diff --git a/crates/ruvector-maxsim/src/score.rs b/crates/ruvector-maxsim/src/score.rs
index 1afbf4c816..7cd3e19554 100644
--- a/crates/ruvector-maxsim/src/score.rs
+++ b/crates/ruvector-maxsim/src/score.rs
@@ -32,16 +32,104 @@ pub fn cosine(a: &[f32], b: &[f32]) -> f32 {
     }
 }
 
+#[cfg(test)]
+thread_local! {
+    /// Test-only seam counting calls to [`norm`], which `maxsim` uses
+    /// exclusively for the hoisted per-query-token norm. Thread-local (not a
+    /// shared atomic) so parallel test threads never pollute each other's
+    /// count; a given test's `maxsim` call runs synchronously on its own
+    /// thread, so this is race-free without any lock.
+    static QUERY_NORM_CALLS: std::cell::Cell<usize> = const { std::cell::Cell::new(0) };
+}
+
+/// L2 norm of a vector.
+#[inline]
+fn norm(v: &[f32]) -> f32 {
+    #[cfg(test)]
+    QUERY_NORM_CALLS.with(|c| c.set(c.get() + 1));
+    let mut acc = 0.0_f32;
+    for &x in v.iter() {
+        acc += x * x;
+    }
+    acc.sqrt()
+}
+
+/// Cosine similarity with the left vector's norm supplied by the caller.
+///
+/// Accumulates in the same order as [`cosine`] and combines the same two
+/// factors into the same denominator, so a caller that passes `norm(a)` gets
+/// bit-identical results to calling [`cosine`] directly — but only when `a`
+/// and `b` have equal length: `norm_a` was computed over the full `a`, so a
+/// truncated zip over `a` and `b` here would combine a full-length norm with
+/// a truncated dot product. Callers with mismatched lengths must use
+/// [`cosine`] (or [`cosine_truncating`]) instead.
+#[inline]
+fn cosine_with_lhs_norm(a: &[f32], b: &[f32], norm_a: f32) -> f32 {
+    debug_assert_eq!(a.len(), b.len(), "dimension mismatch in cosine");
+    let mut dot = 0.0_f32;
+    let mut nb = 0.0_f32;
+    for (&ai, &bi) in a.iter().zip(b.iter()) {
+        dot += ai * bi;
+        nb += bi * bi;
+    }
+    let denom = norm_a * nb.sqrt();
+    if denom < f32::EPSILON {
+        0.0
+    } else {
+        dot / denom
+    }
+}
+
+/// Fused cosine without [`cosine`]'s equal-length precondition: both norms
+/// and the dot product accumulate inside the same `zip`, so mismatched
+/// lengths truncate to the shorter vector rather than panicking in debug
+/// builds. This is [`maxsim`]'s fallback for query/document token pairs of
+/// differing dimension, where the hoisted `norm(q)` (taken over the full
+/// query) would otherwise be combined with a dot product truncated to the
+/// document's length.
+#[inline]
+fn cosine_truncating(a: &[f32], b: &[f32]) -> f32 {
+    let mut dot = 0.0_f32;
+    let mut na = 0.0_f32;
+    let mut nb = 0.0_f32;
+    for (&ai, &bi) in a.iter().zip(b.iter()) {
+        dot += ai * bi;
+        na += ai * ai;
+        nb += bi * bi;
+    }
+    let denom = na.sqrt() * nb.sqrt();
+    if denom < f32::EPSILON {
+        0.0
+    } else {
+        dot / denom
+    }
+}
+
 /// MaxSim score between a multi-vector query and a multi-vector document.
 ///
 /// Time: O(|query_vecs| * |doc_vecs| * D).
