"They are." Zetsu confirmed, readily enough. "Or were. We hadn't spoken with them too long before we arrived here." It made him wonder if any of the others were here.... He would have to put out a search again, and this time include Tobi in it. The supposedly dead members.... he would keep them on, just in case. "Yes on both counts." He regarded Haku and Deidara with a guarded smile, an almost cunning expression, voting to turn the question on its head. "Would either of you?" Two-toned hands laced themselves together on the table.

"It's all contextual, you know. Earth, plants, animals, people.... you trade some amount of life for the equivalent to keep everything in balance, even if it isn't immediately obvious how." Silent amusement glittered in his eyes as he looked at Haku, even as the Grass-nin waxed faintly philosophical. "If we believed in fate, then it would bother us considerably to be sitting with you, Haku-san. As for changing a death.... we like to think of it as changing a life, instead. We've already set up the framework to change two, even if you decide not to say anything."

Indeed, with the information Itachi had now, chances were very good that Sasuke might be able to be spared his trauma. And where would that lead, an altered Team 7? Itachi no longer being hunted, possibly even having his younger brother as a subordinate or fellow member? Orochimaru probably not having a ghost of a chance at obtaining the sharingan? He knew that even someone with vision as powerful as his couldn't pretend to see the future, but what he could guess at, he liked. Why not change things to make them more personally beneficial, when you didn't really care who else it hurt in the process?

For Nature's sake, without Sasuke around, Haku might even have survived that fight. What implications might that have?