Yeah, in Near's last game, there was a psychic network and a bunch of skills related to it; he was really good with it and had strong defenses. It hasn't yet fully hit home to him that those defenses are gone, here. So the mind-reading will put him on edge. Good times.

Hahaha. Fortunately, Near doesn't really care what people think of him as long as they're useful and/or interesting. It's not uncommon for characters to think of him as being super young, though mostly it's been because of his appearance and preference for toys rather than his emotional state. (His emotional state usually causes others to wonder whether he's human. An actual robot in his previous game has privately wondered if he's a fellow robot.)