Would the creator of bitcoin search for: "Byzantine" without using Tor browser and/or VPN?
Probably no. I'd expect him to be extremely cautious with his privacy. Tails didn't exist in 2008, but he must have had different user in his computer for this kind of activity. For example, anything related with the "Satoshi" identity would occur there. Coding, forum posting, emails, domain name registration etc.
None of our business, though.
Debian running as a live CD would be almost as secure though. Sure, it doesn't tunnel everything through Tor (it doesn't even have Tor installed), but it is lean enough that you can configure everything and you can be reasonably sure that there isn't an hidden software that is leaking your information.