+///
+/// Each query token's norm is computed once and reused across every document
+/// token of matching dimension, rather than being recomputed inside each
+/// pairwise cosine. The inner loop therefore does two multiply-adds per
+/// dimension instead of three. Pairs whose query and document tokens have
+/// different lengths fall back to [`cosine_truncating`], since the hoisted
+/// query norm is only bit-identical to per-pair cosine when both operands
+/// are the same length.
 pub fn maxsim(query_vecs: &[Embedding], doc_vecs: &[Embedding]) -> f32 {
     query_vecs
         .iter()
         .map(|q| {
+            let norm_q = norm(q);
             doc_vecs
                 .iter()
-                .map(|d| cosine(q, d))
+                .map(|d| {
+                    if q.len() == d.len() {
+                        cosine_with_lhs_norm(q, d, norm_q)
+                    } else {
+                        cosine_truncating(q, d)
+                    }
+                })
                 .fold(f32::NEG_INFINITY, f32::max)
         })
         .sum()
@@ -109,4 +197,156 @@ mod tests {
         // Each query token matches exactly one doc token → sum = 2.0
         assert!((s - 2.0).abs() < 1e-5, "expected ~2.0, got {s}");
     }
+
+    /// MaxSim recomputed with the naive, un-hoisted formulation: every
+    /// pairwise score goes through the public [`cosine`], recomputing the
+    /// query token's norm on each call instead of once per query token.
+    ///
+    /// This is the property that matters after `cosine` went back to a
+    /// single fused pass: [`maxsim`]'s hoist (`norm(q)` once, then
+    /// [`cosine_with_lhs_norm`] per document token) must still agree with
+    /// calling the real `cosine` per pair. The two sides run genuinely
+    /// different code — one composes `norm` + `cosine_with_lhs_norm`, the
+    /// other calls fused `cosine` — so the comparison still guards a real
+    /// invariant instead of comparing a function with a hand-copy of itself.
+    fn maxsim_recomputing_query_norm(q: &[Embedding], d: &[Embedding]) -> f32 {
+        q.iter()
+            .map(|qv| {
+                d.iter()
+                    .map(|dv| cosine(qv, dv))
+                    .fold(f32::NEG_INFINITY, f32::max)
+            })
+            .sum()
+    }
+
+    fn vecs(count: usize, dim: usize, seed: u32) -> Vec<Embedding> {
+        let mut s = seed.wrapping_mul(2_654_435_761).wrapping_add(1);
+        let mut next = || {
+            s ^= s << 13;
+            s ^= s >> 17;
+            s ^= s << 5;
+            (s as f32 / u32::MAX as f32) * 2.0 - 1.0
+        };
+        (0..count)
+            .map(|_| (0..dim).map(|_| next()).collect())
+            .collect()
+    }
+
+    /// Hoisting the query norm must be exact, not merely close.
+    ///
+    /// The norm is accumulated in the same order and multiplied into the same
+    /// denominator either way, so any difference at all would mean the
+    /// refactor changed the arithmetic. Compared bitwise for that reason.
+    #[test]
+    fn hoisting_query_norm_is_bit_exact() {
+        for dim in [1usize, 3, 8, 16, 33, 128, 384] {
+            for (nq, nd) in [(1usize, 1usize), (1, 7), (5, 1), (4, 9)] {
+                let q = vecs(nq, dim, dim as u32);
+                let d = vecs(nd, dim, dim as u32 + 17);
+                let got = maxsim(&q, &d);
+                let want = maxsim_recomputing_query_norm(&q, &d);
+                assert_eq!(
+                    got.to_bits(),
+                    want.to_bits(),
+                    "dim={dim} nq={nq} nd={nd}: {got} vs {want}"
+                );
+            }
+        }
+    }
+
+    /// A zero-magnitude query token must still take the degenerate branch.
+    #[test]
+    fn zero_query_token_scores_zero() {
+        let q = vec![vec![0.0_f32; 8]];
+        let d = vecs(4, 8, 3);
+        assert_eq!(maxsim(&q, &d), 0.0);
+        assert_eq!(maxsim(&q, &d), maxsim_recomputing_query_norm(&q, &d));
+    }
+
+    /// A zero-magnitude document token must not poison the max.
