diff --git a/scripts/prune-cache-selftest.sh b/scripts/prune-cache-selftest.sh
index ab0aa17..dc640d0 100755
--- a/scripts/prune-cache-selftest.sh
+++ b/scripts/prune-cache-selftest.sh
@@ -33,7 +33,16 @@
 #      so evicting it frees almost nothing while costing every future PR its
 #      warm start.
 #   8. SELF-CLEAR REPORTS LOUDLY to the job summary, not just a log warning.
-#   9. OWN CACHE NEVER EVICTED by a sibling pass.
+#   9. OWN CACHE NEVER EVICTED by a sibling pass, genuinely under pressure —
+#      against a real, shrinking `df` (gitdan-actions#26): the static
+#      CACHE_DF_OVERRIDE every other scenario uses never reflects an
+#      eviction, so pass 3's self-clear (`rm -rf "$OWN_DIR"; mkdir -p
+#      "$OWN_DIR"`) fires regardless and recreates an empty OWN_DIR whether
+#      pass 2 touched it or not — existence survives either way, which is
+#      why an existence-only assertion here passed even with the pass-2
+#      guard removed. This one checks CONTENTS, and sizes the requirement
+#      so it is satisfiable without self-clear at all: only pass 2's guard
+#      decides the outcome.
 #  10. SCOPED TO THE CACHE ROOT — a decoy outside it (standing in for another
 #      project's volume) is never touched.
 #  11. A LIVE READER MARKER PROTECTS A CACHE the same way a lock file does — a
@@ -174,8 +183,54 @@ fi
 ok "no protected ref's own target dir reaches the merged-branch check"
 
 echo
-echo "=== 9: own cache never evicted by a sibling pass ==="
-assert_kept "$root/target-$OWN" "this run's own cache survives"
+echo "=== 9: own cache survives a sibling pass genuinely under pressure ==="
+# A real, shrinking `df` (the scenario-17 pattern), not CACHE_DF_OVERRIDE:
+# eviction has to actually free space for "pressure eases once enough is
+# freed" to mean anything. MIN_FREE_PCT=0 and a clone-headroom floor (not
+# the percentage floor) drive the requirement, so the requirement is an
+# exact, chosen KB rather than a percentage of a volume size this fixture
+# would otherwise have to reverse-engineer.
+rm -rf "$root"; mkdir -p "$root"
+blob_kb=4096
+mkdir -p "$root/target-$OWN"
+head -c $((blob_kb * 1024)) /dev/zero > "$root/target-$OWN/blob"
+touch -d '2020-01-01' "$root/target-$OWN/.cache-last-used"
+mkdir -p "$root/target-$LIVE"
+head -c $((blob_kb * 1024)) /dev/zero > "$root/target-$LIVE/blob"
+touch -d '2021-01-01' "$root/target-$LIVE/.cache-last-used"
+# The clone-headroom lookup's base-snapshot candidate — never read for its
+# content (CACHE_CLONE_HEADROOM_PERCENT=0 below), only for existing so the
+# floor alone becomes the requirement.
+mkdir -p "$root/snapshot-$DEV"
+
+real_du=$(command -v du)
+used9=$($real_du -sk "$root" | awk '{print $1}')
+cap9=$(( used9 + 2048 ))   # 2 MB to spare: under the requirement, over nothing else
+mkdir -p "$scratch/bin9"
+cat > "$scratch/bin9/df" <<DFEOF
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+used=\$($real_du -sk "$root" | awk '{print \$1}')
+echo "Filesystem 1024-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted-on"
+echo "fake $cap9 \$used \$(( $cap9 - used )) 50% $root"
+DFEOF
+chmod +x "$scratch/bin9/df"
+
+# Floor sits strictly between "0 evicted" (2048 KB free) and "1 evicted"
+# (2048 + blob_kb free) — satisfiable by evicting exactly one candidate.
+PATH="$scratch/bin9:$outer_path" \
+  CACHE_CLONE_HEADROOM_PERCENT=0 CACHE_CLONE_HEADROOM_FLOOR_KB=$(( 2048 + blob_kb / 2 )) \
+  GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY="$scratch/summary" \
+  bash "$prune" "$root" "$root/target-$OWN" "dev main" 0 \
+    "$(cache_key unused-clone-probe)" "$DEV" "" \
+  > "$scratch/log" 2>&1 \
+  || { cat "$scratch/log"; fail "prune-cache.sh exited non-zero"; }
+assert_kept "$root/target-$OWN" "this run's own cache directory survives a genuinely pressured sibling pass"
+assert_kept "$root/target-$OWN/blob" "and its contents survive — not a recreated empty directory"
+assert_gone "$root/target-$LIVE" "the sibling is evicted instead, to make the same room"
+if grep -q 'self-clear' "$scratch/log"; then
+  fail "own cache was cleared by pass 3, not genuinely spared by pass 2 — this scenario proves nothing"
+fi
+ok "the requirement was met by pass 2 alone; pass 3 never ran"
 
 echo
 echo "=== 7: target dirs evicted before snapshots ==="