"Rest easy." Livebearer knew the power of his voice, crooning and mocking and sinister all at once, especially with the way he was drooling over the thought of what he would soon be enjoying. Saliva dripped steadily onto the table in front of him as he licked his lips, eyeing the men in front of him. The two heavenly kings didn't flinch, but he could see Komatsu shudder, the chef wide eyed and gaping in horror. "Even if your brains are emptied, it's not like you'll die or anything. In fact, just imagining someone like Toriko-chan with an empty head is so cute. Enough for me to want to let him form a combo with me."
Sometimes—most of the time—he left the pathetic creatures who gambled and lost to him with some memories. Maybe just a few, maybe nothing really important, but enough to leave them functioning. With others, he took everything. He smiled, a slow, eager smile, and a memory that had once belonged to someone else appeared in his mind unbidden—the memory of carefully, slowly vivisecting something, flaying back the skin to reveal the thick, yellow layer of fat and then peeling that away as well, exposing slick muscles and the quivering organs of something not-quite-dead.
That's what he did to minds. What he'd do to all three of the men who had challenged him.
"This is bliss," he sighed, leaning forward intently, his voice low and insistent. "Memories are life itself. To have your memories erased…that is equivalent to that person's life being taken. And for me," he continued, savoring the words, still salivating, not bothering to wipe his mouth after he dragged his tongue across his lips. He knew he looked inhuman, beast-like, and he relished the fear this could cause. "…that is the ultimate pleasure."
And it was. It was better than anything he'd ever eaten, better than any narcotic he'd ever consumed. The way his victims screamed as they felt their lives slipping away, their bodies wracked with spasms, burst blood vessels staining the whites of their eyes red; they begged at first, voices soft but rising until they were shrill and piercing. He could track the progress of his machine without ever looking at the screens and readouts; the pleas would grow less and less complex, less intelligible, until the thing in the chair was less than human and the sounds they made were the horrible, animal cries of something that had never known language.
Toriko claimed he didn't care about the past, that his memories didn't matter to him, but Livebearer knew that he would be singing a different tune once he was strapped down in the chair, his screams coming in rapid, guttural bursts of instinctive horror right up until the very last shred of his mind was lovingly stripped away from him. He wondered if Coco would scream too, or if he would be like one of the stranger chefs from his collection of memories; a queer, silent creature that had flung her head back and let her mouth drop open as her entire body went tense and rigid, her hands twisting into claws—but had never made a sound louder than a whimper. Perhaps the poisonous man would be the same, grunting and whimpering and leaking deadly toxins from his body as he struggled, until he finally went limp and slumped in the chair, eyes open and empty.
But more and more, he realized it was Komatsu that he wanted. The boy had such potential, such talent, and he wanted it. He would relish the opportunity to pry open his mind, to burrow through it and pluck out the bright, twisting patterns of thought and memory that made the chef what he was. Komatsu's screams of loss as he realized that he would never amount to anything, would never cook anything ever again, would be intoxicating. He could almost imagine those wide, terrified eyes filling with tears.
He'd save Komatsu for last, he decided, and bring the empty shells of the other two into the room where the boy could see them. He laughed, high-pitched and nearly manic, licking his lips again as he imagined the way the chef would scream his former partner's name over and over in desperation, begging the man to save him—Toriko-san!—and the way those screams would turn to sobs when he realized that all the former bishokuya could do was gurgle and drool and cry like an infant. The last thing the chef would be aware of before his mind was gone completely would be the fact that Toriko had watched him die—and it really was a far more complete form of death than the mere cessation of bodily functions—and never lifted a finger to help.
One of his hands dropped out of sight for a moment under the table, as he rubbed fitfully at himself through the front of his pants. He had never had much interest in sex—too many dangers for too small a reward—but his body still responded in achingly human ways to anticipated pleasure. He was still grinning when Coco spoke a moment later, though the expression curdled like fresh milk left out in the sun as the fortune teller elaborated, insisting that he had planned for everything to happen exactly as it had, that he had somehow known all along how this would play out. It didn't matter, though, not really.
Whatever happened, he'd still have his prize in the end.