears drooped, disoriented. It didn't take her long to realize the cause of that sudden weakness: absorbed in the frenzy of the fight, she hadn't noticed that her ether was at critically dangerous levels. That last improvised Critical Strike had finished draining every last drop of her energy.
Mochi let out a long sigh of relief, aware of how dangerously close she had been to suffering a devastating blow. However, a pang of worry suddenly struck her: if her ether reserves were already bordering on the minimum before connecting the attack, it meant that that Critical Strike had not reached anywhere near its maximum power. And, as if to confirm her worst fears, a short distance away, the figure of the anomaly began contorting on the floor to get back up.
Slowly, Claude managed to stand up. A sharp, searing pain ran through every corner of his body; he was fully convinced that the shockwave had fractured several of his ribs and bones.
Mochi didn't overlook the terrible physical state her opponent was in, but she knew she couldn't afford the luxury of getting careless. She herself was not in a much better position: although she suffered no more injuries than a few superficial cuts that stung her skin, she was left completely exhausted and without a single drop of ether to keep fighting.
Making a superhuman effort to ignore the dizziness and fatigue, she raised her fists high once more and took her guard stance. However, to her absolute perplexity, Claude didn't launch an attack. Instead, the anomaly spun on his heels, turned his back on her, and... took off running in a hurry.
"Huh!? Hey, wait! Don't run away, coward!" Mochi shouted, her cat ears perking up at the mixture of audacity and absolute surprise.
She took off running after him driven by pure rage, but her heavy legs didn't allow her to close the distance.
Claude stumbled forward until he reached the basement structure. Just as he arrived, the concrete wall split open in front of him, revealing a dark, sinister passage shrouded in shadows.
"I'll grant you this, kitty... This time victory is yours again, but this doesn't end here," Claude spat, glaring at her sideways with pure venom. "I assure you that next time, I'll be the one who emerges victorious."
After uttering those words, he stepped into the crevice without hesitation. His silhouette vanished into the dense shadow, and a second later, the wall sealed itself shut again hermetically, erasing any crack or trace of the passage as if it had never existed.