Is a karmic debt that needs rebalancing or repayment something owed to the wheel of karma itself, some kind of energetic watchdog, or is it solely the need to heal within ourselves the energy of our consciousness run amok which caused pain to ourselves or someone else?

It is a little bit of both. Both mechanisms and both phenomena are very integral to the overall dynamic of how karma is orchestrated. There are internal problems and there are external problems created by human behavior and interaction with the environment. There are many thoughtless acts which cause great harm but never even register on the perception. This is the carelessness exhibited by the bull in the china shop giving little thought to the fragile nature of things around it. You see this in the environmental damage caused by the human footprint in imposing its civilization on nature and often destroying natural habitats and causing ongoing problems through severe pollution and so on. There are many aspects to this. The karma is a shared phenomenon and a dynamic interaction between yours, mine, and ours, so to speak. Wherever there is pain and suffering there is a karmic energy created. If the pain and suffering is at your hands, then the person who suffers will radiate that energy and it has your name on it, your energetic signature, as the perpetrator. So that beam goes out and will find its way to you. All of your karma is not within your personal akashic record, it is within yours and within many others who you have harmed and who have your energetic signature on file along with their pain and suffering in the times you inflicted harm. So, their karma will seek you like a guided missile and eventually, it will find its target and then come back to you with a repayment, often amplified, of the suffering you caused them, and now must deal with. The akashic records are the personal repository for all things karmic. It is just a question then of whose karma is it and who needs to rebalance it. If it is a self-inflicted wound, then the karma stays close to home, being housed in the personal akashic record, but rearing its ugly head when there is a resonance with current life choices, and then the energy of the past karma comes forward to impinge yet again on the person and they are re-harming themselves because this pattern was created previously through a distortion of thinking and beliefs and this will persist until the ship is righted, so to speak. Meanwhile, much karma will be seeking you from others you have interacted with, and this will come about through the universe bringing you back together, directly or indirectly, in some way to help in the rebalancing. This is all true and an accurate description of how karma is managed. It is within your akashic record and in the akashic records of those you have interacted with and had an influence, both good and bad. The good karma is present as well and will create blessings for the person who you benefited, and then the love given to them will flourish and be amplified, just as negativity causing harm will cause further destruction. And then the positive karma will find its way back to you as well, as it contains your energetic signature. And so, all is on record, the good and the bad, and all will have further consequences as the energies are exchanged back and forth. You will benefit or be harmed by your actions.