So for the Hashirama cancer and disease headcannon didn't come from a specific fic or anything. For acting like a disease, t's developed from reading multiple fics on what happened to people in the mokuton experiments, like them turning into trees or grotesque plant versions of themselves.
As for Hashirama dying from his own regeneration that often came from people theorizing on how Hashirama died since we don't know his canon death. Some people put it as his regeneration causing cancer, others put it as the mokuton slowing replacing Hashirama's flesh and bones with wood, basically making Hashirama became a tree. With the cancer version, people often make it worse because many fan believe that during Hashirama's time that no one knew that cancer was nonstop replication of cells and so would often write that Hashirama or Tobirama would try using chakra to cure the cancer (heal it like a wound is healed), not knowing that regenerating cells was what caused the cancer in the first place. As a result it only made the cancer more aggresive and worse.
And if Hashirama went through multiple treatments of this then potentially his cells would locked in the process of constantly regenerating to heal a wound that was never there in the first place, eventually leading to his cells becoming a disease as his cells would steal resources from other people's cells to heal that nonexistent wound of a person long dead.
It explains why Hashirama's cells last so long in canon, up to the Boruto era , as DNA very quickly decomposes unless in very specific conditions. Unless his body was immediately shoved into a bog or frozen, there was no way his DNA would survive completely intact unless his own cells were still functioning and preventing that DNA from decomposing.
Hashirama may be dead but his body sure isn't.
That's really interesting!
I like the powers that take, when there is a clear exchange and not only advantages. Hashirama is a very interesting case for that, because even in the realm of canon, his power comes at the cost of perpetuating the cycle of hatred, regardless of Hashirama's unwillingness to do so.
He dies mysteriously, and I truly believe it was just Kishimoto not knowing how to kill off the character he ended up having as strong as Uchiha Madara. But this leaves for speculations and headcanons so I won't complain.
I like to think that Hashirama is a sort of vessel, or a link. To keep the bit of lore abt Kaguya and the Divine Tree, I like to link Hashirama to them rather than Ashura. The Mokuton is a manifestation of that, the power of the divine tree and the rabbit princess, born out of a bamboo stem, and it seeks the sun to survive. When what the Mokuton had deemed its sun died, it turned against Hashirama and started feeding off himself and destroying him from the inside out before claiming his body back when he runs out.
To fulfil the Mokuton's goal, tho, it would sacrifice Madara's self, so even if Hashirama knew what he had to do, he'd lose Madara in the process and it wouldn't be worth it.
That's my headcanon for how the Mokuton killed Hashirama, it's less based in reality as the cancer idea, even if this other headcanon, at least the one you described, is not completely realistic either.
It's not a problem, I enjoy in universe explanations either way, the idea that Hashirama's cells use up resources, energy and antibodies to heal a non existent wound is really interesting, although it's not really how I pictured this hc. It becomes a "cancer" when in another's body, it's a really neat interpretation, I like that.
I think I've seen other way to see this situation following the fact Tsunade, with her intense healing, ages more quickly because of the intense cell reproduction, and that would also mean higher chance of cancer. Because, cancer, ultimately, is a mutation of a cell that reproduces wrong but still reproduces afterwards, developing a body that is now foreign to the rest of our system, and so something that it will do its best to destroy.
So, that's the Hashirama died of cancer theory, I was thinking about originally, but you've offered a new perspective and more angst material... Hashirama's cell acting as poison in other's body... it's really interesting!
(Side note, for the conservation part, I think I interpret it as just being Hashirama being part plant or something, or maybe more like a fungi type thing (so very different lol), but, at least, something not human that can survive longer with less resources and need for low temperature to be preserved (tho I wouldn't adopt the fungi theory because it breaks my connection to the divine tree and the sun, but I still leave the idea there))
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