+    #[test]
+    fn zero_doc_token_does_not_poison_max() {
+        let q = vecs(2, 8, 5);
+        let mut d = vecs(3, 8, 11);
+        d.push(vec![0.0_f32; 8]);
+        assert_eq!(
+            maxsim(&q, &d).to_bits(),
+            maxsim_recomputing_query_norm(&q, &d).to_bits()
+        );
+    }
+
+    /// The hoist must retain its shape, not just its output: `maxsim` must
+    /// compute each query token's norm exactly once, no matter how many
+    /// document tokens it is scored against. More than one document token is
+    /// used deliberately — a formulation that recomputes the query norm once
+    /// per document token would tie with the hoisted one when `nd == 1`.
+    #[test]
+    fn hoist_computes_query_norm_once_per_token_regardless_of_doc_count() {
+        let q = vecs(3, 8, 51);
+        let d = vecs(5, 8, 59);
+        QUERY_NORM_CALLS.with(|c| c.set(0));
+        let _ = maxsim(&q, &d);
+        let calls = QUERY_NORM_CALLS.with(|c| c.get());
+        assert_eq!(
+            calls,
+            q.len(),
+            "expected exactly one query-norm computation per query token \
+             regardless of document count, got {calls} for {} query tokens \
+             against {} document tokens",
+            q.len(),
+            d.len()
+        );
+    }
+
+    /// A document containing ONLY a zero-magnitude token must score 0.0 and
+    /// finite, not NaN silently masked by the max-fold's NaN-ignoring
+    /// semantics.
+    #[test]
+    fn zero_only_document_scores_zero_and_finite() {
+        let q = vecs(2, 8, 41);
+        let d = vec![vec![0.0_f32; 8]];
+        let got = maxsim(&q, &d);
+        assert_eq!(got, 0.0);
+        assert!(got.is_finite());
+        assert_eq!(got, maxsim_recomputing_query_norm(&q, &d));
+    }
+
+    /// Every document token being zero-magnitude (not just one among
+    /// otherwise-normal tokens) must still resolve to 0.0 and finite.
+    #[test]
+    fn all_zero_document_tokens_score_zero_and_finite() {
+        let q = vecs(2, 8, 43);
+        let d = vec![vec![0.0_f32; 8]; 4];
+        let got = maxsim(&q, &d);
+        assert_eq!(got, 0.0);
+        assert!(got.is_finite());
+        assert_eq!(got, maxsim_recomputing_query_norm(&q, &d));
+    }
+
+    /// A query token longer than the document token it is scored against
+    /// must fall back to the pre-hoist, truncating-zip cosine rather than
+    /// combining a norm taken over the full query with a dot product
+    /// truncated to the document's length. q=[3,4,12] vs d=[3,4]: the
+    /// truncating base semantics give dot=25, na=25 (truncated to 2 terms),
+    /// nb=25, so 25/(5*5)=1.0 exactly. The hoisted fast path would instead
+    /// divide by norm(q)=13, giving 25/(13*5)=0.3846....
+    #[test]
+    fn mismatched_query_longer_scores_via_truncating_fallback() {
+        let q = vec![vec![3.0_f32, 4.0, 12.0]];
+        let d = vec![vec![3.0_f32, 4.0]];
+        let got = maxsim(&q, &d);
+        assert_eq!(got, 1.0, "expected exact 1.0, got {got}");
+    }
+
+    /// The opposite mismatch direction — document token longer than the
+    /// query token — must also route through the truncating fallback and
+    /// agree with calling it directly on the same pair.
+    #[test]
+    fn mismatched_document_longer_matches_truncating_cosine() {
+        let q = vec![vec![3.0_f32, 4.0]];
+        let d = vec![vec![3.0_f32, 4.0, 12.0]];
+        let got = maxsim(&q, &d);
+        let want = cosine_truncating(&q[0], &d[0]);
+        assert_eq!(got, want);
+    }
 }